Jim Mason
1 min readFeb 8, 2022

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Robert, I think you are using the words "predication" and "lying" differently from the way most other people do, Here's Wikipedia on "predication":

predication (countable and uncountable, plural predications)

A proclamation, announcement or preaching.

An assertion or affirmation.

[Example:]

1965 June 4, Shigeyuki Kuroda, “Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language”, in DSpace@MIT‎[1], retrieved 2014-02-24:

It can be immediately observed from these sentences that the English subject of a predication is translated in Japanese with a wa-phrase, while the subject of a nonpredicational description appears as a ga-phrase.

(logic) The act of making something the subject or predicate of a proposition.

(computing) The parallel execution of all possible outcomes of a branch instruction, all except one of which are discarded after the branch condition has been evaluated.

A non-predicative description such as "an old man" is neither true nor a lie. Even to make it the subject of a proposition, for example in a fictional story -- "An old man was walking down a street." -- isn't lying, at least the way most people use that word.

That's why I have trouble understanding the ideas you are trying to convey. To me, and I think to most people, "lie" has a connotation of untruthfulness with intention to deceive. I think it's misleading and extreme to say that creators of fictional characters are liars.

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Jim Mason
Jim Mason

Written by Jim Mason

I study language, cognition, and humans as social animals. You can support me by joining Medium at https://jmason37-80878.medium.com/membership

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