How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (25 page)

Barney's not someone who is enlightened in his trust of the uncertainty and absurdity that life may bring. Instead, he's
manipulative in such a way, that Kierkegaard would probably categorize him as ‘demonic'. Although he seems to be aware of the leap into uncertainty, trusting that legendary things are going to happen, he manipulates this move to produce a certain result. Namely, he plays the game in such a way that new situations will present themselves, he latches onto them, but he never gives up his old conception of himself. Barney is closed off to becoming anyone other than who he wants himself to be. He's not open to becoming someone different (until perhaps Season Eight); his identity is not open to discussion. He's not Swarley, he's not Jennifer, he's Barney, and he always wears a suit. This makes him what Kierkegaard referred to as a ‘demonic' figure. He understands newness and change, but manipulates these in such a way that he never changes himself; he never gives himself up. It's the ultimate identity crisis: the one that never ends.

Legen . . . wait-for-it . . . dary and the Midlife–Identity Crisis

“Legen . . . wait-for-it . . . dary” is a catchphrase that I think points to a conception of time that is open to newness and not limited to cause and effect. This concept of time, where anything can happen and you can be ready for it if you play your cards right, is something that I think is key to being yourself and getting out of midlife identity crises. It shows that there's an active aspect to being yourself and dealing with time—realizing that you're responsible for the situation you're thrown into, even though you didn't choose to be there, and accepting the opportunities that the past gives you, while at the same time realizing that you're free to move forward in life by preparing to orient yourself as open to your fully undecided and indeterminate future. You prepare to truly become someone new, repeatedly, over and over again. Legen-wait-for-it-dary also reveals the passive aspect to being yourself and dealing with time—realizing that if something new happens, it will present itself in the world, and not be a situation that you manufacture, create, or manipulate into existence. And in uniting the two, you get the possibility of something new in the present: legen (active preparation)-wait for it (passive, acceptance of a new moment)-dary (something new happens and you capture the moment).

And that's one of the many aspects of
How I Met Your Mother
that makes it so awesome. That it's all about those special moments when we're just being ourselves, when we make choices and are open to the world around us, and something simply extraordinary happens. . . . And Ted finally meets the mother of his children. . . . It's going to be legen . . . wait-for-it . . .!

¹
Being and Time
(Harper and Row, 1962), p. 32.

13

Is It Irrational to Wait for the Slutty Pumpkin?

T
OBIAS
H
AINZ AND
Y
VONNE
W
ÜRZ

K
ids, all of us know people who appear to be deluded, out of their mind, utterly crazy—perhaps not on all occasions, but in particular situations—and especially when those people are near and dear to us, we usually try to bring them back to normal.

Imagine that a good friend of yours spent Halloween at a roof party every year because he wanted to meet a particular woman he had met on this very roof years ago. You would probably try to talk him out of his plans because there are simply thousands of Halloween parties in your city, which is one reason why your friend's chance of meeting this woman is close to zero. If your best friend's fiancée suddenly called off the wedding, split up with him, and quit her job as a kindergarten teacher to pursue a career as an artist, you would probably believe her to be insane and call her a grinch. Some philosophers believe we can explain precisely what's wrong with behavior like this, behavior they call “irrational.”

Many cases of irrational behavior are pretty straightforward. If your boyfriend suddenly expressed the desire to jump off a bridge, you would no doubt try to talk him out of this plan, and if you spotted your girlfriend running around naked in public, you would try to persuade her to follow you into your house, so that you can enjoy the view all by yourself. However, the case of the guy who attends the same Halloween party each and every year and the case of your best friend's fiancée are much more difficult to solve. Is it really the best choice to convince the poor guy on the roof to leave and accompany you to a
Victoria's Secret party? And is your best friend's fiancée really insane and deserving to be called a grinch?

Ted Needs Your Advice!

People do things to bring about states of affairs they want to prevail. So we can look at the desires people have and we can look at whether their actions really will bring about those states of affairs. Let's take a closer look at the Halloween roof party!

The Halloween roof party is featured in the episode “Slutty Pumpkin” (Season One). Ted attends this same party every year because he's obsessed with a woman disguised as a “slutty pumpkin” he met there years ago. We don't know whether Ted sincerely believes that he will meet her there, but we know that he hopes that she will show up, so that he can get another shot at trying to score with her. Barney, on the other hand, oscillates between incredulity in the face of Ted's seemingly foolish behavior, compassion, the desire to help his friend by inviting him to a Victoria's Secret party, and mischievousness—when he shows up disguised as a penguin and makes Ted believe that the woman of his dreams has finally arrived. Not surprisingly, the slutty pumpkin does not show up at the party, and Ted's desire is frustrated again, just as it was in the previous years. Now let's see how a philosopher might analyze this situation.

The major
state of affairs
involved in “Slutty Pumpkin” is that the slutty pumpkin actually attends the Halloween party on the roof—this would satisfy Ted's desire. Other states of affairs featured in the same episode are that Robin finally finds Ted on the roof, that Marshall dresses up as Jack Sparrow, and that Barney repeatedly changes his costume. A state of affairs can either exist—like the ones just mentioned—and can fail to exist—like the state of affairs that the slutty pumpkin attends the same Halloween party as Ted. So, you can imagine plenty of states of affairs, but we're concerned with these which do not yet exist, but play a role in the desires of people who want them to exist in the future.

Now imagine you were a friend of Ted, sitting right next to Barney, Lily, Marshall, and Robin at MacLaren's, being asked by him right before the Halloween party whether he should go there or not. Although you don't know whether the state of
affairs that the slutty pumpkin attends the same party will come about or not, you do know that there is a certain
probability
that it will come about. Maybe you don't know the exact value of this probability—you are a philosopher, not omniscient—but you can estimate its value, and you know that it's extremely low. Millions of people live in New York, and there are plenty of Halloween parties, so you can roughly imagine the probability of the slutty pumpkin showing up on this night. This is the
subjective
probability of this state of affairs, with you being the subject, as opposed to its
objective
probability only known by God.

However, since it is not you who needs advice but rather, Ted, his subjective probability has to be determined. You should ask him, then: “How likely do you think it is that the slutty pumpkin attends the Halloween party on the roof this year? Just give me a number between 0 and 1, with 1 being absolute certainty that she will show up, 0 being the complete opposite, absolute certainty that she will not show up, and 0.5 basically resembling a coin toss.” If you get an answer from Ted, congratulations, this is the first step to arriving at a philosophically justified piece of advice you can give to Ted.

Your next step should be to ask which
utility
he would assign to meeting the slutty pumpkin again, that is, how happy he would be seeing her in this astonishing costume. For simplicity, ask him which number between 1 and 10 he would assign to this state of affairs, with 10 being ‘absolute bliss' and 1 being ‘utterly depressed'. We can expect Ted to assign a very high number to meeting the slutty pumpkin, something like a 9 because a 10 would be reserved for entering a relationship with Robin. It's important that you don't assign a number to this state of affairs by yourself because you can't look into Ted's mind and because you yourself happen to be completely uninterested in the slutty pumpkin. It's Ted's utility that matters in this case, not yours, not Barney's, not anyone else's because we're trying to get at whether Ted's behavior is irrational or not.

Let's assume that he has given you a utility of 9 and a subjective probability of 0.1, that is, a 10 percent chance that she shows up—which is exceedingly optimistic. What you want to know is the expected utility of the state of affairs in question with regard to Ted, and you get it by multiplying his subjective
probability, which is 0.1, and his utility, which is 9, so you end up with an expected utility of 0.9. That's it.

So what's our advice?

Why the Math Matters

We're still at MacLaren's, and Ted is waiting for the advice that you pretentiously claimed to be able to derive from a fairly simple mathematical operation. Barney is already planning to introduce you to the girl with the nerdy glasses over there, Lily has fallen asleep, Marshall's mouth will stay open for the rest of the evening, and Robin has already left for her date with Mike. Your triumphant smile, however, is an indicator of your ingenuity, so you tell Ted: “Be patient, my friend, and I'll tell you why this matters and what you should do. Remember, we have calculated an expected utility of 0.9, which you will receive if you attend the Halloween party on the roof and the slutty pumpkin shows up. Think of this as your reward—the higher, the better. But Barney here wants to go to the Victoria's Secret party, and he is so kind to take you with him if you wish to. Let's just play the same game again: Tell me how likely it is that you will meet a nice model and assign a utility to this state of affairs.”

After a brief moment of reflection, Ted tells you that he estimates the chance of ending up with a Victoria's Secret model as being a coin toss of 0.5 (or fifty percent). Actually, Ted argues, he is a quite handsome guy, and Barney is an efficient wing-man (though this may be hard to admit), so 0.5 is a justified guess. Furthermore, a random model may not be the slutty pumpkin and certainly not Robin, but it's also much better than nothing, so he assigns a utility of 5 to it. You quickly multiply 0.5 with 5 and shout: “Forget the slutty pumpkin and head to the Victoria's Secret party. If you attend the roof party, you get a feeble expected utility of 0.9, but if you accompany Barney, you end up with a much better expected utility of 2.5. It would be
irrational
to attend the roof party because rational people maximize their expected utility, and you do this by going to the Victoria's Secret party. Math doesn't lie, bro!”

Perhaps you can imagine Ted's reaction: “I thought you were a philosopher, not some math crackpot!” Fortunately, you have already prepared a splendid response: “It's actually very easy,
Ted. You really wish to end up with the slutty pumpkin, but you also think that meeting a random Victoria's Secret model is not too bad either. You also believe that your chance of meeting the slutty pumpkin at the roof party are actually quite low (one in ten) whereas your chance of hooking up with a model are quite good (fifty-fifty). So you have a good reason to go to the Victoria's Secret party and no good reasons to attend the roof party. My little bit of math is just more accurate than ordinary language, but both are based on your own desires and beliefs, and both tell the same story: Victoria's Secret is better for you than the roof party, so it's irrational to wait for the slutty pumpkin.”

What have we learned from this? First, we know what it means to act irrationally and how to avoid it. An irrational person does not maximize her expected utility but rather performs actions that promise a lower expected utility than the possible maximum—in short, they do things that are not in their best interest given their present desires and beliefs. Second, it would be irrational for Ted to attend the Halloween party on the roof because attending the Victoria's Secret party holds a much higher expected utility for him. This is not simply an unjustified postulate, but based on Ted's own state of mind: Although his desire to meet the slutty pumpkin is much stronger than his desire to meet a random Victoria's Secret model, he should still try to satisfy his weaker desire because he believes that meeting a random model is more probable than meeting the slutty pumpkin.