I'm sitting in a rural café, and a couple of about my age has just come in.
The man is wearing a teeshirt, on which is printed:
I'M NOT A COMPLETE IDIOT.
SOME PARTS ARE MISSING.
“Where did you buy the teeshirt?”, I ask him.
“My wife gave it to me” he replies.
“Just after he had an operation” she adds, and they both grin cheerfully.
8 comments:
I want a Tee like that!
Jim
This post has been driving me crazy since it was posted and, in spite of Herculean efforts at self-control, I can't help myself any longer. It's hitting all my philosophical funny bones at once.
HOW can that first part be true? The word "complete" assumes -- refers to; points to -- a paradigmatic, normative, fully described "idiot" and I don't believe there can be such BY DEFINITION ...
Stop! Stop it! [Smacking myself in the head.]
Okay. I've stopped. Sorry, Felix. I think I made a philosophical puddle on your rug. Again.
Julie:
Don't worry about the puddle − the mongoose will clear it up.
Doesn't your argument mean that the first part must, by definition, be true?
[IF] there can, by definition, be no such thing as a complete idiot [THEN] nobody can, by definition be a complete idiot [AND THEREFORE] anyone who claims not to be a complete idiot must be telling the truth?
Does that work?
Pffft... I thought you had studied philosophy. Need I remind you that philosophy is about filing (the categorical imperative ... DUH???!!!)? What do you think the folks down in personnel are going to do with their file folder titled "Complete Idiots" when you send down a new bunch of paperwork with a note that these are "More Complete than those earlier Complete Idiots"?? Make a file called "Completer Idiots"? No, they have to move all the previous "Complete Idiots" into the "Moron" folder; move all the "Morons" into "Dummies" and return all the "Dummies" to the "Americans" folder and next thing you know ... well you already know the next thing. Here I am.
[Add a few more "Super Ultra Complete Idiot" categories to the bottom, and I'll end up in the Complete Genius category. I feel smarter already.]
I started to write a reply, but ... my head hurts...
:-)
"I started to write a reply, but ... my head hurts..." -- Felix
Your batteries are low.
I've got the parts!
Dr C: please express freight them, without delay, to Julie H ... I want her to stop smacking herself in the the head!
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