Cat

While I grumbled about the confusion between aims and means (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2010/02/means.html), my friend VW recently quoted a famous dialogue between Alice and Cheshire cat appeared in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (see http://vwswong.blogspot.com/2010/03/game.html). I could not help citing it again:

Alice: I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.

Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.

Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as …

Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.

*******************************

It sounds great, eh ? My own worry is we just apply the Cheshire Cat's wisdom too often.

I mean it is overly used during a logical discussion (which, my dear friends, should be the case for all discussions) of a serious topic - for example, the on-call system of our medical officers.

You see the problem here ? The original purpose of logic is to give us a sensible way to reach the correct conclusion - a place that we often could not tell from the beginning and we may not find very comfortable either. Now, many of us just define the conclusion by intuition - and pave our way to the desired destiny by (apparently) logical arguments.

PS. Intuition, in modern English, is defined as prejudice under camouflage. From a anatomy point of view, it comes from neuronal activity of the limbic system, and does not involve the neocortex.

Enough said.