How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (33 page)

Oh, and do rent
Crocodile Dundee 3
. I saw it on cable last night and it totally holds up.

17

Awesome Logic for the Possimpible World

M
ICHELA
B
ORDIGNON

K
ids, what is the possimpible? At a first sight, the possimpible seems to be just a nonsense word made up to impress chicks, employers, and people watching TV shows. Nothing could be more wrong. Let's look carefully at Barney's words in his video resume in the fourteenth episode of Season Four:

        
B
ARNEY
:
All my life, I have dared to go past what is possible.

        
F
AKE
I
NTERVIEWER
:
To the impossible?

        
B
ARNEY
:
Actually, past that . . . to the place where the possible and the impossible meet to become . . . the possimpible. If I can leave you with one thought, it's this: Nothing . . . and everything . . . is possimpible. (“The Possimpible”)

In the possimpible two opposites—the possible and the impossible—become one. The possible is what can normally happen the way things are. The impossible is what can't happen the way things are. Saying that there's something such as the possimpible means that something that cannot happen actually can happen. The possimpible basically turns something into something that it is not. Therefore, the possimpible apparently is nonsense and this is why Lily derides Barney's resume, and more specifically the passage on the possimpible, as ridiculous and insane.

Lily's skepticism towards the possimpible can be traced back to the traditional skepticism of classical logic towards contradictions.
Logic studies the relations between different forms of sentences and the implications of these relations. Contradiction is a particular kind of relation between sentences that has been widely discussed in logic.

More precisely, contradiction is the conjunction of two sentences, each one being the negation of the other. So, a contradiction could be a statement such as ‘Barney is awesome and Barney is not awesome'. Contradiction can also be defined as the conjunction of two sentences, where if one is true, the other is necessarily false (If ‘Barney is awesome' is true then ‘Barney is not awesome' is necessarily false, and vice versa).

Barney's discourse on the possimpible perfectly embodies what a contradiction is. In the possimpible the possible and the impossible meet and become one: the impossible becomes possible and therefore it can be said to be both
something that cannot happen
and
something that can happen
. How can this be possible? Can someone assert a sentence and its own negation at the same time and in the same sense? Things seems to get difficult for Barney. To make things clearer we could picture the following situation in our mind.

Strange Encounters in a Bar

Barney's sitting in MacLaren's drinking a beer and looking around for the next chick to make a move on. A handsome Greek guy dressed in a toga suit, small beard and a self-confident look, comes and sits on Barney's right.

With a surprised look in his eyes, Barney says: “What's up, dude? Nice suit, by the way. Is it a toga party suit, like in the
Animal House
movie?” The Greek guy impatiently answers: “No, Barney. I come from the past. I'm Aristotle. I've been reading your blog lately. The crap you wrote about the possimpible really pissed me off. Have you ever read my
Metaphysics
? Or have you at least heard of the law of non-contradiction? And Barney answers: “Hey dude! Calm down! What is it with this law of non-contradiction?”

Aristotle says: “Okay, blondie, I'll be your wing-man. I'll help you out here with this nonsensical talk about the possimpible. There were no blogs for my fans in ancient Greece, but I used to make notes of the awesome things I was teaching them. These notes have been published in a book titled
Metaphysics
.
That was done after I died and some people made a whole shipload of money from it, but—whatever, that's off-topic.

“The important thing is that if you read this book, you'll get rid of your crazy, contradictory talk about the possimpible. My
Metaphysics
is a kind of philosophical Bro Code, where the most important philosophical questions are addressed. Rule number one of the philosophical Bro Code is the law of non-contradiction. Article number one is the logical formulation of this law: it says that contradictory propositions can never be true at the same time and in the same sense: you just can't say that the chick down there is hot and that she is not hot, the two sentences cannot both be true.
¹

“Article number two is the psychological formulation of this law; it says that contradictions are not even thinkable: you cannot even think that the chick down there is hot and that she is not hot, because you can think only one of the two at a time.
²
Article number three is the ontological formulation of the law, that says that contradictions cannot exist: the chick down there cannot be both hot and not hot, because she necessarily is only one of the two (being hot and not being hot are incompatible properties).
³

“So, listen up Barney, everyone would agree with me about the law of non-contradiction: it's intuitively true and no way magic tricks will get rid of it. So, please stop this crazy talk of the possimpible. The possible and the impossible cannot be one and the same thing. Every reasonable person would reject this. Surely you can see that this must be right!”

Aristotle has just finished talking and a creepy guy in a monk suit strolls into MacLaren's and sits on Barney's left. With an admiring look in his eyes Barney says: “What's up, dude? Nice suit, by the way. Is it the Obi-Wan Kenobi suit?” The creepy medieval guy, with a super-mean look in his eyes, whispers: “No Barney, I too come from the past, but I am not as old as Toga Guy. I'm Duns Scotus, and I'm not here to teach you
how to live, I'm here to teach you how to talk and think properly. Of course, this will change your life too, because you will stop all this senseless blabbering about the possimpible.”

Barney's a bit put out. He replies: “Okay bro, Toga Guy told me that trying to think the possimpible is crazy, and I get that, even if I think there can be a kind of sense in being crazy. But why do you call it ‘senseless blabbering'?”

Scoto takes a long breath, and then he answers: “Barney, this is not going to be easy, but I will try to explain. The problem with what you say about the possimpible is not just the law of non-contradiction. There's another law you should be aware of when you try to say that contradictory things such as the possimpible actually exist. I didn't discover this law, even though lot of people think I did, but I am fond of it. The name of this law is
ex falso quodlibet
, but I prefer to call it in a more playful way, the principle of explosion. This law makes your whole discourse about the possimpible explode.

“Let's consider the example given by Toga Guy. Let's assume that 1. ‘The chick down there is hot
and
the chick down there is not hot'. If we take this contradictory statement to be true, we have to conclude that
both
parts of it are true, which means that 2. ‘The chick down there is hot' is true and 3. ‘The chick down there is not hot' is also true'.”

So Barney goes: “Okay, that's obvious. You don't need to be monk-suited-up to say that.” And Creepy Monk Guy smiles creepily and goes: “Wait for it, Barney, wait . . . for it . . . there's more to come. You got that both ‘the chick down there is hot' and ‘the chick down there is not hot' are true. From this you can infer that 4. ‘The chick down there is hot or bimbos love studying formal logic'.”

At this point Barney's a little skeptical: “Oooookay, tell me how!” Creepy Monk Guy starts sniggering: “You see, my dear bro, it's quite easy . . . I hope you can follow me. Think of a sentence of the form ‘
p
or
q
' where
p
is the first sentence ‘The chick down there is hot' and
q
is the second sentence ‘The chick down there is not hot'. The truth of one of the two sentences, that is, the truth of either
p
or
q
, is sufficient for the whole statement to be true. Therefore, in the statement 4. ‘The chick down there is hot or bimbos love studying formal logic' the truth of either ‘the chick down there is hot' or ‘bimbos love studying formal logics' is sufficient for the whole pair of statements to be true,
and we know this is the case since we know from point 2. that ‘the chick down there is hot' is true.”

Barney's a tad confused and so he orders another beer, then he says: “Okay bro, how do bimbos studying whatever deal with the chick down there? And, by the way, if formal logic is something like what you're doing with me now, believe me, bimbos don't like this. They would get lost at point 1. The sentence ‘Bimbos love studying formal logic' is crap.” Creepy Monk Guy jumps up, kisses Barney on the forehead (yup, creepy) and shouts: “Bang! Got it! That's the point!”

Barney starts to feel a little scared here. “You see, you remember point 2., ‘The chick down there is hot'. But now look at point 3. ‘The chick down there is not hot'. If this sentence is true, its negation, or we could also say its opposite, that is, 5. ‘The chick down there is hot', is false.” Barney can feel the approaching danger; he's on his knees begging the monk weirdo to stop. But Creepy Monk Guy has no pity and goes: “Oh Barney, my best bro Barney, if 5. ‘The chick down there is hot' is false and 4. ‘The chick down there is hot or bimbos love studying formal logic' is true, this can only be because ‘bimbos love studying formal logic' is true. That's logical, that follows. True story!”

Barney is lying twisted on the floor. He can't really explain what's just happened. Tears come to his eyes and he goes on moaning like a dead man walking, waiting for the end to come: “Bimbos can't love formal logic! Bimbos can't love formal logic!” Then he raises his hands, looks up at the ceiling, he cries out: “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!” And pitiless Creepy Monk Guy pours further salt into Barney's wound: “Muahahahahahaha! Yes Barney, they can and they do love formal logic! This is what must become true if you admit true contradictions. Everything can be true as well as false if you allow that even one contradiction exists!

“Read my lips. I could have replaced the sentence ‘Bimbos love studying formal logic' with any other sentence. Things would have worked out just the same. You see where we're going with this? Assuming the truth of a contradiction in any system, and thus also in your crazy possimpible state of mind, means to say that in this system everything is true. But if everything is true there is no longer
any
difference between truth and falsity, and every sentence or thought, even the most
absurd one, like ‘Bimbos love studying formal logic', turns out to be true. Contradiction is something that makes any system that allows it explode.”

Now Barney seems to be definitely beaten. He's sadly staring at the floor thinking of bimbos loving formal logic or doing other preposterous things, like wearing a nun's habit and spending the night praying at the church, instead of trying to get over their daddy issues by drinking beer at the bar. Aristotle and Duns Scotus are both grinning, waiting for Barney to concede that it's senseless to talk about the possimpible.

But Barney's not beaten. He slowly raises his head, smiles and says: “Challenge accepted! Guys, see you tomorrow here, same place, same suits. I promise you I will turn your dreary, normal, boring world into a contradictory, possimpible, and legen . . . wait-for-it . . . dary world!”

Aristotle and Duns Scotus look at each other, puzzled. They weren't actually thinking of what they'd said as a challenge, but as the
coup de grâce
. And as for Barney's confident promise, well . . .

Challenge Accepted!

Barney's a pragmatic person. First thing he does is to call his bet guy. But Barney knows that he cannot win this challenge by himself. Everyone knows that Barney has a suit guy, a whip guy, and so on. What few people know is that Barney also has two philosophy guys.

The first of Barney's philosophy guys is a Kraut. He calls himself Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Barney doesn't have time to waste, so he just calls him Georgy. He seems a little lame, not really good looking and he sometimes has the ‘crazy eyes'. The other guy's a Brit and always wears a Karate Kid suit. He has the mysterious and wise look of David Carradine in
Kill Bill
, the jaunty stride of Bruce Willis in
Pulp Fiction
, and the childlike crazy smile of Juliette Lewis in
Natural Born Killers
. His name is Graham Priest. Barney calls him Gramey. Now, it so happens that Barney knows something most philosophers don't: that Georgy and Gramey are really terrific friends.

Barney gives them a call. Actually, he calls Gramey because Georgy is super old (about 250) and asks them both to be his
wingmen in the fight against Toga Guy and Creepy Monk Guy. What they have to do is show Barney a way of proving the existence of the possimpible.

So Gramey and Georgy rush over to MacLaren's. They find Barney all alone, lost in his thoughts. They tell him: “Let's take another look at your video resume, bro. Maybe we can fix this possimpible thing.”