201470107
Chaeeun Kim
The acts of lying are very common in our society. Even kids are lying to their parents, teachers and friends. While the common lies usually have negative purposes, there are also lies that have positive purposes called white lies. Likewise, lying has become a habitual thing in our daily conversations. Because of this prevailing acts of lying, there is a controversy over whether it is possible to fool oneself, or lie to oneself, or not.
When someone is lying, there is no one who does not know he or she is lying. Lying is not unconscious. Whoever speaks is the same with whoever listens. People start to lie with certain purposes, meaning it is a voluntary act. Thus, it is hard to make your brain believe what you have lied about. You know the truth and, or course, you cannot deny that truth.
Though there are possibilities that there will be some errors when discovering ourselves and if this leads us to fool ourselves, we can overcome the error someday. Since we are able to think and have reasons, compared to the animals, we can discover our true selves upon reflection.
For example, imagine that a young girl lied to her friend that her father is the president. If the young girl acts as if she were a real president's daughter and other friends around her start to treat her likewise, she may sometimes feel she is the real president's daughter. This may seem that the young girl's act of lying succeeded in deceiving herself. However, if she gets out of the group where she had lied, the people outside the group will not think of her as the president's daughter and, of course, will not treat her like a royal person anymore. Then, the young girl will soon realize that she is not the president's daughter and starts to find the reality - in case that she is a normal person.
As seen above, humans have no ability to control their entity, or cannot lie to themselves since they have reasons and conscience.