> How about "behaving in a way that increases the probability of your particular adversaries making incorrect inferences about your situation"?

I'd call that lying with extra steps.

(Which to be clear, im fine with in the context of a game (and in certain contexts even in real life). Plenty of sports can be traced back to ritualized ways of practising to murder people. Take all the field sports of track and field)

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wrs 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that to "lie" means to present information as truth when it is in fact false, and you know it's false. By this definition, you can't "lie" with behavior, only with speech.

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Talanes 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your definition seems like it would include the entire field of cryptography as lies, would it not?

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bawolff 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't think cryptography usually results in an increased probability of your adversary making incorrect inferences relative to the base case of the adversary having no information. So no, i wouldn't say so.

Maybe you can argue steganography is lying.

Regardless, i also find the idea that lying is morally wrong reductive. Morality depends on context. There are plenty of cases where being misleading is morally ok in my opinion.

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Talanes 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why would the base state be "No cryptography, no communication, no information" and not "No cryptography, communication, information?"

If we assume a default state of avoiding engagement, the average poker player is giving away more information that could lead to correct inferences by playing than bad information by bluffing. Exactly at which point does the lie happen?

	▲	bawolff 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Why would the base state be "No cryptography, no communication, no information" and not "No cryptography, communication, information?" Because you treated cryptography as a field in its entirety. I think in practise that is how cryptography as a field works normally. Most secret messages communicated with crypto simply wouldn't be communicated (or just communicated in person) without the availibility of cryptography. Even if the alternative is communicating in a way open to evesdropping i think there is still an intent requirement. > Exactly at which point does the lie happen? When there is intentionality to mislead (including by omission). If you want to be really nitpicky, the definition i would give would be: Taking (or failing to take) some action for the purpose of causing an adversary to have incorrect or incomplete beliefs that benefit you.