Occasional Tales

But does that abrogate free will? John Locke suddenly wakes up at 4am one morning with a brilliant idea. He’d like to get up and go to his study, but he knows that his landlady (who is probably inclined to application rather than theory) is a light sleeper and always complaining about his nocturnal activities. But he realises that in order to mollify his landlady, he can deal with it in the morning and being, in fact, rather comfortable, he goes back to sleep. By the next morning, though, he’s forgotten what his idea was and is rather annoyed. But he did choose to go back to sleep and simply has to accept the outcome of his decision. But here’s the twist. His landlady actually locked the door to prevent him from roaming around at night so that even if he had got up, he couldn’t have reached the study. Locke thinks he made a free decision, but did he? Whether Locke knew the door was locked or not, I’d say that he did make a free decision because he could’ve chosen to get out of bed and

“I’m not myself today.” It seems that the florist shares the same opinion about Steve as me, that he’s still the same old Steve underlyingly. But Martin disagrees with him because Steve has chosen to be unfriendly. Martin then learns that Steve has been taking some hormones which make him more aggressively. This news makes Martin think that Steve probably is the same person as before, but he’s been chemically altered.[ 1 ] Martin goes back to Steve to try and remonstrate and gets a basket of rotten fruit tipped over him, making a mess of his suit. Steve apologises and says that because of the pressures of business, he just hasn’t been himself. Should Martin forgive him or is this now a matter for the police? §1. It is not Steve who should be on trial today, men of Athens, but those who were the cause of the change to his personality. Nonetheless, it was Steve who tipped a basket of rotten fruit over me, which resulted in a £25 dry cleaning bill. §2. Formerly, Steve was noted for the am

New ones may be harder to eliminate. Martin goes in search of his old friend Steve, but is shocked to find that he’s not only a greengrocer, but he’s become a rude bastard as well. Martin asks the neighbouring shopkeepers about Steve who’s known to be bad-tempered. Steve wonders whether any of his more amiable disposition survives, but no one seems to think so. Martin learns from the florist that Steve took an assertiveness training course to help him deal with difficult customers So does Steve have a friendly disposition or not? I don’t doubt that he does, but he doesn’t appear to know when to code switch. (I’m sure there’s probably some term for behavioural switches according to the social situation. I just don’t know what it is.) Also, if Steve’s got used to being a bastard, he may find it hard to break the habit. It doesn’t mean that Steve really is a different person, but his work persona doesn’t appear to stay at work. Tomorrow, Martin remains sceptical and Steve’s been taking as

Or is it all a dream? Being a busy boy, Norman has to sleep while he’s doing other things such as commuting or sitting in front of the TV. The problem is that people insist on bothering him while he’s trying to slumber. He has now trained himself to say, “I’m asleep” whenever anyone asks him a question when he is sleeping. But is he really asleep? I don’t know. I’m not aware of people being able to answer questions while they’re asleep, but it may be possible. If that’s Norman’s only answer, then it might be regarded as being little more than a Pavlovian response to an utterance. The book doesn’t say whether he only says, “I’m asleep” when asked a question or whether any old statement will elicit such an answer. I might be able to play something which had a similar sort of pitch and rhythm to speech and find that Norman was equally happy to answer that. But if someone told me that they were asleep, I’d assume that they were awake, but trying to get to sleep and implying that they don’t

It’s all just mutton on the table. Emerald Z. Gibb writes a children's story story about a sheep called Robert who, finding himself ostracised by the other sheep because he has black wool, goes in search of others like him. And having found them, he lives happily ever after. But the book founders on the rock of literary reviews which accuse the author of racism. The book is banned from schools and public libraries. Is the book ‘racist’? It depends on the agenda of the reviewers and how they interpret it. It’s really just a version of the ugly duckling story, although Robert’s still a sheep at the end of the tale. It could also mean that we will eventually find our niche in life and people with whom we share things in common. Birds of a feather. Would the real Emerald Z. Gibb please step forward. And when she does, not only is she black, but she’s most indignant about the equation the reviewers have been making, black sheep = black person. But the damage has been done. The book disa

Just look at the morons I have to teach. Apparently today we’re transplanting Derek Parfit’s brain to someone or something else’s body. It seems fair enough to say that it’d still be him. He might have some problems controlling the body of a quadruped using a human brain, and he wouldn’t be able to speak, but he could scratch words into the earth such as, “Help! I’m being eaten by lions!” But Derek (who’s an Oxford man I see from a little online research) has so many brains (as they all do at Oxford) that he’s suggested that if half of his brain is all that’s necessary, then each half could be transplanted into a different body and we’d have two of him. Assuming that both halves of the human brain have the same functions (which I believe they don’t) and store identical information about the original person, then there really would be two of him. After all, the same piece of software can be installed on computers made by different manufacturers. My copy of Quake or Heretic II or PSP 7.0

As you were then? tempus fugauit , and a good thing too because we’re now in the world of the self. The question is whether the person you were last summer is the same person you are now. Physically, no. I’m sure a whole bunch of me has been replaced by newer bunches of me, and some of me has gone, never to return again. There might also be some editions as the effects of being in my forties take their toll. Mentally, I have many new memories, and have forgotten or filed away all manner of other things. I’ve no doubt recalled memories from the archives. But unlike my physical being, my mind changes less rapidly, I think, because I still remain the same person I have been since whenever: a cynical, sarcastic old bastard. That’s not to say that I can’t change mentally in a fairly short space of time to become and remain a person that I was not originally, but it would probably take some catastrophic event for that to happen. On the other hand, I expect that changes in my mood may be rapi

Mr Megasoft gets ticked off. Mr Megasoft buys a pair of atomic watches, one for himself and the other for his girlfriend, Charlene. They’re meant to be synchronised to the nearest nanosecond. Every day, when Mr Megasoft arrives home, he’s gratified to see that the two watches remain in harmony. But after a long trip, Mr Megasoft arrives home to find that the watches are no longer in sync. He takes them back to the shop, but after the shop tests them, they find nothing wrong and refuse him a refund. Mr Megasoft then goes on another business trip and when he returns home, the discrepancy between the two watches is even more pronounced. Mr Megasoft isn’t pleased, but is he entitled to a refund? As far as I’m aware, no. Experiments with atomic clocks have shown that this is exactly what happens when you fly one of these things around, although according to the book, the effect is from gravity rather than the motion of the plane. Anyway, that's enough about time. I’m officially calling

Does Who know Wenn? Now the daft Dr Wenn thinks he’s seen time go backwards. He has some water. It freezes. Then it thaws. And later, it freezes again. Time must be going backwards. So is my patience with Dr Wenn; and Lucy’s. She notes that there’s more to this than the reversing of physical effects. True. If Dr Wenn were to scratch his name in the ice, it’d disappear when the ice melted and wouldn’t return when the ice froze. But perhaps if it was possible to reverse time, things wouldn’t necessarily happen in precisely the same way they originally did. If time has no aetiology, then forwards or backwards there should, perhaps, be no guarantee that what’d been done the first time should necessarily be undone because of quantum level uncertainty. Yes, I know I have no idea what I’m talking about, but surely time isn’t like some sort of recorder remembering where everything once was. For example, would time reverse the effects of gravity? If something has crumbled off a building when ti

Why use a machine when boredom and anxiety will do the job nearly as well? Dr Wenn now unveils a machine which can stop time and does (through the agency of the mischievous Lucy) for a thousand years. Of course, nothing has changed and Lucy is, again, unimpressed. Dr Wenn says that the time machine can be used in conjunction with the time stopper. Lucy asks about travelling backwards in time, but Dr Wenn says that it’s not possible because the past doesn’t exist. Lucy disagrees. Dr Wenn explains that the past is a memory of present moments, and the present is infinitely small. He thinks that the only thing which is real is the future, which ceases to exist the moment you arrive. Lucy continues to play the sceptic. The present exists and even although it’s infinitely small, it adds up to something, which is the past. No one would get very far trying to deny past indiscretions. Who’s right? I was thinking that we travel through time all the time. I don’t mean with regard to two or three

Or was it? Dr Wenn tries to get his assistant, Lucy, to hang around in a box for a week on a brief one-way trip through time, although she can’t come back. Ever. Lucy isn’t too impressed. (“Worst mad scientist ever,” said Lucy.) Well, we’re all time travellers so long as we’re going forwards, but by the time the future arrives, it’s already the past because we’re too slow to perceive the now. Or perhaps you could say that we always perceive the past, never what is now, and can only know that we’re entering the future. Dr Wenn wants to stop time tomorrow. I have a theory – superboredom. But I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow.

For what it’s worth. As I explained yesterday, Frederick explains to Sandra that the price of the stamps is all to do with rarity value. But she’s not impressed by the logic of a market place in which people pay a price based on what they might accept as a reasonable offer. Thus, she prefers sets of stamps, but isn’t paying for them what she thinks their value is. Nor is she paying the value other people place on them. This would seem to make the value of the stamp different from what people think it’s worth. Frederick sees her point and wonders whether the worth of something is based on what we think others think it’s worth. Sandra thinks that this potentially makes the price of things random so that people could charge just about anything they like such as potatoes for £5 a kilo instead of 50p a kilo. Frederick agrees that it might work if all the potatoes sellers agreed. Could he be right? I don’t think he is right. After all, if all the potato sellers start charging £5 a kilo, peop

And the art of making money. Sandra doesn’t think much of her friend Frederick’s hobby of collecting stamps. He’s putting some in his album right now. They have a blue giraffe eating red leaves. About a year later, Frederick’s looking through a stamp catalogue only to find that those stamps are now worth £100 each because of a printing error, and he has twenty of them. But where has the extra money come from? I assume that this is a supply and demand thing. If the supply is low and the item is desirable (at least among one group of people), you can charge a higher price for it. I suppose the buyer then hopes that the value will appreciate. It was stamps today and it’s going to be potatoes tomorrow. Time to post a potato.

I thought of it first. At the school of Greytowers, Dobbin ran a lunchtime club called Curious Questions from which he noted down various strange facts about the world, and he had the idea of putting them into a list also called Curious Questions . They were popular with the club, but although the editor of the school magazine, Flash Bagman, thought they were a bit dull, a teacher put up a copy of them on the notice board. But one day, Dobbin’s mum read out a story from the news paper about how a certain Flash Bagman had won a prize for Curious Questions , much to Dobbin’s great vexation. Flash had also set up a club called The Curious Questions Club , which, when Dobbin said he’d take the matter to the teachers, he changed to The Curious Questions’ Club (the apostrophe making all the difference). The material which Flash had used was, by and large, similar to Dobbin’s, barring a little rewording, but when Dobbin challenged his rival, accusing him of intellectual theft, he was dismis

And more to the point, what’s it worth? Lord Snotty has bought a Van Dryver, or so he thinks until art historian, Maurice Dance, comes calling and reveals that it’s actually a Van Rouge, who used to copy Van Dryver’s pictures as practice. Lord Snotty is mortified and the picture is hidden away in the attic. But a few years later in the Telegraph , Lord Snotty reads that Van Dryver’s greatest works were actually by Van Rouge who should now be recognised as an artistic genius. Lord Snotty doesn’t know what to think or do. He wonders whether he should put the picture on display again or whether it’s been a masterpiece all along. An artist needs two things, talent and critics: talent so that we can see they’re not just any idiot waving a brush or wielding a hammer and chisel; and critics, incomprehensible and unchallenged, to waffle about the artist’s oeuvres . But it’s through the latter that we know the art is great because most of us aren’t art historians. We’re not equipped to judge su

And jump and turn and twirl and kick. Another of Zeno’s paradoxes today. I have no idea what the paradox is, but the book has pictures. The top line of dancers moves to its left. The middle line of dancers stays where it is. The bottom line of dancers moves to its right. They all end up aligned with each other. It might be some sort of paradox about relative motion or something to do with Zeno’s paradox about space and continuous vs. discrete space. According to the book, the top line will’ve passed twice as many members of the bottom line (and vice versa , I assume) as it will’ve passed of the inert middle line of dancers. I think I can see what Zeno’s getting at. It seems to be like a question I’ve had about spinning disks. The further from the centre a point on a disk is, the faster it goes to complete a circuit. But that means that at the very centre of the disk, there’s no movement at all. But in that case, the points on the edge of the disk are the same distance from the point of

And then think even bigger than that. When I was young, I remember we used to play a word game of a sort asking where something was and having to give its location inside the next largest unit above it until we’d hit the universe and be stuck at that point. And that’s today’s question: what’s the universe in? I have no idea. I suspect that if I could go fast enough to reach the edge of the known universe and pass it, I'd find absolutely nothing. Possibly the laws of physics would no longer apply and I’d cease to exist the moment I left the universe. (Seems a little unlikely, though, because there couldn’t be a universe if the laws of physics, though not immediately present in the void, were not viable once they arrived.) Another possibility is that I’d get lost because unless I stopped and waited for the universe to expand to my position. I’d be unable to see it until light, at least, caught up with me. I might also run into a universe coming from the other direction. Another probl

Is that Calculus I see peeking through the curtain? Today we look at one of Zeno’s Paradoxes. This is the one about Achilles and the tortoise, and why the former, πόδας ὠκύς though he was, could never catch the tortoise. Of course, the problem is idealised, but I like it to my record of games of Freecell. At the moment, I win about 75% of them, but, of course, even if I never lose another game of Freecell in my life, the number will only approach 100%, but never actually reach it. In other words, the goal of 100% always remains in front of me just as the tortoise, at least as a mathematical construct, remains ahead of Achilles. Zeno, according to the book, considered the problem of continuity vs. discretion in matters of time and space. If time is continuous, there can be no present; if it’s a series of infinitely small, discrete moments, then it can only ever be present and unchanging. Space could be similarly described. At least with regard to time, I’ve long wondered whether we exp

The roomiverse is infinite. The policy of the hotel at the end of the universe (owned by the Zake Busybod Foundation) is to build two new rooms for every one that people come to fill. Zake’s business partner, Harry, decides to go into business for himself and builds another infinite hotel, but even bigger than the original. Nonetheless, he wonders how it might be done. His manager suggests that they should divide the rooms in half each time. Harry then advertises that his infinite hotel has twice as many rooms as Zake’s infinite hotel. Zake isn’t pleased and decides to take the matter up with the Advertising Standards Council. The questions are who is right and what should the ASC rule? I assume that this is all about divergent vs. convergent series. Zake’s approach is divergent, while Harry’s is convergent. The problem for Harry is that his rooms will rapidly become too small to accommodate guests. Either way, there’s still infinity to be had. The discussion in the book mentions Georg

Which is why there must be giraffes on the planets orbiting Alpha Centauri. At a seminar with his colleagues, Hugo Wellie claims that there are breeds of dog on one of the planets orbiting Sirius. Naturally, one of his colleagues asks how that can be and he counters with the question whether there’s life on Mars or the moons of Jupiter. It seems probable that there is, but as Hugo notes, if there is life, it’s probably just bacteria. The discovery of more complex creatures is highly unlikely. But our man thinks that if the chance of finding complex lifeforms in the solar system is highly unlikely, then it’s highly likely that they will be found on one of the planets orbiting Sirius. OK, Hugo, dazzle me with your genius. The Principle of Insufficient Reason. If we have no information about something, there’s a 50-50 chance that it is or is not. (It’s like yesterday’s problem, it would seem – heads vs. tails; true vs. false; yes vs. no; black vs. white; day vs. … [ I think we’ve got the

Tossers. Two idiots, Matt and Louie, like gambling, but decide that if they bet against each other, they can’t lose. They toss a coin, the winner getting a pound. Louie keeps calling tails and Matt keeps getting heads. He switches to heads and Matt then gets tails. Louie thinks that the odds of such a thing happening must be slight, but Matt thinks they’re 50-50 every time. Who’s right? Matt. There are only two possible outcomes. I don’t know whether it’s possible to calculate the odds of a coin landing heads up n times in a row, but that’s a different thing. Also, the more frequently it lands with one side up has no effect on the event on the next occasion. It wouldn’t matter whether it’d been tails for the past hundred tosses, the odds of a head remain the same. Tomorrow, there must be dogs on a planet orbiting Sirius. It stands to reason.

And now you want to have your cake and eat it. We’re back in Diktatia today, which has recently become a democracy. The current concern is the overconsumption of sugary treats which is going to affect about 20% of the population. The cabinet agree with Madame Dampsponge that something ought to be done, namely a public campaign against the evils of sugary snacks; information for schools; and the heavy taxation of the profits of the food industry. But the Minister for Minorities disgreed, believing that there was no absolute connection between sweets and health, and also wondering whether it should be left to individuals to decide. Which parts of the plan should ministers back? All of them. The Minister for Minorities probably wasn’t listening. The Health Minister wants to educate the public in general; children (brainwash them while they’re young); and tax sweets and chocolates. And it’s all being done for the benefit of the nation. [ Yeah, I think we understood all this this first time

Makes me more susceptible to secondary infections. The Marjon Community Council adopts a system of majority voting and everything settles down after that. But then Marjonians start dropping dead from some terrible disease which is a consequence of the irrigation canals. They are a breeding ground for pesky-flies and if something isn’t done, about two-thirds of the population will die. Fortunately, according to the government druid, if they chew the leaves of the tabako plant, they’ll be immunised against the disease. The proposal for compulsory mass immunisation is put to the Community Council and is about to be passed unanimously when someone raises the question of people reacting badly to the effects of tabako. The druid admits that about a twentieth of the population will die because of an adverse reaction to the leaves, but once the disease strikes, the leaves are ineffective. How should the Council vote? For or against? If they were to be utilitarians about it, they ought to vote

Trouble in Paradise. The climate takes a turn for the worse and the fertility of much of the land declines. A lucky ten percent have natural springs on their land and are able to produce an abundance of fruit. They get other Marjonians working for them for extra breadfruit and when the Marxist proposals, which were originally rejected, come up at the next Council meeting, there’s a bit more debate this time. Some families have lost children through malnutrition, but those who have access to springs like having the control they offer them. And even if the breadfruit was distributed evenly, there probably wouldn’t be enough. As before, there doesn’t seem much point if people are toiling to produce breadfruit without any benefit to them. The Community Council fail to reach a consensus, but the Chair of the Council thinks hardship for some is better than people being forced to do something against their will. Is the Community Council still right? That would depend on who you asked. The Ass

The Lost Pyramid of Marjon. (All right, so the title doesn’t have much relevance to the story apart from the name of the fictional place. No, there’s no pyramid. There could be a pyramid, but it ended up on the cutting room floor.) Marjon is a fecund tropical paradise. The Marjonians all have their own plots of land from which they harvest food. The Community Council meets once a month to make decisions and all decisions must be unanimous. But the Marxists had been in town and had suggested that all the produce should be collectively owned and distributed according to need. (They left out the bits about concomitant totalitarian dictatorship.) One of the Elders wondered what the point would be. If everyone could help themselves, why would anyone bother growing breadfruit? If anyone wants extra, he suggested, they just have to grow it. Is the Elder right? I don’t know. The assumption seems to be that under this system, people would simply altruistically hand over their breadfruit recogni

The animal-loving professor. Professor Purple is so engrossed in writing a paper for the Philosophical Society that he forgets he has an ethics class to teach. But as he hurries to the lecture theatre, he sees that a dog has fallen into the lake and is unable to get out. Professor Purple wades in and rescues the dog, but by the time he gets to the class, he’s rather late and the students aren’t pleased. Professor Purple explains what happened and sets the event as an ethics problem. The students think that he did the right thing by saving the dog. But the next week, the same thing happens. This time about half of the students think that he should’ve left the stupid creature to its own devices. The week after, and the dog’s back in the lake and Professor Purple refers the matter to one of the university porters. When he gets to class, he tells his students his new policy. Rescuing the dog every week is outweighed by the professor’s need to get to class on time. As he explains, this is u

“Well, just eat the chips.” Professor Quesay, who has been studying the Alloi tribe, is invited to Grandpa Alloi’s seventieth birthday dinner. During the course of the meal, he wonders where the old man is, and then sees his glasses in the tureen. Professor Quesay, who’s obviously rather absent-minded, only then remembers that in Alloi society, it’s the duty of the children to kill their parents when they reach the age of 70 and eat the body. The professor turns rather green now that he realises what, well, who he’s been eating. Of course, it’s a great insult to turn down the fare on offer. There’s nothing Professor Quesay can do; and why shouldn’t he continue to enjoy the meal as he did initially? When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Custom is king. The professor may not like it, but he can only lump it. The Alloi would probably wonder what sort of weird society interred or cremated their dead. Anyway, dog rescue tomorrow. A heart-warming story from the Trevor MacDonald And Finally… se

Or something like that. After a bomb attack in People’s Republic Diktatia, the government has the usual suspects rounded up. Basically, they should name the bombers or they’ll all be shot. Problem is, they have no idea who the bombers are. It’s suggested that two of them should admit to being the bombers so that the others can go free. Yeah, free to be rounded up the next time someone slaughters a bunch of innocent people strikes a blow for freedom. [ Revised by the Freedom Fighters’ Association of Diktatia . –ed.] There’s no solution as far as I can see. So long as the government of Diktatia acts in such an arbitrary fashion it won’t really matter whether two of those rounded up sacrifice themselves or not. There’s nothing to stop the survivors being rounded up a second time or a third or etc. It probably wouldn’t even matter whether a bomb went off while they were all banged up. The government of Diktatia is probably so paranoid that the lives of the hostages would be no more secure