Are humans the only species in which individuals lie to themselves?

[Emil]

An example which could be a lie to myself.
When I was young I was very in love with a girl.
All my friends said that I have no chance with that girl.
Somewhere, hidden,I also knew that I have no chance with that girl.
But I preferred to lie to myself and hope.
Of course the result was as they said my friends.
But this is a self-deception and not a lie to myself?

 

[SilentLi89]

Again I ask how would one even go about testing this on animals? You can only know if someone is lying to themselves if you know what they're thinking and since we can't communicate with animals how would we know what they are telling themselves?

 

[historicfuture]

quit acting like you have no brain and need tests to figure out such things.

 

[John99]

They are deceiving themselves into belief.

That isnt lying to yourself. Lets think of an instance where a human lies to themselves because i cannot think of any instances.

 

[Emil]

We should define what we mean by lying.
If we consider the lie is saying something untrue, knowing that it is untrue,
then is technically impossible to lie to yourself.

 

[keith1]

Brood Parasitism is the deceptive practice of some species of birds (Examples: Cuckoos, Cowbirds) to lay eggs in another (sometimes different species) nest. No guilt.

 

[Emil]

Brood Parasitism is the deceptive practice of some species of birds (Examples: Cuckoos, Cowbirds) to lay eggs in another (sometimes different species) nest. No guilt.

Oopsss...You're right.
This means to cheat is not an exclusive product of human consciousness.
It can be instinctual.

 

[nirakar]

My dog, when he is really hungry, will sometimes check his bowl mulitple times even though he already saw only a minute ago that there was nothing in there. .

Good story. I don't know if that is lying to himself or something like obsessive compulsive disorder or an attempt to ask you to please put something in the bowl.

Does the dog do this when he does not think you are paying any attention?

 

[nirakar]

Perhaps they are not all that separated from reward and punishment in people either. We just have more complex notions of what constitutes a reward or a punishment.

True.

Well deception is quite a complex phenomenon, requiring the ability to be able to think ahead quite a bit to determine if it is beneficial or not. Individual self-deception is even more complex I think, although not in the context of group self deception perhaps. It is easy to see how a person may be willing to "deceive" themselves in various ways to be accepted by a group and to gain the benefits associated with being part of that group. Since human groups can be formed for all kinds of crazy reasons it widens the spectrum of components of reality which must be readjusted in the mind of the individual to gain acceptance.

Animals do not form groups based on abstract concepts, so I don't really see that they would ever have to deceive themselves about anything to gain acceptance into a group, they just have to accept a certain amount of submission to the will of the group or leader. What kinds of things do they think about that they could deceive themselves about?

Sometimes when we humans deceive ourselves we seem to be manipulating our reward and punishment software to feel proud or blameless about something that is not true. I don't know why we would do that except that if we deceive ourselves we will have a better delivery for deceiving others into thinking that we are more valuable than we are.

Maybe we tell ourselves lies for the same reasons that we take drugs; to feel better now via a biochemical or psychological loophole in our reward/punishment system. But like taking drugs to feel good now lying to ourselves might make us feel better now even if it will cost us later.

Self confidence raises our status so it might be better for us to be more confident than the evidence if seen objectively would suggest that we should be.

Being unrealistically optimistic might be a survival trait.

Fitting into our culture requires us to share the group delusions. Survival of the fittest would reward belief systems that aid survival and that would not be completely synonymous with truthful belief systems.

Colonists that need to preserve law and order among themselves might benefit from believing some crazy rationalization why it is lawful to steal from the natives. Admitting that they are stealing from the natives would undermine their Darwinistically beneficial internal morality but not stealing from the natives would deprive them of a benefit therefore lying to themselves is the best survival strategy.

I think lions just know to be more aggressive towards lions of other prides and more cooperative towards their own pride. I don't think lions have any use for a delusional belief system. Perhaps some males trying to take over a pride might take their chance at attacking physically superior resident males because you never know maybe those resident males are not as superior as they appear. There might be a benefit for the invading males to temporarily deceive themselves into thinking their chances are better than they are in order to maximize their chances of prevailing. I see no way to test this theory.

I can't imagine anything which doesn't involve some external agent doing the deceiving or causing some kind of psychological harm to cause the animal to have incorrect expectations about future situations. But maybe I'm just not imaginative enough .

Or maybe this isn't that different to people. Is self-deception really totally an internal matter, or is it a result of past external influences which screw up our future perceptions?

As for the husband and wife memory changing example, without being able to communicate with an animal I can't see that you could ever distinguish their acceptance or forgetting of a past event from them actually changing their memory of it.

Perhaps we need to further break down the concept of self-deception into simpler ingredients before we can imagine what kind of analogous behaviour may be present in animals.

We also need to understand the relationship between our internal narrative and our real beliefs and our actions better.

 

[nirakar]

We should define what we mean by lying.
If we consider the lie is saying something untrue, knowing that it is untrue,
then is technically impossible to lie to yourself.

Suppose you have all the evidence that a reasonable person would need to know something is untrue but you believe it anyway even though your capacity for reasoning is generally not defective, then haven't you lied to yourself?

 

[SilentLi89]

Good story. I don't know if that is lying to himself or something like obsessive compulsive disorder or an attempt to ask you to please put something in the bowl.

Does the dog do this when he does not think you are paying any attention?

He only does it when he thinks no one is watching. I could see him through the window. He didn't do it when someone was outside with him. When he believes he rightfully deserves to be fed (like at dinner time) he glares at whoever is in the kitchen, but if he has already eaten dinner he knows he won't get fed again so he checks his empty bowl (maybe for scraps he might have missed? I don't know). Well he used to, now he's old and he doesn't move unless he has to.

 

[John99]

Suppose you have all the evidence that a reasonable person would need to know something is untrue but you believe it anyway even though your capacity for reasoning is generally not defective, then haven't you lied to yourself?

Not really.

 

[Gremmie]

Not really.

What would you call it then John? Self deception?

 

[John99]

Lets have some examples.