Occasional Tales

And ended up being a two-wheeled cart. The Greeks built a trireme nicknamed Thunderprow which they thought the gods themselves had blessed so that it couldn't be sunk or fail to sink enemy ships. But eventually after many successful battles, it needed to be repaired with about half of the timbers needing to be replaced. The old timbers were kept as a mark of respect. Another third of the original timbers needed to be replaced, and then the captain had Thunderprow sailed back to port for a general overhaul. While it was out on patrol, the people of the town rebuilt the ship from the old parts as a monument. The current version of Thunderprow was less successful than the original in naval engagements. To Sorites, the captain of the ship, the monument undermines them by making it seem that the ship reconstructed from old parts is Thunderprow. The people thought that the ship was still Thunderprow even after two rounds of repairs in the shipyard. Nonetheless, Sorites made them destroy ...

It’s never going to happen. Today’s problem could be a description of my own classes – slow and lazy. The teacher tells the class that they’re going to have a test, focusing on Aristotle in particular, some time between now and the end of the term. And it’s going to be a surprise. Later Bob and Pat are talking about the announcement. Bob, being a shining example of slowness and laziness, is worried, but Pat’s not so sure that there’s even going to be a test. She reasons that the closer to the end of term it gets, the less of a surprise the test will be. But this chain of logic can be used to work backwards, thus making it seem that there’s never going to be a test at all. About a week later, though, the teacher announces the test much to Bob’s dismay. Was Pat’s reasoning flawed or what? Pat’s reasoning doesn’t seem wrong. The longer the teacher leaves the test, the less surprising it’s going to be. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it was left until the last day of term, and since that date...

When is a thing no longer the thing it was? I can think of two instances of today's problem which I can take from my own life. I once had a bike. One day as I was passing Downing College, something gave way. The frame had sheared through and I had to get a new frame. In fact, I had to get so much of that bike replaced that by the end only peripheral items remained from the original which meant that by and large it really was no longer the bike I'd bought. The same was roughly true of my first PC. Apart from the tower case, the modem, and the sound card, the thing that got stolen by some bastard, son-of-a-bitch removal firm employee was not the machine I'd bought. This is known as the Sorites Problem and, like yesterday, is about gradience (which is a word; I've declared it to be so). It's all about the point at which someone is officially bald, or when you have enough grains for a heap of sand. There are a lot of things about which we have fuzzy notions because they...

Backwards. I recognise this scenario quite well – a class of slow, lazy pupils; threat of a test; sinking realisation that the whole thing will be a farce. (All right, I added the last part.) The teacher tells his class of retards that there's going to be a test some time before the end of term, and it's going to be a surprise. Two of the pupils reason that it can't be on the very last day because then it wouldn't be a surprise. Nor could it be the day before that or before that or before that etc. for the same reason. (I think you get the picture.) Thus our two idiots conclude that the test is never going to happen because, according to their reasoning, it'll never be a surprise. Nonetheless, the teacher does hold the test about a week later much to the dismay of the half-witted pupils who thought they'd realised what the teacher was up to. The question is whether their reasoning is flawed or the teacher is being a hypocrite. This appears to be an instance wher...