Buridan's ass Puns

A hungry donkey is placed equidistant from two identical bails of hay. The donkey always chooses the bail that is closest to him. Since they are the same distance away, one to the left and one to the right, does the donkey starve?

(It's Thursday in Kiribati, I checked.)

illuminem.com - US Climate Policy Caught Between Two Worlds: Are We Smarter Than Buridan’s Ass?! Another thought-provoking editorial from the famous prof of Columbia University!

I just finished binging all 3 seasons over the course of about 2 weeks and I absolutely fucking adore each and every single one of them, other than having some problems with the seasons 2 and 3 finales. Thus, I apologize if this is a common observation or theory or whatever you want to call it, but I felt proud of myself for figuring this out on my own and I felt like sharing it. This is NOT a theory on the entirety of season 3! There is so much more to unpack in this season beyond this (Ray Wise's role, the concept of "winning", etc.), most of which I couldn't begin to comprehend on my own. This is just a small part of it all.

The obvious theme of season 3, the one that's practically screamed at the viewer multiple times throughout its 10 episodes, is that there is a natural distinction between fact and reality. 'If you don't know that you're lying, then are you?' The opening scene in the premiere episode, The Law of Vacant Places exemplifies this: the innocent man's reality is that he lives happily in an apartment building with his wife. However, the facts and evidence contradict that reality: Yuri Gurka supposedly lives in that apartment, and he strangled his girlfriend the night before. While, no, this innocent man is not Yuri Gurka, nor did he kill his girlfriend/wife, but the facts presented dictate a reality separate from his. This leads to an interesting point, and something I've been thinking about for long before I watched Fargo: if you truly know, with all your heart, that what you know and think and experience is 100% true, but it is NOT 100% true for someone else, does that actually diminish in any way the validity of YOUR reality?

Now, to take a quick detour for a second, I'd like to discuss a paradox I only recently discovered (thanks to its name being the title of Fargo's season 1 episode 6): Buridan's ass. For those unaware, Buridan's ass goes generally as follows: a donkey is stranded in the wild, and it is equally starving, and quenched. Logic dictates that this donkey will first go to whichever resource is closer, food or water. However, if this donkey is an equal distance apart from both the food and the water, where does it go? Now granted, this paradox requires some willful suspension of disbelief, because at least I believe that the donkey would prioritize water over food, but ignoring this and instead taking this paradox simply for how it's presented, we can use Buridan's ass as a stand-in for the personification of rea

"Ass" as in donkey, mind you.

As per Wikipedia: >Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it dies of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision between the hay and water. A common variant of the paradox substitutes two identical piles of hay for the hay and water; the ass, unable to choose between the two, dies of hunger.

For me, making decisions often turns into something like a Buridan's ass scenario where I spend an inordinate amount of time in a dilemma that feels unsolvable and ultimately end up wasting so much time to my detriment. That said, I also have OCD so at times I'm not sure if it's the Aspergers, the OCD or some combination of both.

Does this ever happen to you?

Season 1 Episode 6: Buridan's Ass

Episode Summary: Malvo executes his master plan, while Lester attempts to craft one of his own. Gus and Molly team up in Duluth.

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Note: Here is the reference for the episode's title.

So I'm in the minority as someone who believes in libertarian free will, but in light of the recent thread on Buridan's Ass, I am now wondering how to conceive of it. Generally, we would think of free will as a decision-making process. You are presented with a choice: left or right. Which do you choose?

What I ran into was a reductio ad absurdum. What are the criteria for making my decision? Why those criteria? What are the criteria for deciding on my criteria, and why those? Ad infinitum. Ultimately, I arrived at a purely arbitrary decision. We would have a Buridan's Ass sort of situation. Such a decision might as well be a coin toss under this model, and "free will," as it were, would be totally meaningless. Any random number generator would have the capacity for free will.

But recently I have been trying to conceive of ethics in terms of types or ways of being, and I wonder if something of this sort might be viable for free will. There is no doubt that our brains and the data stored within do a lot of the processing of values and so forth, but free will could be related to the will to be. Whereas with a decision-making sort of free will, you may end up in a Buridan's Ass paradox, the will to be is a linear sort of exertion. He/she who strives to be will influence the character of his/her decisions over time, but the decision-making process is still up to the brain.

I have no idea how I would support this more fully or whether anything of the sort would be falsifiable at all, but it does seem to be a much more coherent conception of libertarian free will. What do you guys think? Can we conceive of free will as a will to be or something of that nature?

Episode Summary: Malvo executes his master plan, while Lester attempts to craft one of his own. Gus and Molly team up in Duluth.

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Sorry for no discussion threads for past 2 episodes; been busy with exams!

I read this article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/buridans-ass-why-doctors-make-mistakes-anurag-mundhada?trk=pulse_spock-articles

However I am confused - can someone shed light on this principle?

In the end, how did Lester sneak back into the hospital as "Mr Creech"? Wouldn't the nurse realize there are two people with gauze on their face? Creech and Lester were in the same room... She'd have to be blind not to realize something was up. And didn't someone notice Lester was gone all day?

"Buridan's Ass" was the title of Season 1 Episode 6 (the duct tape episode)

Emmit replaces the stamp with a picture of a donkey. Considering that Hawley does nothing by accident, could it be a callback? The Wikipedia article is quite interesting and ties in quite well with the scene itself, with both Ray and Emmit in a dilemma between settling their feud or continuing it. While both are technically 'free', their decisions tend to be made by someone else.

It also relates loosely to the electronic/technology theme this season.

Wikipedia:

Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass (a donkey) that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it will die of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other.

A version of this situation appears as metastability in digital electronics, when a circuit must decide between two states when there is an input that is changing value. In digital electronics a small amount of randomness acts as a tie-breaker, and the circuits settle into one state or the other after a usually very small, but unbounded period of time.

Anyone know the name of the chilling song during the part of 'Buridan's Ass' where the SWAT team shoot the house where the tied up man is? It's such an awesome scene by the way

and it was endless pasta night too, dinner is ruined.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

My Ex (18F) broke up with 3 months ago and it's been harder to move on compared to others, so one night with the friend talking about how life shit I let it slip that I'm still in love with her so he pushes me to call her and confess that I still love her (btw there was no alcohol involved) so after lots of persuasion I cede and I call her, putting my heart in a gold plate and dropping the L boom, expecting I like you but we can't be together again but I was totally blind side by the fact she said I love you too so we are planning to meet up but I live in Cuba (I'm Spanish citizen since I was born there plus my mom is Spanish so I have a Spanish passport) and I've been waiting to leave for sometime COVID, price spike , plus no way I'm Gona live off my parents made it harder so I just placed it on the back burner and one day my uncle calls me asking if I'm interested in a job in the states and I said yeah and asked if December 21 I could be there I just said let me think about it and hang up.

I'm aware that my ex and I haven't talked and there a 50/50 chance where we get back together or we leave it as it is, if we get back together I don't know if I should take my job and leave her waiting for me which lets be honest long distance never works or stay with the person that I love and give up on my future which makes my situation similar to Buridan's ass (philosophical concept where there there a hypothetical donkey that equally Hungary and thirsty and can't decide what to do) I genuinely need some advice because my parents are out of the question

Where it said that Rico went a bit too far, what does that mean? Was Rico sexually harassing Lola? Was he touching her inappropriately?

If that is the case, then I'd argue that Tony's decision to defend her honor with physical violence was a totally understandable and justifiable decision. However, that does not mean that it was necessarily a smart decision. A decision that you make could be a totally morally right decision and that still doesn't mean that I would encourage it. Life is not fair. Maybe a decision that you are making will cause a very toxic person to get what he or she deserves, but because of how unfair life is, you might end up getting hurt.

Where the lyrics said “Who shot who?” That is the question. Who shot whom?

I have a feeling that one of the following three things is probably true. Either…

1. Rico shot Tony.
2. Tony shot Rico.
3. Lola accidentally shot Tony.

Let’s go over these possible theories one by one.

RICO SHOT TONY.

This one seems like the most likely explanation. After Rico sexually harassed and inappropriately groped Lola (let’s assume that that is what Rico did to Lola) Tony decided to defend Lola’s honor. Rico pulled a gun and shot Tony dead.

If that is true, what, if anything, do you think that Tony could have or should have done differently?

Tony could have called for back up, so that he would have an advantage fighting Rico.

Lola could have retreated and Tony could have followed her.

Tony could have walked up to Rico hit him in the balls and run away, while Lola also ran away but in a different direction than Tony, there by confusing Rico. To understand why that would be an effective way to defeat Rico, Google "Buridan’s Ass paradox”.

The Buridan’s Ass Paradox refers to the following hypothetical. A donkey that is both hungry and thirsty is placed at an equal distance between a food source and a water source. The donkey cannot decide which one to go to first, so he goes toward neither and eventually dies. Rico was presumably sexually harassing Lola. If Tony were to hit Rico in the balls, while Rico was sexually harassing Lola, and then Tony and Lola had run in opposite directions, Rico would struggle to decide whether to run after Lola or Tony and Rico would eventually wave the white flag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass

The second Rico pulled a gun, Tony could have surrendered.

Compare this song to the song Coward of the County by Kenny

Do your worst!

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

They’re on standbi

"Ass" as in donkey, mind you.

As per Wikipedia: >Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it dies of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision between the hay and water. A common variant of the paradox substitutes two identical piles of hay for the hay and water; the ass, unable to choose between the two, dies of hunger.

For me, making decisions often turns into something like a Buridan's ass scenario where I spend an inordinate amount of time in a dilemma that feels unsolvable and ultimately end up wasting so much time to my detriment. That said, I also have ASD so at times I'm not sure if it's the OCD, the autism or some combination of both.

Does this ever happen to you?