I've become very interested in logic. How it effects human behavior and machine behavior alike. Just today I discovered that my brain does not respond logically to inverse logic. I approached the exit to a shop. There were two doors, one was locked and one was unlocked. The locked door had a paper sign taped above it's handle with an arrow pointing to the unlocked door and words stating "please use other door". As I approched both doors to exit, I pushed on the locked door, looking directly at the sign. A few seconds went by and I pushed the unlocked door after reading the sign and understanding the meaning.
I interpret my initial failure as a reaction to indirection. The sign did not inform me which door to use, though it was placed on the door not to use. After reading the sign it was obvious which door to use since the arrow was pointing to it, but the keyword "other" is indirect. It does not specify anything more than the fact that this door is not functioning as a door, so it should not be used. It does not answer the question of where the "other door" is located. I think a more direct instruction would be to place a sign on the unlocked door stating "please use this door". There's not contextual shift and the problem remains within this single point of view. Of course the most logical solution would be if the shopkeeper would unlock both doors, since a locked door isn't much use during business hours.I have an honorary degree in software engineering from the university of the Internet. I propose to a different friend on facebook every monday. I'm single on weekends, which is when I hack on things like web programming, sound synthesis and databases. I hack on drop.io when I'm married.
