Wittgenstein's Chicken

There was a possible circumstance A that the chicken did not cross the road.
There was a possible circumstance B that the checken did cross the road.

The question, "Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road", asked about the cause of the occurence of 'not "A" but "B".'

too confusing for me.

It seems simple to me;

If you cross a chicken, with a road, you get a fleet footed animal, not dissimilar from

"the road runner"![/B]

Hmmm did I miss something here?

BoGoWo

I like your polarity moto !
I hope you don't mind if I borrow it to nail someone in abuzz.

Regards fresco

All yours fresco; [everything we have we merely borrow, any way!]

BoGoWo

The possibility of 'crossing' is encoded in the mind of people who love Wittgenstein's rules of game as they want to think of things in Wittegnstein's way of drawing (a) duck-rabbit. In Wittgenstein's way one cannot resist the circumstances that s/he wants to come into being, and starts anticipating both of them. Two-dimensional.

But his way of thinking was helped by someone like Einstein by framing that any set of two matters, chicken and road, can have a cause that results in producing double-effect, so that either way in producing either effect can be justifiable. Four-dimensional.

If you wanted a funny twist, forgive me; I'm moral counselor. I take fifth.

I love Platonism.

For the greater good...
I'm usually scorned when I try to persuade people that we can make the greater good everyone's factual knowledge that anyone can make moral justification based on that great common good.

But I don't usually try to find answers in the abstract but construct scales and analyze them scientifically. I tend to forget I wasn't good at math.

Then I go back to Plato and positively start things over.
At least I don't escape into reality that is inevitable.

My interpretation:

Presumably Wittgenstein is working with his dictum "meaning is usage". So "Chicken" posseses the usage feature "crosser" (but not double-crosser!) and "road" posseses the feature "crossable" (as opposed to the freeway !) but W. chickens out of "causality" presumably because he wrote "belief in the causal nexus is a superstition." (Tractatus) This view of course is rejected by the Azande people of Africa (as famously reported by Evans-Pritchard) who decide guilt or innocence of criminals by examining the entrails of the unfortunate chicken who didn't make it.

But I might be wrong !

meaning is usage...
Now fresco is my teacher:

Teacher, by chickening out did Wittgenstein make a choice like many good fiction writers? Did Einstein stop making choices and stop writing at his early age?

Metaethics

I dont think W. or E. were into Social Contract Theory or Game Theory if that is what you are alluding to.

BTW Why don't you start a thread on "fact and fiction" which seems to be a major modus vivendi for you?

Regards fresco.

fresco,

Neither is my intention nor interest.

Please simply take me as a genuine moral counselor.

Sincerely,
Andy

Fresco, please forgive me; sometimes I just can't help myself.....

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?Plato:For the greater good.Karl Marx:It was a historical inevitability.Machiavelli:So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chickenwhich has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, butalso with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contendwith such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is theprincely chicken's dominion maintained.Hippocrates:Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.Jacques Derrida:Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within theact of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation isequally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned,because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!Thomas de Torquemada:Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.Timothy Leary:Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would letit take.Douglas Adams:Forty-two.Nietzsche:Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes alsoacross you.Oliver North:National Security was at stake.B.F. Skinner:Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensoriumfrom birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that itwould tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions tobe of its own free will.Carl Jung:The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitatedthat individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture,and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences intobeing.Jean-Paul Sartre:In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chickenfound it necessary to cross the road.Ludwig Wittgenstein:The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being whichcaused the actualization of this potential occurrence.Albert Einstein:Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed thechicken depends upon your frame of reference.Aristotle:To actualize its potential.Buddha:If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken- nature.Howard Cosell:It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events tograce the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avianbiped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievementformerly relegated tohomo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.Salvador Dali:The Fish.Darwin:It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.Emily Dickinson:Because it could not stop for death.Epicurus:For fun.Ralph Waldo Emerson:It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.Johann von Goethe:The eternal hen-principle made it do it.Ernest Hemingway:To die. In the rain.Werner Heisenberg:We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but itwas moving very fast.David Hume:Out of custom and habit.Jack Nicholson:'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.Pyrrho the Skeptic:What road?Ronald Reagan:I forget.John Sununu:The Air Force was only too happy to provide thetransportation, so quite understandably the chicken availedhimself of the opportunity.The Sphinx:You tell me.Mr. T:If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!Henry David Thoreau:To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life.Mark Twain:The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.Molly Yard:It was a hen!Zeno of Elea:To prove it could never reach the other side.Chaucer:So priketh hem nature in hir corages.Wordsworth:To wander lonely as a cloud.The Godfather:I didn't want its mother to see it like that.Keats:Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.Blake:To see heaven in a wild fowl.Othello:Jealousy

Diane

Bravissimo !

Contributions invited for answers from:

Jesus, Elizabeth I, Napolean, Hitler, and Judge Judy !

Hitler: To avoid the train to Auschwitz

Diane;

Brilliant, but you forgot:

Bishop Berkely: "What chicken, what road? I wasn't there !"

Sidney Greene:-"At this moment in time my national executive committee haven't come to a unanimous decision on this matter and when they do I will report back to you.Cluck cluck."

I know that's not so hot but I thought Diane's take on it deserved to be on the front page.

Has there ever been actual documentation of the chicken crossing the road?

I smell conspiracy theory.

Gustav:-

Yeah.There's a beaut at the end of Convoy.