Tuesday

2/1/24

I spent most of the day doing clinical work. During breaks, I picked up different things I'm going to need for the trip and packed.

Top of mind:

I've been thinking a lot about the Lacanian concept of the lying truth. This started a few weeks back when I was talking with someone about the different roles/status of (1) truth, (2) knowledge, and (3) logic in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Today, I've been considering how I might explain my thoughts on the lying truth to someone who is not well-steeped in Lacanian theory. Here is what I've come up with.

1.1 — Truth relates to the Real (Drive, Jouissance).

1.2 — However, truth, like the subject ($), is always split.

1.3 — There is the "lying truth," which is the incomplete part of the truth that can be represented through the symbolic and imaginary or via the signifier and the chain of significations.

1.3.1 — symbolic+imaginary=semblance of truth

1.3.2 – This is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and others. Or the models we build up of ourselves and others in our minds.

1.3.3 – To some degree, these stories are true/accurate, but they are not 100% true/accurate because no one has enough self-knowledge or knowledge of others to construct a narrative of themselves or others that is 100% true/accurate 100% of the time. To some degree, these modules/stories lie. Sometimes, this is a lie of omission. Other times, it is a person describing more of an ideal version of themselves or others, the version they would like to be true.

1.3.4—Despite the lack of truth or accuracy in these lying truths (i.e., models, stories), we need to make them, and provided they are true enough, we can get by with them.

1.4 — Then, on the other side of truth is the real truth, which can't be represented directly via the signifier, the chain of signification, the combination of symbolic and imaginary elements that produce a semblance of the truth. This is the Real truth.

1.4.1 – This real truth is tied to the idea of the real unconscious, but I'm not going to get into that right now...

1.5 — I'm going to try to represent this in a sort of mini-matheme (t/T)
1.5.1 — The little t (t) = the lying truth
1.5.2 — The capital T (T) = the real truth
1.5.3 — The bar (/) shows how the Real truth (T) underpins and is perhaps retroactively revealed via the expression of the lying truth (t).
1.5.4 — One more way to get at this would be…

(t, t, t, t,)
—————
(T)

1.7 — This is where things get difficult for me to explain… Let me try to express it differently.

(t+t+t+t)/T
————————
K(nowledge in the Real)

1.7.1 — (t+t+t+t) = The lying truth represented via a chain of signification.
1.7.2 — (/T) = The underpinning Real truth, which can be spoken, but in a way, is "revealed" by the lie in (t+t+t+t).
1.7.3 — We have the dividing line ——
1.7.4 — Underneath this line, we have the truth effect of produced knowledge as a capital (K). This is "knowledge in the real" or what Bion called "K in O."1.7.5 — What I struggle to represent here is the way that (K) is also a semblant but a useful semblant. It is a form of knowledge that is not 100% true but helps reorient the subject ($) to the real in a less defensive way.

Listening:

In the car this morning, I listened to The Ezra Klein Show titled How Should I Be Using A.I. Right Now? (Apple Podcasts, NYTimes).