How do you guys solve Buridan's Donkey Paradox?

[average]

Just curious.


Someone who is strictly determined to make only rational choices, how does he go about this situation?

[Matt Gregory]

It's not a decision that requires rationality, so it makes no difference to a rational person how it's decided.

[average]

It's not a decision that requires rationality, so it makes no difference to a rational person how it's decided.

Oh so the "rational" person is allowed to make completely irrational decisions ?

Lol??

[Dave Toast]

There is no rational reason to choose either, so no bias either way. One choice is no more rational than the other and is also no less rational than the other. And there is a rational reason to choose arbitrarily in the supposed paradox, as stated. Therefore the fully rational person follows their nature.

This is one of the weakest 'paradoxes' that I've ever seen.

[Jamesh]

Buridan's ass is a figurative description of a man of indecision. It refers a paradoxical situation wherein an ass, placed exactly in the middle between two stacks of hay of equal size and quality, will starve to death since it cannot make any rational decision to start eating one rather than the other.

The arguments sounds like academic wank to me.

Other than for the merest instant, it is neither possible that something can be EXACTLY in the middle between A and B, nor can A and B be exactly equivalent. Nor does thought work in such a fashion - it does not work in terms of mere instants, as any thought takes more than a mere instant. Nature just simply does not have perfect quantum units of existence that remain perfectly stable over time, and this instability would force a preference for one side or the other.

Still this does not mean that indecision is a not a problem. It often does delay actions that should be taken on a timely basis, or as in the bold bit from Wiki below, forces people to choose without adequate investigation, because our emotional systems do not like uncertainty.

Other writers have opted to deny the validity of the illustration. A typical counter-argument is that rationality as described in the paradox is so limited as to be a straw man of the real thing, which does allow the consideration of meta-arguments. In other words, it's entirely rational to recognize that both choices are equally good and arbitrarily pick one instead of starving. This counter-argument is sometimes used as an attempted justification for faith. The argument is that, like the starving ass, we must make a choice in order to avoid being frozen in endless doubt. Other counter-arguments exist.

[Ataraxia]

Jesus instructed me not to covet my neighboring Buridan's ass.I'm willing to take him on his word on this occassion.:D

[average]

Dave Toast said something - And there is a rational reason to choose arbitrarily in the supposed paradox, as stated. Therefore the fully rational person follows their nature.

First of all, having the donkey make an arbitrary choice in such an ambiguous situation does not solve the problem, as the rationality between an arbitrary decision versus a non-arbitrary decision introduces another dilemma in itself.
So your counter does not work, the donkey cannot decide whether or not to choose arbitrarily and so still starves to death.

Secondly, an arbitrary choice is unreasonable by definition.
"capricious; unreasonable; unsupported" dictionary.com
Such a mentality is not symmetric with the reasonable man, which is why there is this paradox.


Anyone else? :)

[Dave Toast]

Again, what on earth are you talking about?

You think there is irrationality involved in choosing between two equally rational actions but you're barking up the wrong tree. There is as much rationality as there is irrationality. Again you infer negative meaning where there is only neutrality. Further, the choice of whether to eat, as opposed to what to eat, occupies a higher order and takes precedence in this chain of rationality. The suggestion that a rational agent caught in a vacuum between two equally breathable bubbles of air is somehow caught in a dilemma and can't decide whether to breathe or not is frankly laughable.

The situation is not ambiguous. In fact it's pretty straightforward and completely unambiguous - the donkey needs to eat - choosing either way rationally satisfies that need - there is no dilemma.

the donkey cannot decide whether or not to choose arbitrarily and so still starves to death.

Lollage, cheers for that!

[DHodges]

The donkey does indeed have a great deal of difficulty making the decision, so he goes over to the hay on the left to have something to chew on while he thinks it over. It's hard to make rational decisions when you are starving.

Someone who is strictly determined to make only rational choices, how does he go about this situation?

What does this mean? Who only makes rational choices? When is starvation a rational choice?

If you replace the donkey with a robot between two equally spaced power supplies, then yes, it's possible that the robot could have been so poorly programmed that it can not decide and runs out of power. (However, I doubt even a Roomba would have trouble with this scenario.) Actual living creatures are generally pretty robust when it comes to avoiding starvation.


edit to add: Also, the donkey can not travel at the speed of light.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

edit to add: Also, the donkey can not travel at the speed of light.

Actually, for the donkey, or any other probability to be exactly in the middle of anything seems like an impossibility in space-time, as Jamesh already suggested. Actually the breaking of symmetry might be the very thing that started our time-space bubble and related laws in the first place ("asymmetry is what creates a phenomenon”).

So by that definition in our universe a macro situation like the donkey can never be symmetrical as the paradox suggests. In other words: the donkey exists outside space-time and can easily go faster than light to our observation.

Eat that!

[DHodges]

DOH!

[keenobserver]

you're going to find that the answers will vary depending upon the exact wording, so if you want everyone to tackle the same paradox best to print exactly what it is you want solved. Besides that, you could state precisely what you believe the dilema to be since the introduction of an animal contributes complexity/impossibility.
Ive never heard of it myself.

[Dan Rowden]

Good God, what a momumental non-issue. This so-called problem or "paradox" requires that one's view of rationality - or of the rational being - be utterly cartoonish.

[David Quinn]

Agree with all the scorn poured on this "paradox". It is an example of the very worst excesses of academic sterility and disconnection from reality.

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[average]

I like how you guys can't actually solve it, but would rather call it names.

Plus you don't see how it relates to decision making in general, since all decisions are based upon irrational impluses, cravings, or desires, that have no logical foundation. So we can say that even if there was only 1 option, the donkey's choice would still be irrational. For there is no rational reason as to why one ought to live, and therefore maintain his existence by eating. THere is no rational reason why one ought to be rational, or desire anything or be anything or maintian any sort of existence or avoid anything or avoid any sort of thinking.

There really is no rationality in anything, except after we take HUGE irrational leaps into certain positions and attach to certain values, in which case the whole rationality that follows is irrational.

We are irrational beings at our core, no matter how many layers of delusion we blind ourselves with or think we have stripped, or how many times we call our conceptual projections Ultimate Truth, we can't escape our absurd core.

:D

sweet, ehh?

[David Quinn]

This has already been dealt with in the Aesthetic Appeal of Logic thread.

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[average]

Ok, cool.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Wasn't the paradox meant to illustrate a problem within physics? The problem of a 'rational universe', where every event has causes, so no true spontaneous randomness?

Average seems to have confused the issue when applying it to conscious decisions, perhaps because the living image of the donkey that suggested some kind of decision making agent. But that's not the point of the paradox, really.

It doesn't mean the paradox is sterile, just applied wrongly in the context here.

[average]

Actually the paradox is a derivative of Aristotle's De Caelo, where Aristotle mentions an example of a man who remains static because he is as hungry as he is thirsty and is positioned exactly between food and drink.

The application itself can also be used in conjunction with hard determinism, but mainly it illustrates a rationality problem within decision making, it can also be used in electrical engineering, specifically, in digital logic, how an analog-to-digital converter must convert a continuous voltage value into either a 0 or a 1. The voltage value represents the position of the ass, and the values 0 and 1 represent the bales of hay. Anyway, the context and use of the problem is quite legit...

[Dave Toast]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan's_ass

Quote your sources please!

[average]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan's_ass

Quote your sources please!

NEVER!~

[David Quinn]

The following two quotes from the Wikipedia article are enough to undermine the "Buridan's Ass Paradox", as far as the issues of causality, rationality and free will are concerned:

Some proponents of hard determinism have granted the unpleasantness of the scenario, but have denied that it illustrates a true paradox, as such, since one does not contradict oneself in suggesting that a man might die between two equally plausible routes of action.

A typical counter-argument is that rationality as described in the paradox is so limited as to be a straw man of the real thing, which does allow the consideration of meta-arguments. In other words, it's entirely rational to recognize that both choices are equally good and arbitrarily pick one instead of starving.

If a person is faced with two equally rational alternatives, he will either become paralyzed by indecision or he will rationally decide that it is better to arbitrarily choose one of the alternatives than be paralyzed by indecision. And how he reacts ultimately depends on his causes.

Given this, I fail to see where the "paradox" is.

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[average]

Well arbitrary means unreasonable by definition.
"Choices and actions are considered to be arbitrary when they are done not by means of any underlying principle or logic or goal in mind, but by whim or some decidedly illogical formula." wikipedia

"capricious; unreasonable; unsupported"
"Determined by whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle" dictionary.com



So sometimes the rational thing to do, is to be irrational?
paradox?

If you want to say that his arbitrariness was reasonable in someway, then this is a contradiction of terms. And further problems arise...

[David Quinn]

An arbitrary decision is only unreasonable when it involves ignoring more rational courses of action that are available. If the situation is such that, after a thorough investigation, all of the alternatives appear to be equally reasonable, then choosing one of them arbitrarily is the only rational course left open to you.

It may be that after choosing one course of action and pursuing it for a time, new evidence will become available that will either support the decision or oppose it, to which you can respond appropriately.

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[Diebert van Rhijn]

If the situation is such that, after a thorough investigation, all of the alternatives appear to be equally reasonable, then choosing one of them arbitrarily is the only rational course left open to you.

Perhaps a decision can become more arbitrary when the importance or value decreases. This includes split-second decision with important matters. The lack of time decreases the importance or role of the decision taking process. It becomes a knee-jerk reflex. In other words: at that point it doesn't matter and it's still rational behavior to go with a random choice, just like our body contains its basic reflexes to speed up processing in emergency situations.

But I believe there is no situation, by definition, that is so perfectly symmetric as the paradox suggests. The circumstances dictate the rational course of action and will as phenomenas always be unbalanced, leaning toward a certain 'way', not necessarily the best way of course, as David was saying: rationality doesn't equal omni-science.