Who is called "Buridan's donkey"? This expression came to modern Russian from an old parable. Everyone who has a basic understanding of the philosophy of the Middle Ages knows about the meaning of this phraseological unit. When using the expression “Buridan's donkey”, many people get the following picture: a hungry animal stands between two haystacks and cannot choose which one to approach to eat.

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Traditionally, in the Russian language, it is customary to call a stubborn, headstrong, capricious person a donkey. However, the parable uses the image of a donkey as an example of indecision, lack of will, unwillingness to make a choice. Of course, any other herbivore (for example, a goat, cow or horse) could have been in the place of the donkey. But the French philosopher Jacques Buridan (c. 1300 - c. 1358) decided to use the donkey in his parable as a symbol of stupidity and shortsightedness.

Buridan's donkey in philosophy

Buridan, in one of his treatises, wrote that a person is deprived of freedom of choice, and illustrated this is a clear example from the life of animals.

Further Buridan writes that people sometimes act in the same way. When a person cannot make a choice, this leads to degradation and death. It is worth noting that this philosophical paradox, named after Buridan, was encountered even in the works of Aristotle.

The origin and meaning of the phraseological unit "Buridan donkey"

Many phrases and expressions of philosophers have become winged, flying around the whole world. The same can be said about the phrase “Buridan's donkey”. This phraseological unit came to the Russian language together with translations of scientific works of medieval authors. In modern Russian, it is used infrequently, since the word "donkey" used in relation to a person carries a pronounced negative emotional connotation and can be perceived as a personal insult. However, in written speech, the phraseological unit “Buridan's donkey” is used quite often, for example, when:

In everyday life, people quite often encounter the Buridan's donkey paradox. In order to successfully get out of such a difficult situation, it is necessary to show courage, willpower, and the ability to correctly assess the situation. Not everyone is capable of this.... Sometimes a person who is unable to make a choice comes to a dead end and does not know what to do next. In such cases, it is best to use the advice of family and friends, or rely on your own intuition.

The problem of Buridan's donkey is especially characteristic for people who are soft, weak-willed, spineless. And, on the contrary, strong, courageous, decisive people usually make a choice quickly, even if both options are approximately equal.

Examples of the use of phraseological units

In oral speech in Russian, this phraseological unit practically not used, since it is not customary to call a person a donkey in Russia. A donkey in Russian folklore is traditionally considered a symbol of stupidity, therefore this expression can be found mainly in fiction. It is used when describing the suffering of people who cannot make the right choice, for example:

• “Mary had two suitors, and the girl felt great affection for both. She was in the position of Buridan's donkey. "
• "He could not make a choice and in despair compared himself to a Buridan donkey."
• "Her husband was torn between wife and mistress like Buridan's donkey."

In modern Russian there are several phraseological units that are a bit close in meaning to the expression “Buridan's donkey”, for example: “to rush between two fires”, “from the fire to the fire”.

But these expressions have a slightly different meaning: they are used not when it is difficult to make a choice, but when both choices lead to problems and difficulties. In English, there is a similar expression: between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The phraseologism "Buridan's donkey" is also often found in scientific texts related to ancient and medieval literature and philosophy. For everyday speech, this expression is considered too bookish.

The problem of Buridan's donkey was relevant at any time - from antiquity to the present day. People who cannot make the right choice are common in any society. It is to them that this expression applies. However, it should be used with caution, because for most Russian speakers, the word "donkey", used in relation to a person, can cause an ambiguous reaction. It is better to replace this phraseological unit with more neutral synonyms: "weak-willed person", "spineless person", "doubting person."

In order to achieve perfect purity of the experiment, it is better to conduct it purely theoretically.
Yuri Tatarkin

The concept of a thought experiment was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century by the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach. He meant, first of all, a preliminary replay of a real experiment in the imagination. Mach believed that with the help of fantasy it is possible to introduce any conditions of experience, even completely absurd ones, and this makes it possible to consider all the variants of the result.

In the history of science, there are enough exotic thought experiments that not only changed the generally accepted views of the world, but also spawned discussions that continued for decades. We will tell you about ten of the most famous ones. Be careful - some of them can drive you crazy!

Ancient philosophers loved to come up with paradoxical judgments, but few could compare in this with the Greek Zeno of Elea, who lived in the 5th century BC. NS. His aporias (that is, "difficulties") have not survived in their original form and are known in the paraphrases of Plato and Aristotle. Zeno formulated at least forty aporias, and only nine reached the interpreters.

Zeno's most famous aporia is the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. It owes its origin to the fable of the ancient Greek poet Aesop. It tells how the turtle argued with the hare that it would be able to overtake him in an honest race, and was able to do it. She took advantage of the carelessness of her opponent, who decided to take a break, confident that he would have time to come running first. Zeno replaced the hare with the swift-footed hero Achilles, sung in the Iliad.

Imagine that the tortoise and Achilles decide to compete in a running race. Achilles is ten times faster than a turtle, and gives it a head start of a thousand steps. During the time it takes Achilles to run this distance, the turtle will crawl a hundred steps in the same direction. When Achilles has run a hundred paces, the turtle will crawl ten more, and so on. The chase will be endless, Achilles will never catch up with the turtle. Therefore, any movement is an illusion.

The aporia is puzzling, because from the standpoint of formal logic it looks flawless, but in practice, as experience suggests, any runner can easily overtake a turtle. Greek philosophers seriously puzzled over this paradox. He found reflection in literature: Lewis Carroll, Leo Tolstoy and Jorge Luis Borges wrote about the Achilles fiasco.

Of course, Zeno's assertion that Achilles will never catch up with the turtle is false. Each next "break" of the turtle is shorter than the previous one, and Achilles will need only one thousand one hundred and twelve steps to get ahead. The paradox arose because Zeno and his followers did not understand the physical and mathematical meaning of the problem.

Monument to the swift Achilles in Corfu

Buridan's donkey turned into a playful image

The imaginary Buridan donkey, as you know, found himself between two identical armfuls of hay and died of hunger, unable to choose between them. Oddly enough, this donkey was not invented by the French philosopher of the XIV century Jean Buridan. The oldest mention of this problem we find in Aristotle. He jokingly described a fictional situation in which a person dying of thirst and hunger cannot choose between water and food.

The idea turned out to be fruitful, and later philosophers used the same image to illustrate the resultant forces. In 1100, the Persian scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali seriously considered Aristotle's dilemma and declared that a person will choose between the same things in favor of the one that suits him best at the moment. Buridan added that in a situation where a rational choice is impossible, a person will turn to moral principles and follow the path of greater good.

The donkey appeared thanks to the Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza. He argued that if a person who finds himself in a situation of choice between the same possibilities, like a "Buridan's donkey", fails to make a choice, then he can hardly be considered a person.

Mathematician Gottfried Leibniz made the choice more difficult by describing a donkey sitting between identical heaps of hay. He believed that such an experiment could not be realized in practice, since there is no perfect symmetry in the Universe - one shock will always be preferable to the other, even if we do not notice this advantage.

Modern philosophers believe that the problem of Buridan's donkey can be easily solved if we accept that refusing to choose between two armfuls of hay is also a choice. The donkey chooses not between hay and hay, but between life and death, therefore, the choice is predetermined at the level of instinct: the donkey will choose life.

Galileo's experience

The thought experiment with falling objects was needed by the Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei to show the fallacy of the delusion that the heavier the body, the faster it will fall to the ground. According to legend, in 1589 Galileo climbed the famous "falling" tower in Pisa and threw from it two balls of different masses, which reached the ground at the same time, confirming the scientist's revolutionary hypothesis. In fact, he did not go anywhere, but relied on purely speculative considerations, which he outlined in the treatise "On Movement" (1590).

Imagine two objects, one heavier than the other. Let them be tied with a rope to each other and throw this bundle off the tower. If heavy objects fall faster than light ones, then the light object should slow down the fall of the heavy one. But since the system in question as a whole is heavier than one heavy object, it must fall faster than it. We come to a contradiction, which means that the initial assumption (heavy objects fall faster than light ones) is incorrect.

Our consciousness is opposed to the idea that the hammer and the feather, if dropped from the same height, will fall at the same time. In the world we are accustomed to, the atmosphere will slow down the feather, and the hammer will fall faster. But what if you put them in an airless environment? Such an experience was made in 1971 by the astronauts of the Apollo 15 mission: in front of millions of TV viewers, Dave Scott threw a geological hammer and a falcon feather on the moon. Everyone was able to make sure that Galileo was right.

Feather and hammer on the surface of the moon

A thought experiment with a space gun was invented by the great English physicist Isaac Newton.

Imagine the tallest mountain whose peak is beyond the atmosphere. At its very top is a cannon that shoots horizontally. The more powerful the charge is used when firing, the farther from the mountain the core will fly away. Upon reaching a certain charge power, the nucleus will develop such a speed that it will enter orbit. The force of gravity for him will be balanced by centrifugal force.

In the same work, Newton calculated the value of the first cosmic velocity required to enter orbit, which for our planet is 7.91 km / s.

Newton's idea was in demand in the 19th century, when the foundations of the theory of cosmonautics were laid. It is the cannon that is used for space flight by the characters of the novel "From Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne, which influenced the pioneers of rocketry, including Tsiolkovsky. In the future, the idea was played up by such writers as Georges Le Fort and Henri de Countess, Jerzy Zulawski and Andrei Platonov. And Gregory Keys has an alternative-historical novel "Newton's Cannon" (1998).

The Duplicate Paradox

The thought experiment, later called the "Duplicate Paradox" or the "Teleportation Paradox", was first "performed" in 1775, when the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid wrote to Lord Keymes:

“I would be glad to know your Excellency's opinion on the following: when my brain loses its original structure and when, hundreds of years later, an intelligent creature is created from the same material in an amazing way, will I be able to consider it myself? Or if two or three such creatures are created from my brain, then can I believe that they are me and, therefore, one and the same intelligent being? "

The question posed by Reed leads to the serious problem of personality identity, which has been repeatedly addressed by philosophers. For example, Stanislav Lem in Dialogues (1957) comprehensively examines the “paradox of duplicates” and comes to the conclusion that it cannot be resolved until we know what the soul is and what physical processes it boils down to.

In 1984, the English philosopher Derek Parfit modified the "paradox of duplicates" by describing a teleport that breaks a person into atoms and transmits information about these atoms to Mars, where he recreates a copy from local resources. Parfit wondered: can such a teleport be considered a means of transportation and will a person on Mars be the same who split into atoms on Earth?

The task can be complicated. Let's say the teleport was improved and he stopped destroying the original, but he learned to create an infinite number of copies of a person. Can they be considered full-fledged people? Parfit came to the conclusion that philosophy does not offer a single satisfactory criterion for distinguishing a copy from an original, which means that duplicates should be considered as complete. It follows from this that the law must take into account the rights of "future personalities" of citizens.

In fiction, the "paradox of duplicates" is especially popular. Recent examples include the films Sixth Day (2000), The Island (2005) and The Prestige (2006).

The twins paradox

Twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly

Imagine two twins, one of whom embarked on an interstellar journey in a ship traveling at near light speed. The other stayed on Earth and grew old faster than his brother. This thought experiment perfectly illustrates the effects described in Einstein's special theory of relativity. But from it follows the paradox of twins, which was formulated by the French physicist Paul Langevin in 1911.

According to the special theory of relativity, the processes of moving objects slow down, that is, the twin, returning from a trip, will be younger than his brother. For example, a flight to Alpha Centauri and back with an acceleration of 1 g in the Earth's frame of reference will be 12 years, and 7.3 years will pass according to the ship's clock. On the other hand, the theory declares the equality of inertial reference systems. That is, the Earth relative to the spaceship also moves with an increasing speed. Consequently, time should slow down on it too. This is where the contradiction arises, which needs to be explained.

Painting by Gennady Golobokov "The Paradox of Time" illustrates the "effect of twins"

In the end, an explanation was found. True, in order to summarize them, a separate article is needed. But it is much more important that the effect of time dilation in a rapidly moving object has been experimentally recorded in particles in accelerators and in atomic clocks on GPS satellites, the readings of which need to be corrected. If the effect of time dilation was not taken into account when using these satellites, then the coordinates calculated on the basis of GPS would be incorrect in two minutes, and the error would accumulate at a speed of 10 km per day! The effect and its consequences have often been described in fiction, from Ivan Efremov's The Andromeda Nebula (1957) to the recent Interstellar (2014).

Murder of grandfather

This thought experiment with past travel was originally called the "professor's paradox." It was first formulated by the British science fiction writer Fowler Wright in the novel The World Below (1929) through the lips of his character, a professor:

Any changes in the past are obviously impossible, everything happens irrevocably. Otherwise, there would be no finality and there would be unbearable confusion ... For example, knowing about a murder that has taken place, I can go there and intervene to save the victim. In this case, the murder seemed to have happened, but it was also prevented, which is absurd.

Two years later, the story "Flight in Time" by American Robert H. Wilson appeared, in which the murder in the past is not abstract, but is associated with the grandparents of the time traveler. In 1933, the stereotype was reinforced by Nat Schachner in the story "Voices of the Ancestors."

The "paradox of the murdered grandfather" in modern philosophy has an analogue called "autoinfanticide": a flight into the past with the aim of killing oneself. It is often used as proof that time travel is not possible because it breaks causation. For example, the American philosopher Bradley Dowden in his book Logical Reasoning (1993) stated:

No one will ever create a machine that can send a person to the past. Nobody should seriously try to build it, because there is a solid argument why a machine cannot be built.<…>Suppose you have a time machine, you enter it and are transported into the past. Your actions may prevent your grandparents from meeting. This would lead to the fact that you would not be born and would not be able to travel back in time in a time machine. Thus, the assertion that a time machine can be built is internally contradictory.

But perhaps the events of the past already include the invasion of an alien from the future. Circumstances simply prevented him from killing or quarreling his ancestors. This point of view is shared by cosmologist Igor Novikov, who in 1983 introduced the “principle of self-consistency”. According to him, when moving into the past, the probability of an action that changes an event that has already happened tends to zero. The principle is well shown in the movie "12 Monkeys" (1995), in the stories of Ted Chan and even in one of the Harry Potter films.

Shroedinger `s cat

The mental experiment with a cat (more precisely, a cat) was invented by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger to demonstrate the incompleteness of quantum mechanics in the transition from subatomic systems to macroscopic ones. He described the experiment in his article "The Current Situation in Quantum Mechanics" (1935):

A certain cat is locked in a steel chamber along with a hellish machine: inside the Geiger counter there is a tiny amount of radioactive substance, so small that only one atom can decay in an hour, but with the same probability it may not decay; if this happens, the reading tube is discharged and the relay is triggered, releasing the hammer, which breaks the cone with hydrocyanic acid. If we leave this whole system to itself for an hour, then we can say that the cat will be alive after this time, as long as the decay of the atom does not occur. The very first decay of an atom would have poisoned the cat. The psi function of the system as a whole will express this by mixing or smearing a live and a dead cat (sorry for the expression) in equal parts. Typical in such cases is that the uncertainty, initially limited to the atomic world, is transformed into macroscopic uncertainty, which can be eliminated by direct observation.

According to quantum mechanics, if a nucleus is not observed, its state is described by a superposition (mixing) of two states - a decayed and non-decayed nucleus. This means that the cat in the box is dead and alive at the same time. If the box is opened, the experimenter will see a specific state: “the nucleus has disintegrated, the cat is dead” or “the nucleus has not disintegrated, the cat is alive”.

Erwin Schrödinger made many discoveries, but went down in history as "the tormentor of cats"

In 1957, American Hugh Everett put forward the theory that at the moment the box is opened, the Universe will split into two: with a dead and with a living cat. Since in ordinary life we ​​ourselves make a choice every second (down to which foot to stand on today), every moment the Universe branches into an infinite number of parallel ones. At first, the scientific community rejected Everett's theory, but later he had followers, and "everettika" arose - a worldview according to which the universe is a set of realizations of all conceivable worlds. The idea turned out to be in demand by science fiction writers: to list all the books and films where it is played out, an article is not enough.

Schrödinger's cat (or cat) has long become

Monkeys and "Hamlet"

The Infinite Monkey Theorem says that a billion monkeys, randomly banging on the keys of typewriters, will sooner or later print any text - even Hamlet or War and Peace.

The origin of the theorem should be sought in the writings of Aristotle, who believed that the whole world is a random combination of atoms. And since their number and size are limited, there is a high likelihood of repeating combinations. Three centuries later, the ancient Roman orator Mark Tullius Cicero objected to Aristotle, pointing out that if you throw cast letters on the ground, they are unlikely to make at least one meaningful line.

In the form we know, the theorem on infinite monkeys was formulated by the French mathematician Emile Borel. He needed a thought experiment with monkeys and typewriters to illustrate the unlikely likelihood of violating the laws of mechanics from the standpoint of statistics. Borel said that, theoretically, an object thrown up by hand may not return to Earth, but this event is so unlikely that the monkeys would sooner print Hamlet. And the experiment with monkeys entered popular culture thanks to Russell Maloney's humorous story "Enduring Logic" (1940), where monkeys, contrary to the theory of probability, succeeded.

Scientists have calculated that if we discard punctuation marks and spaces, then the probability of a random set of "Hamlet", consisting of about 130 thousand letters, is 1 / 3.4 × 10 183946. If the entire observable part of the Universe was filled with monkeys, typing all the time of its existence, the probability of their writing a play would rise to 1/10 183800.

The described experiment is, in principle, possible to carry out, and in 2003 students from the University of Plymouth (Britain) did it. Six crested baboons from the local zoo spent a month working on the computer, trying to create at least some kind of literary sketch, but only broke it. The result was five pages of meaningless text with a predominance of the letter S. What the baboons wanted to say is a mystery. Their great work was published in a limited edition entitled Notes to the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Brain in a vat

The mental experiment "brain in a vat" (as an option - in a barrel or flask) was invented in 1973 by the American philosopher Gilbert Harman, developing the idea of ​​Rene Descartes, set forth in 1641. He believed that the best way to know the truth is through extreme skepticism. He illustrated this idea with the hypothesis of the existence of an "evil demon", which creates for the philosopher the illusion of the external world, including imitation of bodily sensations. A number of questions followed from the hypothesis. For example, how can you be sure that you are awake right now?

The demon hypothesis, for which Descartes was accused of blasphemy, was outdated by the twentieth century, so Harman modernized it in the spirit of fantasy. Imagine that a mad scientist connected a human brain to a computer capable of generating electrical impulses identical to those that the brain would receive while in the body. The computer can simulate virtual reality, and the subject, despite the absence of a body, will be aware of himself as existing. No one can know for sure whether his brain is in a vat or in a body, which means that one cannot be sure that the world around us is real.

In 1981, the philosopher Hilary Putnam extended the idea to the whole of humanity and gave rise to the fantastic assumption that later formed the basis of the Matrix trilogy. At the same time, Putnam showed that at the heart of the thought experiment proposed by Harman is a "self-denying assumption" - a statement whose truth presupposes its own falsity - and this proves the existence of reality from the standpoint of logic. You can breathe a sigh of relief: The Matrix is ​​just a Hollywood fiction.

* * *

Of course, in ten examples, it is impossible to describe all the wealth of thought experiments invented by scientists. But even this is enough to see that imagination in science is no less important than the purity of calculation and accuracy of measurements. And often the flight of this imagination surpasses the most exotic ideas of science fiction writers.

Buridan donkey

Buridan donkey
From Latin: Asinus Buhdani inter duo prata (azinus buridani inter duo prata). Translation: Buridan's donkey between two lawns.
Attributed to the French scholastic philosopher Jean Buridan (1300-1358). Allegedly, the latter, wanting to prove the lack of free will in man, likened him to a donkey, which stands in a meadow exactly in the middle between two equal heaps of hay. And the philosopher allegedly argued that the donkey in this case will not be able to choose any of them, even if it dies of hunger. Hence, accordingly, the expression "Buridan's donkey" arose.
But nowhere in the writings of J. Buridan there is no such example, just as there is no evidence that he ever expressed such an idea in an oral conversation. Why Buridan's name is mentioned in this case is unknown.
But other authors have the idea that a person cannot make a choice between two absolutely equal options. Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his work "On Heaven" speaks of a man who is tormented by hunger and thirst, but since food and drink are at an equal distance from him, he remains motionless. Also, Dante in his Divine Comedy (Paradise, Canto 4) describes a similar situation: if someone is between two identical dishes, he would rather die than make any choice.
Ironically: about an indecisive, weak-willed person who hesitates between the options for solving a problem and cannot choose any of them.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M .: "Lokid-Press"... Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what "Buridan's donkey" is in other dictionaries:

- “BURIDANOV ASS”, the paradox of absolute determinism in the doctrine of will: a donkey, placed at an equal distance from two identical bundles of hay, must die of hunger, because it will not be able to choose one bundle or another. In the works of J. Buridan, this image is not ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Buridanov Donkey- Buridan Donkey ♦ Âne de Buridan The name of the French philosopher of the XIV century Jean Buridan is known today exclusively thanks to this very donkey, the parable of which is attributed to him, although in none of his surviving works about any donkey ... ... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

Noun., Number of synonyms: 1 Buridan donkey (1) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

The paradox of absolute determinism in the doctrine of will: a donkey, placed at an equal distance from two identical bundles of hay, must die of hunger, because it will not be able to choose one or another bundle. This image was not found in the works of J. Buridan. IN… … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The comparison used to explain free will and which, in fact, was already in Aristotle and Dante's: a donkey standing between two absolutely identical heaps of hay located at an equal distance from it had to starve, because - with ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Buridan's donkey is a philosophical paradox named after Jean Buridan, despite the fact that it was known from the works of Aristotle, where the question was raised: as a donkey, which is provided with two equally tempting treats, maybe ... ... Wikipedia

buridan donkey- Burida / new donkey only units, stable combination of books. A person who hesitates in choosing between two equivalent possibilities. There were as many arguments for as against; at least in their strength, these arguments were equal, and Nekhlyudov, laughing ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

"BURIDANOV ASS"- the famous fable attributed to the scholastic philosopher Buridan, depicting a donkey dying of hunger between an armful of oats and a bucket of water due to the impossibility of choosing between two equivalent goods. Contrary to popular belief, here ... ... Philosophical Dictionary

Buridan donkey- about an extremely indecisive person, hesitating in the choice between two equivalent desires, two equivalent decisions. The expression is attributed to the French scholastic philosopher of the 4th century. J. Buridanu, who argued that the actions of living beings ... ... Phraseology reference

buridanov- Buridan. By the name of fr. the scholastic philosopher of the XIV century. Jean Buridan, who, allegedly to prove that there is no free will, gave the following example: a donkey; being at the same distance from two identical armfuls of hay, he must die, because ... Historical Dictionary of Russian Gallicisms

Books

• The paradox of choice, Schwartz B .. The problem of choice has always existed. Buridan's donkey once chose between two haystacks; a modern person with a large number of alternatives can easily fall into ...

Buridanov donkey will die from overeating

Will is the opposite of desire
and represents reasonable excitement
Zeno

When you have to make a choice
but you do not do it - this is also a choice

W. James

("Aphorisms, quotes and winged words",

Http://aphorism-list.com/t.php?page=vola and

"Buridan's donkey: How can you make a rational choice between two things that have the same value?" ("Wikipedia", http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki, Buridan's donkey).

““ BURIDANOV ASS ”is the paradox of absolute determinism in the doctrine of will: a donkey, placed at an equal distance from two identical bundles of hay, must die of hunger, because it will not be able to choose one or another bundle. This image was not found in the works of J. Buridan. In a figurative sense, he is a person who hesitates in choosing between two equivalent possibilities ”(“ Akademika ”, http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enc3p/80426).

“According to the teachings of the French philosopher of the XIV century Jean Buridan, a person acts according to how his mind judges. If the mind decides that the good presented to it is a perfect and all-round good, then the will rushes to it. It follows from this that if the mind recognizes one good as the highest, and the other as the lowest, then the will, all other things being equal, will strive to the highest. When the mind recognizes that and another good as equal, then the will cannot act at all. As an illustration of his teachings, Buridan brought a donkey standing between two equally attractive armfuls of hay, but unable to choose one of them. Therefore, Buridan's donkey is called an indecisive person, hesitating in the choice between two equal desires. In the writings of the philosopher that have come down to us, these reflections have not been preserved, therefore it is not known for certain whether this is true or fiction, although the proverb that sounds in Latin “Asinus Buridani inter duo prata” (“Buridan's donkey between two meadows”) exists ”(Who is Buridan's donkey and how did the donkey glorify Buridan ?, http://www.koryazhma.ru/usefull/know/doc.asp?doc_id=86).

“From Latin: Asinus Buridani inter duo prata [azinus Buridani inter duo prata]. Translation: Buridan's donkey between two lawns.
Attributed to the French scholastic philosopher Jean Buridan (1300 - 1358). Allegedly, the latter, wanting to prove the lack of free will in man, likened him to a donkey, which stands in a meadow exactly in the middle between two equal heaps of hay. And the philosopher allegedly argued that the donkey in this case would not be able to choose any of them, even if it would die of hunger. Hence, accordingly, the expression "Buridan's donkey" arose.
But nowhere in the writings of J. Buridan there is no such example, just as there is no evidence that he ever expressed such an idea in an oral conversation. Why Buridan's name is mentioned in this case is unknown.
But other authors have the idea that a person cannot make a choice between two absolutely equal options. Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) in his work "On Heaven" speaks of a man who is tormented by hunger and thirst, but since food and drink are at an equal distance from him, he remains motionless. Also Dante in his Divine Comedy (Paradise, Canto 4) describes a similar situation: if someone is between two identical dishes, he would rather die than make any choice.
Ironically about an indecisive, weak-willed person who hesitates between the options for solving the problem and cannot choose any of them "(Buridanov donkey, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Winged Words and Expressions / Compiled by Vadim Serov, http://bibliotekar.ru/encSlov/2 /114.htm).

SOLUTION

There are two levels of problems in this task. The first is related to the quality of logical analysis, reasoning about a given problem. To solve at this level, it is necessary to identify deficiencies in the wording and eliminate logical errors. The second level is associated with a philosophical solution to the problem. This level also contains two problems: the determinism of choice, that is, the basis for making a decision, and the awareness of the degree of rationality of the subject making the choice.

As the shortcomings of the wording, one can point to the attraction to reflect the problems of an insufficiently intelligent creature - an animal, and also an insufficiently intelligent animal - a donkey, distinguished by its stubbornness, which speaks of inertia and inflexibility of thinking. It is not for nothing that a stubborn and stupid person is compared to a donkey or a ram, which does not surpass him in the degree of rationality, judging by the saying "stared like a ram at a new gate" ("Stupid like a ram. Like a ram at a new gate (looks, stares: nothing not understanding, unapproved. "- ram / Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary,
But even if you replace the donkey with a person who chooses between two identical things, objects, then all the same, such an example will not reach the necessary degree of representation for identifying and solving problems in terms of quality, in terms of validity. Because the level of the subject's rationality, although it differs by orders of magnitude, does not differ much with respect to the goal of the task. Both the donkey and the person are united by the initial impossibility of identifying the absolute identity of objects, phenomena, things in a broad sense, that is, any objects, as well as identifying the absolute difference between sufficiently similar objects. Based on this drawback, a simple solution to the Buridan problem follows. A donkey will never starve to death when faced with a choice of two completely identical armfuls of hay at an equal distance from itself. Because with absolute equality of the main factors of choice (visual parameters of an armful - volume, color; smell; distance to it, etc.), secondary, then insignificant, and then completely extraneous or non-existent reasons will inevitably come into play. The chirping of a grasshopper from one of the armfuls or a breath of wind, the habit of approaching food from a certain side, just a sudden desire to approach this one, and not another, armful of hay, etc.

The same conclusion follows when discussing a person's choice of two objects. The initial impossibility of identifying the absolute identity and absolute difference of objects leads to a justification of the choice between them due to the apparent difference, including the main, secondary or nonexistent features, such as their own inventions. For example, when choosing numbers in a lottery from absolutely equal numbers, if possible, for an ignorant person (that is, almost any), the justification for the choice becomes a random choice or a choice based on numbers that are significant for a person (birthdays, etc.). And only a few can substantiate their choice with knowledge in the field of probability theory, some observation experience and theoretical assumptions, hypotheses about the mechanism of dropping numbers, which brings their justification of choice closer to a choice based on essential features, although not to a sufficient extent.

That is, the initial impossibility of establishing the absolute identity of objects leads to the fact that, firstly, one object always seems to be different from another, and, secondly, in objects that still look equal, the same in general, there is always a small real or an apparent sign, on the basis of which the choice of a seemingly more attractive object follows.

Thus, the initial impossibility of establishing the absolute identity and difference of objects (by a person and even more so by a donkey), that is, identifying essential features of objects or even the smallest differences (any level of consideration up to microdifferences), does not lead to the impossibility of choosing between objects, but, on the contrary, - to a choice between them, but on the basis of insignificant signs. Therefore, a donkey will never starve to death because of such a simple task, especially when it comes to food and his life, because of the impossibility of such reflections of all people who predicted his death by starvation.

But on this the problem of validity is not yet fully solved. Because the reasoning about the determinism of choice concerned the quality of the subject making it, and not the problem of choice as such. Therefore, for the final decision, it is necessary to consider the problem of choosing a qualitatively different subject.

Imagine that the choice is not made by a donkey, not an ordinary person, and not even a genius or some perfect person, a superman (a superhero, for example), but a super being with a superintelligence. For him, the determination of the absolute identity and difference of objects of any level of the universe is a feasible task. And what? It, judging by the conclusions of Buridan and others, should then also stand as a donkey, looking in bewilderment at absolutely identical objects, like a "ram at a new gate"? No, of course not. His choice of two objects that are absolutely identical to each other (superclones, that is, identical not only in form, but also in content), will be even easier than for a donkey or a person. Because he can choose ANY OBJECT in this case.

The error in reasoning of those who talked about the problem of choice, including Buridan, and Dante, and even Aristotle, consists in a “false premise” (“Logical paradoxes. Ways of solving”, chapter “Errors in reasoning in paradoxes - an initial premise”). As a "starting point" they and all others chose the thought: "The choice is based on the difference between objects. Therefore, if it is impossible to reveal any even the slightest difference between objects, then it is impossible to make a choice between them. " But this is erroneous reasoning. The choice is based not on the difference between objects, but on the PURPOSE pursued by this choice by the subject making the choice. Based on this, the choice becomes a very simple process. The donkey needs to satisfy its hunger, and not to determine the difference or identity of the armfuls of hay. Therefore, he can choose any armful immediately and will never die of speculative agony over the choice. A person can reflect on the choice regarding the better correspondence of the chosen object to his purpose, but this will also not happen for long. Only until the moment he realizes, firstly, than one object better suits his purpose, which means it can be chosen, or, secondly, that he cannot, like a donkey in front of armfuls of hay, establish a significant difference in objects , which means that he can choose any object suitable for the embodiment of his goal.

For a super-being (or even for a Homo sapiens), the choice occurs according to an even simpler scheme. Realizing that any of the objects is suitable for the embodiment of the goal, the choice is made relatively easy. Because:

1) if the realization of the goal does not require the identification of an absolute or just a large, significant difference between objects, then the choice can be made immediately - any object;

2) if for the realization of the goal it is necessary to reveal an absolute, significant or even small difference, then for a super-being (and in the last two cases for a reasonable person), the solution of this problem is feasible, and then the choice of an object is made on the basis of the clarified difference.

Thus, the final answer to the question "is it possible to make a choice of two objects and how?" will be:

If it is necessary to identify the difference for the realization of the goal and the possibility for its determination, a more suitable object is selected;

If it is impossible to determine the difference or there is no such need for the realization of the goal, any object is selected.

Therefore, from thinking about a donkey choosing from two haystacks, or about a person who is tormented by thirst and hunger, or a person who faces two identical dishes for lunch, an inevitable happy ending will follow: the donkey will choose the first haystack that comes to his eyes ; a person tormented by hunger and thirst, realizing that he will die of thirst first, will first find water, but if hunger is much easier to satisfy, then he will do it first, or will do it in turn, because his goal is to satisfy both needs; from two identical dishes a person will choose either or ... eat both, which usually happens))). Therefore, a donkey, like an unreasonable person, will rather die not from hunger, but from overeating.

The problem of choice is the dilemma that a person will always face. What to choose so that it would be beneficial, so as not to miscalculate? The philosophical question known as "Buridan's donkey" will always excite the minds of mankind. In this article, we will analyze the meaning of a phraseological unit, its origin, and find out where this phrase is used in the literature.

History of the issue

Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century BC, told his students and listeners a parable. In his story, the Buridan donkey - which is dying of thirst and hunger. This person is within walking distance from food and food and does not know what to choose for his salvation. This story is symbolic.

In fact, Aristotle meant that if a person is faced with such a choice, he must choose what, in his opinion, will turn out to be great for him. Much later, in the Middle Ages, the scholastic philosopher Jean Buridan retold this parable in other words.

Buridan's donkey problem

In fact, there is no problem. There is a donkey dying of hunger, and there are two heaps of seemingly identical hay. What to choose? According to the parable, a donkey can endlessly decide and in the end just die of hunger. Also, a lop-eared animal can simply choose one of two haystacks and start eating. Jean Buridan was able to formulate the question of choice in this way. Is it possible to make a rational choice if it is not entirely possible to calculate where this or that decision will lead? True, according to rumors that have survived to this day, Buridan, telling this story to his listeners, always asked if he had seen donkeys die in such cases. Otherwise, all of Asia would simply be littered with the corpses of eared animals. In fact, animals are not tormented by the problem of choice, this property is inherent only in humans.

Or pan, or gone

In fact, Buridan's donkey is each of us at least several times a week. How often do you catch yourself thinking what is best for you to do in a particular situation and which of the two evils to choose? This question is very well illustrated by the well-known anecdote about a monkey, which could not decide who to join it - smart or beautiful.

There is no single correct answer in such situations and cannot be, because a person has his own worldview and worldview.

Philosophical interpretation

In fact, as philosophers say, the point of the parable is not at all about the problem of choosing "which is better." More and more globally. The image of a donkey is an example of determinism in the doctrine of human will. It is believed that if the mind cannot choose the best, in this case the will will take over human emotions, which will choose the aspiration for the sublime. If, by reflection, a person realizes that both options are equivalent, then the person's will in this case no longer works.

Each of us has a moral problem of choice at least once in our life. Sometimes the question can sound rather harsh. For example, which is better - to tell the truth and lose everything, but at the same time gain relief of conscience, or keep silent, but then live with a heavy heart?

Not a single person can stop at their achievements, this is both our joy and our misfortune. On the one hand, we never stop developing, on the other, we can lose everything we have acquired. Buridan's donkey, the meaning of whose choice can become fatal, haunts every person constantly. And there can be no correct answer here, because the concept of correctness is very relative, and each has its own.

Physical and mathematical meaning

Philosophers do not approve of the fact that the "Buridan's donkey" through the efforts of the physicist Leibniz has for some time been an experimental animal of the exact sciences. But the gray lop-eared donkey, along with Schrödinger's cat, is today also a participant in thought experiments. The behavior of a donkey in a given situation is predictable. So, knowing the laws of Newtonian mechanics, you can determine the location of any object (if you have some data). In addition, Buridan's donkey is mentioned in the explanation of the Weierstrass mathematical theorem. This theorem sounds as follows - if at one point it is positive, and at another it is negative, then between these points there is necessarily a point where the function is equal to zero.

In the situation with a donkey, the situation is as follows - if the donkey cannot decide whether to dine on the right side with a haystack, or on the left, he will stay in the middle and die.

The image of a donkey in culture

Not everyone knows the teachings of Jean Buridan, but the stable expression "Buridan's donkey" is known to many. Today, this phrase means a hesitant person who cannot choose what to do. In addition, one of the layouts of the Tarot cards has this name. In addition, Buridan's donkey is found in the work of Dante Alighieri, Eugenio Montale, Gunther de Bruyne, Henry Oldie.