We asked ourselves last week if there is any possibility that the story of the man who dies victim of a “assisted” nightmare is plausible. In principle, it seems clear that no, since the dreamer dies on the spot and no one can know what he was dreaming … or yes? Here is a twisted possibility, worthy of a novel by Agatha Christie, which I submit to the consideration of my readers/s:
A man has the recurring nightmare that they will be decapitated, and his wife knows it because he has told him. Whenever that nightmare has, it is stirred in a peculiar way, you can even muster something in dreams (for example: “No, please, with the ax no!”). The diabolical wife conceives the plan to give him a death scare (never better) the next time he has a nightmare, and the time comes the tricotar needle through the neck and causes him a heart attack. After the years he confesses his crime and the story reaches the ears of the philosophy teacher, who tells his students. A less diabolical variant would be for the woman to tap her with the needle with the intention of awakening him and causes death involuntarily, which he tells between sobs to the doctor who tries to revive the infarction.
As for the Newcomb paradox, keep talking to my sagacious readers/es, and in the animated debate (see comments section last week) interesting ontological reflections have emerged. That, linking with the history of the ill -fated sleeping, a phrase from Unamuno has brought me to mind: “When a sleeping man and inert in bed dreams something, what exists most, he as consciousness that dreams, or his dream?” (I do not propose it as a problem of the week, but there it is, in case someone is encouraged).
Mental Zancadillas
I know a child with high capacities that fun raising logical riddles (hoping to see me fail, I perceive it in his Aviesa gaze), at first sight very varied but with a common point: they always enclose a small trap, an unbelievable obstacle in which it is easy to stumble, or an apparent solution that turns out to be wrong. Here are three of them (plus a variant of the last):
1. A traveler with claustrophobia, who detests the tunnels climbs a train at a station that has a just tunnel at the exit. Which car must rise to minimize your suffering?
2. A shopkeeper has a balance with a slightly longer arm than the other, and a very observant client realizes.
“Don’t worry,” the shopkeeper tells him, “we weigh the merchandise first in one dish, then in the other and take out the average, so neither you nor I are harmed.”
Would you accept the solution proposed by the shopkeeper?
3. I have a lot of square chips, all the same. I try to train with them a great square, but I am missing 7 chips to complete it. I form a smaller one and I have enough 10. How many chips do I have?
To give the malicious child his own medicine, I proposed the following variant of the third problem:
4. I have a lot of dominoes. I try to form a large square with them and I am missing one. I make a smaller square and I have plenty of 13. How many chips do I have?
