Occasional Tales

Is he bald? Well, let’s see. In one version of Uncle Angel’s historical novel, Brush with a Comb, (which is set in the future) we read Louis XXVI was so hirsute that people said his head had been mugged by a shrub. But in a later draft we read “Look out!” muttered one of the guards through the side of his mouth. “Here comes King Chrome Dome.” Of course, the reviewers noted that Louis XXVI seemed to be both bald and not bald, the novel being somewhat inconsistent on this point. I think the question is pointless. If the King of France doesn’t currently exist, then it’s not currently possible to answer the question. Is snow white? Yes. I assume that because the basic building block of snow is ice, which is clear, that there’s some physical property which makes snow appear white once crystals form flakes. It’s probably like clear plastic which, once you’ve folded it a few times, becomes silvery and translucent. Are all bachelors unmarried men? Only if we’re using the word to mean “man who ...

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 ...