Monday, April 23, 2007

Unreasonably illogical. Guilty as charged...or am I?

Aargh...If you want your brain handed to you, scooped out of your head with a red hot metal hook,look no further...all of this past week 'He' has been bombarding me with useless rhetoric,
boggling logic and maddening wit. 'His' latest question goes this way...

Say you gave your final exams yesterday.
The results come out tomorrow.
And you have the opportunity to win a free trip to Switzerland/Goa/whatever tickles your feathers.
The offer expires today.
But you do not know whether you will pass or fail in the finals.
Would you take the opportunity, and go get that free trip anyway?

Then, without waiting for me to answer, he stubs his cigarette out, (I see a maddening lecture
on logical reasoning coming here, but am helpless to escape it...) . He assures me that I will
not accept the free trip. That I, being the conscientious individual that I am, will be
unwilling to commit a hundred percent to that vacation, without being sure of the outcome of
those final exams. And he says, while wagging his bony finger at me,
that I am being unreasonably illogical here.
(Stay with me..this head spin wont last more than a couple of minutes...).

Now, he changes the question. He asks me what if I was sure of the result.
I am sure that I have either passed, or failed.
Now will I take the free trip?
Again before I can mumble, he cuts in and stoically states..Yes you will.
If you have passed, you will party in Goa, and if you didn't, well, you'd be inclined
to go there anyway as there is nothing to be gained from not going.

While I scratch my earlobes, he offers to explain where I was being unreasonably illogical.

In case:1, he says, you did not take the trip, simply because you could not separate the
consequence of one event(exams) from the decision necessary for another(trip).

Now, in case:2, it is clear, that had you either passed, or failed...the only two alternatives,
he assures me, you still chose to go on that trip. Hence, your initial decision was
completely void of logic. You did not have the reasoning ability to visualize that the
consequences of the first event, would have absolutely no impact on the decision necessary
for the second.

Also, he tells me, that such obstinacy on my part, saddens him, and he wishes I'd get my act together.

As I trudged back inside, something nagged me like a vulture gnawing away at a carcass...
why didn't I answer the first question correctly?
Grrr... I didn't answer at all did I...
He tricked me again didn't he! Hand me that hammer now will ya...I'll return it to you, a little bloody but otherwise undamaged.

2 comments:

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