Skip to main content

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Why did the chicken cross the road???  This is an old one, with a few new entries.   When my dad played this one on me, he delighted to say, "To get to the other side."  Ha, ha.  But leave it to the professionals to interpret.  In the compilation below, there are too many authors to attribute - indeed I don't know most of them.  My humble contributions are the last two, though I feel certain they are not original to me.   The pleasure of this piece is in the humor of extravagant interpretations in philosophy, politics, physics, mathematics, and sociology.

Aristotle:
To actualize its potential.
Plato:
For the greater good.
Sir Isaac Newton:
Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion
tend to cross the road
Sigmund Freud:
The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals
your underlying sexual insecurity.
Nietzsche:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes
also across you.
Martin Luther King:
It had a dream.
Jean-Paul Sartre:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the
chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Albert Einstein:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the
chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
David Hume:
Out of custom and habit.
Darwin:
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
Margaret Thatcher:
There was no alternative.
Chief Dan George:
It was a good day to Die.
Machiavelli:
The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why?
The ends of crossing the road justify whatever motive there was.
Immanuel Kant:
The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of
his own free will.
Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
Shrödinger :
The chicken is on both sides of the road till observed on one side.
Darwin :
Give some time and chickens behavior will be selected so to avoid crossing roads.
Marx:
Who cares about chickens? Except if the chicken produces an accident in which somebody from the working class is injured, in which case we would need a collective investigation to understand the problem and try to solve it, in order to improve our working strength. But the final outcome will then depend on the decision of the Party.
Stephen Jay Gould:
What a question! This chicken is part of Nature, and Nature knows what to do in all circumstances. However if ALL chickens decided to cross that road at the same time it would produce a problem for cars. But after all what is more important: chickens or cars?
Heisenberg :
If the chicken’s position is known, then its momentum is uncertain.
Pascal :
The chicken has its reason of which reason knows nothing.
René Descartes :
The chicken crossed therefore it is.
Paul Dirac :
Whenever a chicken crosses the road, an anti-chicken crosses the road in the opposite direction.
Hillary Clinton:
What difference, at this point, does it make?
Joseph McCarthy
Because it was a communist.
John D. Rockefeller:
To increase profits.
Sigmund Freud:
To find its mother.
Zeno:
Before the chicken could cross the road, it had to go half-way, then half-way again, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, the chicken cannot cross the road.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Behavioral Science and Problem-Solving

I.                                       I.                 Introduction.                Concerning our general behavior, it’s high about time we all had some understanding of how we operate on ourselves, and it is just as important how we are operated on by others. This is the wheelhouse of behavioral sciences. It is a vast subject. It touches our lives constantly. It’s influence is pervasive and can be so subtle we never notice it. Behavioral sciences profoundly affect our ability and success at problem-solving, from the elementary level to highly complex wicked problems. This is discussed in Section IV. We begin with the basics of behavioral sciences, Section II, and then through the lens of multiple categories and examples, Section III. II.     ...

Where is AI (Artificial Intelligence) Going?

  How to view Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Imagine you go to the store to buy a TV, but all they have are 1950s models, black and white, circular screens, picture rolls, and picture imperfect, no remote. You’d say no thanks. Back in the day, they sold wildly. The TV was a must-have for everyone with $250 to spend* (about $3000 today). Compared to where AI is today, this is more or less where TVs were 70 years ago. In only a few decades AI will be advanced beyond comprehension, just like TVs today are from the 50s viewpoint. Just like we could not imagine where the video concept was going back then, we cannot really imagine where AI is going. Buckle up. But it will be spectacular.    *Back then minimum wage was $0.75/hr. Thus, a TV cost more than eight weeks' wages. ------------------------- 

Fake News

If you've been following the news the last couple of days, you will note the flurry of copy devoted to fake news.  Both sides are blaming whatever has befallen them the consequence of fake news.  Let's look at this phenomenon a bit.    When I was a student years ago, a friend climbed some mountain in Peru.   A article was written in the local newspaper about the event.   In only three column inches, the newspaper made about six errors.   An easy article to write you say?   Just interview and reproduce.   Yet so many errors?   The question is this: was this fake news or bad reporting?   The idea here is that fake news comes in various flavors. Bad reporting – errors made by the author or editor Opinion presented as news     Deliberate creation of falsehoods to favor a point of view       The reporting of selected truths to favor a particular point of view Now we have the big social media ...