The Whole Parkinson's Induced Truth

In Frank Herbert’s Dune science-fiction series, a Truthsayer is a character who could determine if someone was telling the truth. Veiled in mystery, Truthsayers were assigned to each of the great houses and were used to detect political intrigue. Now you would think that a Truthsayer would be someone who spoke the truth rather than someone who detected the truth, but then that’s just Herbert’s imagination. He understood that someone who could detect the truth would always be more interesting than someone who only told the truth, regardless of their misdirected name. He was not alone in portraying Truthsayers or more truthfully, lie detectors in fiction.

J.K. Rowling wrote about a Sensory Sensor in her Harry Potter series that could detect lies or deceit, though it was more akin to a lie detector gadget rather than a person. Old television police procedurals would be mired in doubt without them. Lie detectors were a common trope throughout our collective pop culture until waterboarding became the preferred dramatic method of getting at the truth.

Speaking the truth came up in a recent conversation with my son who is home from college for Christmas break. During a dinner time discussion about his final grades and the meaning of life, he asked me a question straight out of an internet-based ethics argument group. The question is as follows: If you could commit one crime that would guarantee that same particular crime could never be committed again anywhere or anytime going forward, would you commit it and what would it be? Now that’s a more interesting scenario than the typical baby on the railroad track ethical dilemma.

If given that power what crime would I choose? My imagination paused the conversation. Could I do murder thereby erasing Cain’s ancient crime from humanity? Nah, no violent crimes for me though like Cain, I can think of a cousin or two that might make me change my mind. Larceny? Again, no, though I do despise thieves especially those who defraud old people. Note that the initial question does not differentiate between Bernie Madoff stealing the retirement funds of thousands and a person who steals to feed his family. Are tweaking of the parameters not allowed? What about crimes of omission?

What about the difference between crime and sin? By taking upon this crime, am I a modern-day sin eater or messiah wannabe? Has not Jesus Christ offered up his body up as a living sacrifice to remove all crime from this world if only everyone would accept him? Such is the way my brain works, but then I calmed down and remembered that it was an ethics question asking me to be sacrifice a small bit of my morality to eliminate one crime.

I must have waited too long thinking about it because my son blurted out his answer. He would commit the crime of perjury - a non-violent crime that also comes in at number nine on The Almighty’s Thou Shalt Not list.

Brilliant I thought, he will end up bringing down entire governments. Just imagine what would the world be like if our leaders could not lie to us, even if only limited by taking an oath. I am not saying that the world would be a better place but it would be different and hard to achieve. Many people love the lies told to them by politicians.

If we want truth in government but have no college boys to perjure themselves or Truthsayers to detect lies then maybe we should elect more people with Parkinson’s to office, especially those who are diagnosed at a young age. I said maybe because some studies have shown that Parkinson’s patients have difficulty with lying to others and other studies have not.

From a 2009 published study on the neurobiological basis of deceptive behavior:

Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disorder with both motor symptoms and cognitive deficits such as executive dysfunction. Over the past 100 years, a growing body of literature has suggested that patients with Parkinson's disease have characteristic personality traits such as industriousness, seriousness and inflexibility. They have also been described as ‘honest’, indicating that they have a tendency not to deceive others. However, these personality traits may actually be associated with dysfunction of specific brain regions affected by the disease.

I received my Parkinson’s diagnosis three years before I ran for a seat in the South Carolina House. I was 42 when I received word that my House representative was not running for office again. The Parkinson’s had not progressed as quickly as I had expected and I felt like I needed to seize the day. A few friends and I cobbled together a campaign, ran hard, and won the seat. That’s what “industriousness, seriousness and inflexibility” will get you. Be careful what you work for because you might actually get it, Parkinson’s or not

I tried to build a reputation of honesty and common sense. I figured that I would last eight years based on my Parkinson’s progress. As eight turned into 14 years and the disease advanced, I noticed a decreased ability to express myself in more nuanced tones of speech. Then I ceased to be subtle. Which is a problem in politics.

Now before you start putting Parkinson’s patients up for election to get a more honest government, you should understand that what dopamine gives, it can take away. A more recent 2021 study further explores how the allocation of dopamine across the brain affects the honesty of Parkinson’s patients:

The analysis of the scientific literature revealed the presence of two different behavioural tendencies: hyper-honesty, i.e. a lower propensity to lie compared to the control groups, even when the lie involved an economic gain, and hypo-honesty, i.e. a higher propensity to lie compared to the control groups. In particular, the tendency to lie was often associated with the additional diagnoses of impulse control disorder and dopamine dysregulation syndrome.

After reading these two reports you might conclude that it is a toss-up of what kind of Parkinson’s politician that you might elect - someone who is extremely honest or one who merely appears to be extremely honest.

The studies do not address if a Parkinson’s patient can be both - hyper-honest vs. hypo-honest - at different parts of the day when their dopamine levels are not allocated correctly. Maybe all politicians suffer from dopamine dysregulation syndrome.

As far as the original question goes, I am still stuck on the difference between crime and sin.