Book Review ~~ The Nightmare Scenario ~~

The Nightmare Scenario is another philosophical puzzle from “The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten,” by Julian Baggini. Again, this puzzle questions humans’ rationality. It suggests that we are dreaming, but that we never wake up. If we did, we might think, How absurd my dream was! And, in fact, even when we did “wake up”, it might simply be another dream, as false awakenings are perfectly plausible. Of course, the natural reply is that everything makes sense, and since we remember the past, we can’t be dreaming, as dreams don’t involve pasts. However, it is possible that, in the dream, we are constructing pasts for ourselves so that we can make sense of the dream while we are in it, and when we wake up, we will laugh at its absurdity. Once, I dreamed that I was in a rainbow-colored forest, with a vividly hued jaguar chasing me. Afterwards, I knew that it was false, but during the dream, the events I experienced seemed perfectly reasonable. I really enjoyed this puzzle because, again, it is impossible to question something using a faulty tool — in this case, rationality. I would recommend it to anyone interested in philosophy, rationality, dreams, or simply looking for a brain teaser to occupy their time, and rate it 9.7/10.

Book Review ~~ The Evil Demon ~~

Today I read The Evil Demon, which is the first of a hundred philosophical puzzles in “The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten,” by Julian Baggini. The book is a lovely compilation of various philosophical puzzles, so I’ll probably review a variety of them. The Evil Demon suggests that a demon is tricking us into thinking that, say, one plus three is four, when, in truth, one plus three is nine. It seems “obvious” that one plus three does, in fact, equal four, but how can we prove that? It is our ability to think rationally that is doubted, so we cannot rationalize an argument to show that our rationality can be trusted, because that would be assuming that we are rational to reach the conclusion that we are rational. The most interesting part about the puzzle was that it questioned the premise that must always be used to reach any sort of conclusion — that our thinking is rational and correct. After all, to a person under hypnosis, it’s perfectly reasonable to count “one, two, three, five . . .” without realizing that she missed saying four, so assuming that a demon is using a similar tool, we cannot trust our rationality. I really enjoyed the puzzle that this suggestion presented and would rate this puzzle 9.8/10. I recommend it to anyone interested in philosophy or simply looking for an interesting brain teaser to puzzle over for days.