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16478 | A mother cat is paralysed if equidistant between two needy kittens [Russell] |
Full Idea: I once, to test the story of Buridan's Ass, put a cat exactly half-way between her two kittens, both too young to move: for a time she found the disjunction paralysing. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5) | |
A reaction: Buridan's Ass is said to have starved between two equal piles of hay. Reason can't be the tie-breaker; reason obviously says 'choose one!', but intellectualism demands a reason for the one you choose. |