Fake Truth/Real Lie

It's either true or it's false. This is what we've been taught since forever. "Are you lying? No? Oh, OK then you're telling the truth." And what about all those tests where the instructions go something like "For each question circle T for True or F for False. If False, explain why." These never add anything like "No question can be both true and false." Why? Because we believe it's implicit: Nothing can be true and false. But no! Things can be real and fake. And this is what creates the paradox of reality.

"This sentences is a lie," says Shields. (398) Well if it is a lie, as the sentence reads, then it is telling the truth. But if it is telling the truth, then it isn't a lie, so the sentence is a lie. So it is telling the truth then... and the paradox goes on and on. Is it true or a lie? It is neither and both at the same time: The combination of a truth and a lie (Luth? Trie?) and simultaneously neither something real nor something fake.

To further prove his point, Shields says "Why bother conducting an experiment at all if you know what results it will yield?" He actually believes the experiment is worth it, but with this antithesis he is able to have his audience's opinion sway with his own. In the end the audience knows that it is worth it. Why? Because we don't know anything for sure, we actually don't know what the experiment will yield.

What puzzled me the most was this short but effective quote: "How can I tell what I think until I think what I say?" (426) It's easier to understand what can't be understood by breaking this sentence in two. The first fragment points out that he must first think and then tell, but the second one implies that he must speak and then think. Then he makes it even more complicated and says that the only way to accomplish the former is by doing the latter. Get it? Yeah, neither do I. It's impossible, a lie! But is it really? Or are our minds so mixed up that this could actually make sense in an odd and intangible way?