Lying and truth

I've blogged about this before but the mailing list I'm on was criticizing and analyzing a poster and I wanted to refine my original definition (it started as a reply but I decided to just post as a blog):

Anything that is not 100% contiguous set of facts is a lie. Even if you remove 1% (e.g., "forget" that one "minor" part of the story) of the set of facts or add 1% of "embellishment" to the set or change a word or two that will make it more ambiguous.

With this definition it is possible for a person to lie without meaning to since his memory may not be good enough to recall the full 100% (with removal, addition and/or substitution taking place during the process of either memorizing or "while in storage" or recalling).

The ethics or how to deal with lying is all together different topic which I've already gone in depth: Truth, lie and sin.