Questions That Make Your Head Hurt
Questions That Make Your Head Hurt
Pooh sat down and began to think.
Pooh has been sitting down thinking since February. Isn't it time he actually did something?
He is a BearOfVeryLittleBrain?.
Pooh woke up. He had forgotten why he was sitting. "It couldn't have been that important," he said and went off in search of honey.
Then Pooh remembered what he was thinking about ... honey. hmmm honey very important indeed!
I tried to think of a way to make this a Question. But couldn't, anyway:
Actually FuzzyLogic addresses the above quite well. Each of the above statements has a truth level of .5 -- WayneMack
Is the answer to this question "no"?
Isn't it MuAnswer? Mu is the third value in ThreeValuedLogic. Indeterminate.
Yes, "mu" would be a correct answer, but "mu" doesn't really map well to "indeterminate". A good example is to contrast SchroedingersCat with Aesop's sparrow. In the Schroedinger's Cat context, the cat is either alive or dead; the possibilities are both existent until you look, at which point the observation collapses them into one state or another. That's indeterminate. In the Aesop's sparrow case, I conceal a live sparrow in my hand, and ask you whether it's alive or dead. If you answer "dead", I show you the sparrow; if you answer "alive", I crush the sparrow and show it to you dead (those vicious Greeks...). It's not indeterminate, it's "mu", because the question itself is misformulated. A more contemporary (but equally distasteful) example is the infamous "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"
[This axiomatic system has no model. What's the point?]
All wiki authors are liars. -- A wiki author
From this we may conclude that some wiki authors are liars. It's not a paradox.
We could also conclude that there exists a wiki author that lies some of the time. Being a liar doesn't mean that one has to lie continuously.
Yes, but it is a paradox, since the sentence above is not confirmed and still allows conclusions.
"I'm not a Wiki author" is not a paradox; it's just a lie.
It is better on the top than by feet. I mean, of the mountain of course. -- AnonymousCoward
All fine and dandy, but what about Pooh?
I guess he doesn't care coz he is busy with honey making machines. -- JackPot?
Here's my "monkeys banging on typewriters" for the new millennium, and proof that I never took a philosophy course in college:
Take a bit-mapped screen. Treating its memory as a very long (but still finite) integer, start to iterate this integer over its full range. My screen is 1152x864, 16-bits deep, so that means I get to iterate from zero to 2^(1152*864*16).
Now sit and stare. What you are going to see is a picture of everything, from all possible angles and distances. You'll see all the text that was written or will be written, in all languages, both past, present, future, and never (and in every font!) You'll see pictures of every being in the universe and all possible beings in it. Some will be having sex. Some will be having sex with you. You can store these in your porno collection for later enjoyment.
You will also see false images, false text, false histories, false lies, fabrications, and distortions. And of course, most of the images won't be pictures of anything useful. You should ignore these.
Oh-- to tie this in to software development, you'll also see a picture of the current bug (actually all bugs) in your source code that you're trying to fix with big arrows next to them. Not only will this save you time, but it suggests a far better methodology than ExtremeProgramming. No more testing needed! Think of all the contracts you'll win!
And you'll do all this by simply iterating an integer through its full dynamic range. Certainly you are going to be limited by the resolution of your display, and you'll probably be limited by your own finite existence. But even that won't be a problem, because one or more of the values of this large integer will tell you how to overcome your mortality and how to skip over the values of the integer that aren't useful. Simply start with those values early on and you'll save yourself time. Or drop the resolution of your display to get through it faster (but with less detail).
Actually, the display isn't a limitation. Lots of the screens you see that look like garbage are actually compressed images that give you more detail. Oh, and some of the other garbage you'll see is the program you need to use to decompress it - in all possible instruction sets for all possible operating systems.
Amazing. I had the very same idea three years ago (now being 2001). Now I'm convinced I'll never invent anything. I actually thought about writing a program for doing this on a 8x8 bitmap,in black and white. That's only 2^64, and you get all the black and white small icons that can be. -- CristiOpris
and it would only take you 584,000,000,000 years to look at them all (1 per second)
I thought about watching the picture as it changes at the maximum speed, and when something interesting appears, stop and rewind a little. I wonder how long would that take.(I'm too lazy to do the math, I think I'll visit the page later for the answer :)
So what's the point of all this? I'm not sure. One thing I think it means is that although you can change the resolution of the display, you aren't changing what is seen - just the precision. So in essence a big-ass display is equivalent to a display with just a single bit - you're seeing the same information, just at a deeper resolution.
So evidently the universe is just one big black and white dot. That certainly simplifies things.
No wait - that's silly. Maybe this is all an argument for the lack of free will, since given the bitmapped display I'm talking about, everyone's fate is clearly displayed. Or maybe this is all a definition of god - a being sitting watching a bitmapped display with really good resolution.
Or maybe it's all about Pooh and his damn honey.
Response: If you examined one screen per second, it would take about 10^24 seconds to see them all. The known universe is about 8 to 12 billion years old (see http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/age.html). 12 billion years is a little over 10^10 seconds. So, you'd have to examine about 10^12 screens per second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire life of the known universe up 'til now just to see all of them. And you'd better get cracking, because the last issue of Time Magazine (6/22/2001) described recent discoveries that the universe will expand forever, and that planets and galaxies as we know them are doomed to fall apart into atomic particles. If you want to find the latest bug in your software, I suggest you use a conventional debugging tool instead. ;->
Response to the Response: 1152*864*16 = 15925248. A decent rule of thumb is 2^10 is about 10^3. So, 2^15925248 is about (but more than) 10^5308416 images. Luckily for you, the universe is expanding forever... We can compromise by reducing the resolution. A 100x100 window, at 8-bit resolution, is only 2^80000 images, or about (but more than) 10^24000. Still too big. Let's go black-and-white. We can do a 10x10 window, in black and white, in only 2^200 images (or about 10^60... hmm, I think I'll stick to getting my porn the old-fashioned way.
Response to the first response: 12,000,000,000 years is closer to 3.8*10^17 seconds, not 10^10. Up the number of screens you'll need to examine per second by a factor of ten million. And bring some eye drops.
John, when I expand my browser to full screen size, scroll down so that what you wrote fills the page, tilt my head 30 degrees and squint, I can see all the current bugs in my software having sex with each other. I don't want to interrupt them, but thank you for showing me this! -- WaldenMathews
Walden, I just fell off my chair laughing. Not good, at work.
John, someone once told me "It's not what song a monkey plays on a piano that is interesting, but the fact that he is playing at all.". ;)
I'm not sure if I buy your philosophical fragment, but the mere notion of us all being able to comtemplate what you wrote, along with everything else here - that raises QuestionsThatMakeYourHeadHurt! Especially that we're all separated by space and time and everything all together except for these silly screens and wires!
-- DaveSheremata?
I've got a question that's making my head hurt. It's the SkeletalMorphogenesisHorizonProblem -- for lack of a better name...
See also TheLibraryOfBabel by JorgeLuisBorges, which explores the same idea. Borges wrote BooksThatMakeYourHeadHurt?.
Here's one for theologians: Can god create an object heavier than he/she/it can carry? -- DanielKirwilliam?
It can't be no, because god is all-powerful and can do all things. It can't be yes either, for the same reason. This must mean that there can't be somebody that can do 'all' things.
God isn't the sort of being that can carry things at all, so the question seems to rely on a category mistake. Replace "carry" with "cause to move" or something, and the answer is no, because the weight of an object has nothing whatever to do with God's ability to make it move. (Perhaps the lower-case "g" indicates that you mean "a god", without all the extra assumptions that come with the capital G, in which case the answer is "Please say more about what god you have in mind".) -- GarethMcCaughan
It's a feeble god that can't give itself the ability to carry things . . . but doing the impossible? No problem! In essence, we define a god by its ability to do the impossible.
The answer is yes. The largest item in the universe cannot be carried. There is no base to stand on.
That assumes that God needs to stand to carry or lift something. I suppose the entire universe hanging around in nothingness isn't proof of God's strength in lifting/carrying.
Note the definitions of lift or carry. These actions are in relation to a fixed item. You can only lift item A from item B, or carry item A across item B. The definitions also require that item A be less massive than item B (you cannot lift the Earth off of a grain of sand, only vice-versa). The impossibility comes from the definition of the terms, not the ability of the one performing the action.
Don't get hung up on the semantics. The question really is, Can God set himself a task which is impossible for him to do? The point of the question is to lay a logical trap, so that either way we answer, we admit that something is impossible for God, thus proving that he is not omnipotent, and thus undermining the major monotheistic religions. But I for one have no problem with allowing that some things are impossible for God, despite his omnipotence, due mainly to the fact that God is perfect. God cannot, for example, lie. (But I hope not to start a [ReligiousWar]. :-) -- JohnDouglasPorter
Exactly. For further clarity though, the question really reduces to "Can God be not-God?" Even Plato knew the answer to that one.
Can God create a program so complex that even He cannot figure out how to add a new feature to it?
Yes - that's why He created UseNet. -- anon
I thought that was the other guy. -- GarethMcCaughan
Um, the actual answer is, "God cannot contradict Himself." You can figure it out from there. [Amazing! What supreme entity imposes this prohibition on God?]
Yes, God can create such an object, but it must be a jelly donut. And thus can still be eaten by God, eventually. -- HomerSimpson
Other questions that can make your head hurt:
Generally speaking, what does anything have to do with anything else? What if it's all a coincidence?
Yes, you figured it out! I am the 1,000,000,000th monkey and have no clue what I am typing. [Nohow]
Contrariwise, I am the 1,000,000,000th universe and I have no clue what you all are monkeying.
I am the 1,000,000,001st monkey, and I've read Hamlet. I refuse to type it again.
From Family Guy (from memory, sorry if this isn't an exact transcription):
Brian (the dog) is riding in the back of a truck with Mexican immigrants
Brian: Uh, hi, me llamo es "Brian". Mexican: That's pretty good, except you don't have to say "es", just say "Me llamo Brian". Brian: (happy) Oh, you speak English. Mexican: No, I just memorized two phrases phonetically, including this one. Brain: You're kidding! Mexican: ?Que?
If DesignPatterns are something to copy into code, doesn't such copying violate OnceAndOnlyOnce? Shouldn't one just be able to reference the pattern by name and only supply what is different for each one?
Two axioms:
(So: light --> Man --> Coffee Cup --> Wall)
Now, what object is casting the shadow on the wall corresponding to the shape of the coffee cup?
It can't be the coffee cup, because of axiom 1. It can't be the man, because of axiom 2. The axioms are somehow in error, but where? They seem to be incontrovertible.
[Why should this make your head hurt? Clearly, if the body of the man is blocking the light from the coffee cup, then it's the body of the man which is casting the shadow that is where the coffee cup should be. There is only a shadow in the shape of a man. This isn't even counter-intuitive. The only thing making my head hurt is trying to figure out what situation you could be envisioning that is making *your* head hurt.]
These axioms are obviously wrong, and they can be made consistent by dropping either one. I vote for "objects in the shadow still cast their own shadow volume, shadow volumes add as in constructive solid geometry." Problem solved, didn't hurt at all.
If your head hurts, you're thinking too hard!
If your head doesn't hurt, you aren't thinking hard enough.
A master posed a question that did not hurt. I answered it correctly and received a ZenSlap. Now my head hurts.
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