I have read the book: “Plato and Platypus walk into a bar”, by Thomas Carthart and Daniel Klein, with the subtitle: Understanding philosophy through jokes. And that is what it does. They talk you trough all sorts of philosophical notions, from Metaphysics via Ethics to Meta-Philosophy and everything in between. They explain the ideas from philosophers and illustrate them with jokes. The funny part, it works. Sometimes the essence of an idea wasn’t clear to me after the initial explanation. But after a few jokes I got it. And a lot of the jokes are really funny.
A few short examples:
On Metaphilosophy:
A blind man, a lesbian and a frog walk into a bar. The barkeep looks up at them and says, “What is this-a joke?”
On Relativity:
A man is praying to God. “Lord”he prays,
“I would like to ask you an question.”
The Lord responds, “No problem, go ahead”.
“Is it true that a million years to you is but a second?”
“Yes that is true” “Well, then, what is a million dollar to you?”
“A million dollar to me is but a penny”
“Ah, then Lord”, says the man. May I have a penny!”
“Sure” says the Lord, “just a second”
And a final one on existentialism:
Two cows are standing in a field.
One says to the other: “What do you think about this mad cow disease”?
“What do I care” says the other. “I’m a helicopter”
I think it is a must read. They also have a website: http://www.platoandaplatypus.com/ check it out.
The Learning 2019 conference
I have been to a ton of learning conferences but this will be my first time at #learning2019. I’m looking forward to it and I’m planning to report on all interesting sessions via this blog.