'I am the president of the United States' - a tribute to Bertrand Russell. #toomuchtimeonplanes
(this is an English, US altered version of the original article published in November 2011 that can be found here). Disclaimer:
This post is a tribute to Bertrand Russell, the brilliant philosopher and politician. Any reference to the president of the United States is just contextually serendipituous and a mere coincidence when the subject of this post was created. It is also intended to leverage on its relevancy and hopefully increase the reach of this blog through search engines and content discovery (... at least I'd like to try given poor metrics around here).
Starting from an axiom acepted as an universal truth we can prove Mr. Obama and I are the same person, therefore, I'm the president of the United States.
Don't believe it, do you?
Let's drill down beneath:
As everyone knows, one plus one doesn't equal two always. It is an universally acepted truth the sum of the parts can lead to a greater result (e.g: one plus one, in a marriage, typically derive in a family: three or more from the moment the first baby comes).
Taking this postulate as the underlying logic, the corresponding rationale follows:
- The equation 1+1 = 3 (or more than 3) is possible and true.
- Hence 2 = 3
- Substracting 1 at both sides of the equation 1 = 2
- Mirroring the equation 2 = 1
Now...
If the President of the United States and I are 2 different persons and 2 = 1, then Mr. Obama and I are 1, therefore, I'm the President.
From now on please refer to me as Mr. President or Prez in short, in case you follow me on twitter (at @efernandez).
PS: Bertrand Russell was a brilliant British philosopher and politician from last century. He became famous when he said the British prime minister was worse than Hitler at that time. Bertrand, using the same rationale as above, demonstrated he and the Pope were the same person.
(By the way, following this logic, if I could demonstrate that I am Mr. Russell, then, Mr. Obama and the Pope would be the same person, shocking, isn't it? ;-)
from the series #toomuchtimeonplanes