Monday, April 6, 2009

Logician Pick Up Artist

This is how a logician pick up artist would get all the girls...

**walks up to girl at a party...**

Logician: Hi, I got an idea, if and only if I make a true statement you have to go on a date with me; however, if I make a false statement you will not go on a date with me.

(Now, since most girls will give a first date anyway I don't see why she wouldn't say yes to this (if she says no the guy must be extremely ugly or have horrendous hygiene(being a logician this might be the case))). So the next step for the logician pick up artist would go as follows...

Logician: You will not go on a date with me, nor will you kiss me.

Now this is where it gets tricky. You see, she can't go on a date with him because if she does his statement is false and she can only go on a date with him if he makes a true statement. But, if she doesn't go on a date with him his statement becomes true which would force her to go on a date with him... but of course she can't do this because if she does the statement would once again be false. This puts her into a form of the liar's paradox. The only way the girl could remain consistent and avoid the paradox would be to kiss the logician. If she kisses him that makes his statement false. Since his statement is now false she can walk away free of paradox.

So, our logician pick up artist just got a kiss from a girl with very minimal work. He could have put anything as the second proposition...maybe "be my girlfriend" or "marry me" (how romantic is that!). The only problem I see is that very few people care about consistency. Well, at the very least I don't know many girls that live their lives in fear of paradox. But, if I ever meet such a girl, I think we will probably kiss.

Anyway, who says logicians aren't romantic?

3 comments:

eden said...

seems too sneaky.

i don't like it.

Dan said...

Yeah, the sneaky part was kinda the point. It's just a fun bit of reasoning really, nothing more.

eden said...

i get flustered easily. if i were put in that situation i think after i got over my exclamations of dismay i would just walk away. or slap him.

either way.