St. Patrick's Day Note a Month Late

 

Consider the following axiomatic system:

1. Leprechauns exist.

2. Leprechauns are non-human humanoids all of whom are three feet tall or less.

3. Leprechauns occur only in Ireland.

4. Leprechauns’ clothing and possessions consist only of things producible by the technology of the late Middle Ages.

5..Some leprechauns have hair and beards.

These axioms seem consistent. Their consistency is as nearly obvious as that of axioms in some other well known systems.

One can use these axioms to prove meaningful theorems such as

1. Every humanoid over five feet tall is not a leprechaun.

2. Leprechauns do not have cell phones.

3. The clothing of leprechauns is made from natural materials.

One can elaborate the system by adding another axiom such as

“6. A red unicorn lives in the same part of Ireland as the leprechauns do”,

and argue that both it and its denial likely are consistent with the first five. This axiom would be useful in proving theorems not provable by the first five alone.

Of course the system and its conclusions are false and have nothing to do with reality. There are not any leprechauns. One can create a very similar system by replacing the original axiom 1 with “Leprechauns are fictitious creatures of stories and legends.” The new system would be demonstrably consistent and also true, since one easily could display a storybook containing leprechauns satisfying all five axioms.

This fairly silly example illustrates the fact that in considering systems of axioms, one has to look at each axiom and decide whether it is really axiomatic, that is .whether it should be accepted as true about something. One cannot escape from the need to consider meaning. The same thing holds in cases that are not silly.

Five Days of Helicopter Jokes

 

Iran’s president, the butcher of Tehran, Raisi has died in a helicopter crash. Iran’s dictator has decreed five days of mourning in his honor. At the suggestion of the artist formerly known as Iowahawk, Americans are celebrating with five days of helicopter jokes. I have seen several good ones at various places, but my favorite so far is the following:

“As Allah as my witness, I thought Iranian presidents could fly.”

In the spirit of the thing and after reading the administration’s disgusting statement of condolence to Iran, I will quote the following more appropriate reaction from an anonymous, highly placed pentagon source, straight from the war room beside the big board:

“If I may speak freely, the raghead talks big, but frankly, we think he’s short of know how. I mean, you just can’t expect a bunch of ignorant goat humpers to understand a machine like some of our boys.”

Jokes aside, there should have been no condolences, and certainly no prayer about the murdering scum in the senate. People should be glad he is dead and and willing to say so.

Epstein, the Clintons, and Trump

There is nothing wrong with people making jokes about the Clintons being responsible for the death of Jeffrey Epstein.   Bill and  Hillary are fair game for rough satire. Their records for ruthlessness together with their unpopularity with many people  and the convenient timing of Epstein’s demise would naturally lead to a lot of people having fun on the internet. My favorite  among the ones I’ve seen is a picture of Hillary in a nurse’s uniform with the caption something like “the Nurse at Epstein’s Jail”. It calls to mind the particularly appropriate image of Nurse Ratched.

 Neither is there much wrong with private citizens speculating that the Clintons really might have had Epstein done in as long as they don’t  get carried away and confuse their speculation with knowledge.  People enjoy toying with notions of conspiracies, and within bounds it is usually fairly harmless.  Besides it is not as though one would  say the Clintons have such high scruples as to make  such a thing  impossible.

However, that does not apply to the President of the United States. The person holding that office has a responsibility to hold his  tongue on certain kinds of humor and keep any thoughts about imagined conspiracies to himself.  Trump should learn that and wait to see what, if anything,  an investigation turns up. He not only needs to grow into the office. He needs to grow up.