Archive for March 26, 2014
Insanity, the Logic of a Mind Overtasked
I asked my friend what he knew.
I don’t know anything.
Who are you, the Barber of Seville? You know at least one thing, namely that you don’t know anything. A contradiction!
So he corrected himself.
I don’t know nothing.
Ha! If you don’t (-) know nothing (-), then you must know something (+). A double negative.
It was at that point that my friend stopped being my friend.
This is what logic will do to your social life.
Logic: a systematic method for getting the wrong conclusion, with confidence.
But it can also be useful for solving problems.
John had 50 candy bars, and he ate 45 of them. Now what does he have?
Diabetes!
And we end this silliness with three pieces of advice from the king of bad logic, Yogi Berra.
- Never answer an anonymous letter.
- Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
- You better cut the pizza in four pieces. I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
Hope you enjoyed or did not enjoy this post (but not both).