Random question of the day.
Feb. 4th, 2004 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamOr rather question of yesterday, except I was too tired to type it last night.
Say I walk up to you and say, "You know, it's been a rough day and I'm actually not all that sure if I really did wake up today. Would you do me a favor and prove I'm not dreaming?" After you get off the phone with the nice men in the white coats, while you're trying to persuade me to stay here till they come get me, how would you prove it?
And, um, for those of you who may have had your hopes up, I didn't intend this to be absurdly philosophical. I'm taking it as read that I didn't dream yesterday and the day before, that I am not a butterfly dreaming I am a (wo)man, and I'm not looking for "I think therefore I am", as neat a thought as that is. Nope, far more boring that that.
My thoughts went something like this: given that I'm just another human being and no prodigy of any sort, one way you could prove it was by knowing something that I didn't, that I couldn't, but something that I could verify. Maybe I'd ask you a long multiplication number involving many digits, more than I can handle without scrap paper. You'd give me an answer (ideally the right one...) and only then would I do it out. Odds are infinitesimal (pardon my spelling) that I'd imagine you saying the right number by pure luck, so if you're right either I'm not dreaming or I'm an arithmetic genius.
In a similar vein, if you've got some Shakespeare memorized that I've never read, to some extent I could test it by checking the meter. Again the logic I'm thinking is that I couldn't possibly imagine brilliant iambic pentameter on the spur of the moment, and I don't already know the quote, therefore it must be coming from some outside source and so I'm not dreaming.
And then I got to thinking: maybe what I'm looking for here is some variant on the infamous P/NP problem... a problem where the solution is easy to check, but where a correct solution is a pain in the neck to work out by brute force. (Unless I misunderstand completely, which is possible.) It made me go 'huh', anyways. See, math/computer science and almost-philosophy are connected!
In other news, I can't believe they cut Scooter Girl from American Idol. *sobs* Most addictive show ever -- I've seen all of two episodes and I'm pretty sure I can't stop. I think it's because of the huge mind trip they've got all of the US on, where we stare at the screen and think "I could do that WAY better", and then we keep watching the show because of that lure of "It could be me" or even "It should be me". We keep watching it because it's such an accessible fantasy, because it's so easy for us to imagine ourselves in that role. ... Er, and everywhere I say "we" I probably mean "me."
...Ha ha, 'note'. I need sleep now. Good night!
Say I walk up to you and say, "You know, it's been a rough day and I'm actually not all that sure if I really did wake up today. Would you do me a favor and prove I'm not dreaming?" After you get off the phone with the nice men in the white coats, while you're trying to persuade me to stay here till they come get me, how would you prove it?
And, um, for those of you who may have had your hopes up, I didn't intend this to be absurdly philosophical. I'm taking it as read that I didn't dream yesterday and the day before, that I am not a butterfly dreaming I am a (wo)man, and I'm not looking for "I think therefore I am", as neat a thought as that is. Nope, far more boring that that.
My thoughts went something like this: given that I'm just another human being and no prodigy of any sort, one way you could prove it was by knowing something that I didn't, that I couldn't, but something that I could verify. Maybe I'd ask you a long multiplication number involving many digits, more than I can handle without scrap paper. You'd give me an answer (ideally the right one...) and only then would I do it out. Odds are infinitesimal (pardon my spelling) that I'd imagine you saying the right number by pure luck, so if you're right either I'm not dreaming or I'm an arithmetic genius.
In a similar vein, if you've got some Shakespeare memorized that I've never read, to some extent I could test it by checking the meter. Again the logic I'm thinking is that I couldn't possibly imagine brilliant iambic pentameter on the spur of the moment, and I don't already know the quote, therefore it must be coming from some outside source and so I'm not dreaming.
And then I got to thinking: maybe what I'm looking for here is some variant on the infamous P/NP problem... a problem where the solution is easy to check, but where a correct solution is a pain in the neck to work out by brute force. (Unless I misunderstand completely, which is possible.) It made me go 'huh', anyways. See, math/computer science and almost-philosophy are connected!
In other news, I can't believe they cut Scooter Girl from American Idol. *sobs* Most addictive show ever -- I've seen all of two episodes and I'm pretty sure I can't stop. I think it's because of the huge mind trip they've got all of the US on, where we stare at the screen and think "I could do that WAY better", and then we keep watching the show because of that lure of "It could be me" or even "It should be me". We keep watching it because it's such an accessible fantasy, because it's so easy for us to imagine ourselves in that role. ... Er, and everywhere I say "we" I probably mean "me."
...Ha ha, 'note'. I need sleep now. Good night!
