Pudding anyone?

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Ken wants proof in an engineering sense:

I used to think that folk sayings were just cute, now I've learned to look for real substance at the core (like calling an f16 a thunderchariot?). Rosy colored glasses will make you feel,FEEL (real physiology)beter!

Although intended as humor, I want to suggest that the existence of these observations demonstrate a shifting of probabilities as a result of mind interacting with the physical world.

Unnatural Laws

Have you ever received a phone call the minute you stepped outside your door? Has the bus you were waiting for ever appeared from behind a parked truck the instant you light up a cigarette? Certain astute individuals have noticed that such events are not the exception but, rather, the rule. Men like Murphy, Peter and Parkinson have made it their life work to ferret out the operating principles - the laws that govern the frustrating lives that we mortals live. Here is a small sampling of these laws.

Murphy's Law If anything can go wrong, it will. If anything can't go wrong, it will go wrong. If anything can't go wrong on its own, someone will make it go wrong.

O'Tool's Commentary on Murphy's Law Murphy was an optimist.

Murphy's Law for Engineers: The more innocuous a design change appears, the further will its influence extend. Any error that can creep in, will. It will be in the direction that will do most damage to the calculation. A transister protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.

Murphy's Law for Electricians: Any wire cut to length will be too short.

The Unspeakable Law As soon as you mention something .... ... if it's good, it goes away ... if it's bad, it happens.

Nonreciprocal Laws of Expectations Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.

Howe's Law Every man has a scheme that will not work.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

Etorre's Observation The other line moves faster.

DeVrie's Dilemma: If you hit two typewriter keys simultaneously, the one you don't want to hit the paper does.

Skinner's Constant (Flanagan's Finagling Factor) That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have got.

Murphy's Law of Selective Gravity An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

Hofstadter's Law: Everything takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Corollary to Hofstadter's Law: Everything takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

Jenning's Corollary to Murphy's Law of Selective Gravity The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Gordon's First Law If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well.

Maier's Law If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Boren's First Law When in doubt, mumble.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Barth's Distinction There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't

Segal's Law A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

The Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules The first 90 % of the task takes 90 % of the time, and the last 10 % takes the other 90 %

Farber's Fourth Law Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

Cole's Law Chopped cabbage.

http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/phil-humor.html

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/index.html

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Answers

Dave said: "Although intended as humor, I want to suggest that the existence of these observations demonstrate a shifting of probabilities as a result of mind interacting with the physical world."

Ummm - I don't think so. Most of the Murphy Law statements I attribute to selective sampling - we don't track the frequency of expected, or even salubrious occurances, but we sure notice the unhappy coincidences.... (My favourite version is: "The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum.")

I'm distinctly reminded of test result review meetings - when the results were positive there were smiling nods all around the table. When the results were negative there would be questions about sample size being adequate...

Forget "shifting" of the probabilities, you can out-and-out LIE by only telling part of the truth. And even further - most people have a very hazy idea of "probability" to begin with - as an example: How many people do you have to have in a room before the odds are 50:50 that two of them will share the same birthday? Turns out that the answer is only 23 people, way lower than you might "expect". There's a developing body of literature that examines how we systematically poorly reason statistically, and what this says about how we make sense of the world, and what type of reasoning processes would have been selected for in our evolution.

Dave said: "I used to think that folk sayings were just cute, now I've learned to look for real substance at the core (like calling an f16 a thunderchariot?). Rosy colored glasses will make you feel, FEEL (real physiology) better!"

I hang onto that expression "Everything that is said, is said by someone." as a reminder that "facts" and saying don't just "appear" - they are language utterances by some speaker. This immediately contextualizes the sayings, and keeps them grounded for me, as well as help me imagine the world that the speaker may be living in. Regarding the rose colored glasses, I am reminded of two items. One is that there is a physiological correlation to a lot of our language metaphors ("I saw red", "I was boiling mad", "I got all choked up", ...) and taking them as literal descriptions of an internal reality can lead in fruitful directions when communicating with the person. The second is that there are reports of prisons using "pink" rooms for the tranquilizing effects - "unmanageble" prison inmates are tossed in the pink room to "mellow" them out. More humane than clubs and rubber rooms, but shows how once something is even a glimmer of a technology, it can be put to coercive uses.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000


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