What is the enlightenment of the grinder selling donkeys?

La Fontaine is a famous French fable poet in the17th century. He has a fable poem "The Grinder Selling Donkeys", which is interesting and thought-provoking. Summarized as follows:

An old grinder and his fifteen-year-old son went to the market to sell donkeys. In order to make the animals look fat and sell well, they put the donkeys on their backs. The road was full of curses: "Poor thing! Fool! Rough embryo! Fool! " Some people also laughed and said, "The stupidest donkey among the three seems not to be the donkey himself!" " The grinder then let his son ride on the donkey and walk by himself. Not long after leaving, an old businessman shouted to the child, "Come down! Come down! " The reason is that "young people go to the old class" is indecent. So they changed their position. Later, three girls saw it and cursed the old fool for abusing the child. The old man quickly put his son on the donkey. Less than thirty paces later, someone took the fall for the donkey. The old grinder complained bitterly, so he had to let the donkey lead the team and the father and son be the followers. A gentleman sneered again: "Is this a new fashion, liberating donkeys?" At this time, the grinder finally realized that he had chosen a plan and went his own way according to what others said.

This fable warns people to have their own opinions in everything, and don't let people race horses in their heads casually. This fable itself contains a logical truth. The relationship between the old man, the child and the donkey can be classified as a selective judgment: either the father and son carry the donkey, or the child rides the old man on the donkey, or changes the place, or "wronged" the donkey, and both of them ride on it, or show humanity to the beast.

In the above judgment, the elderly have five choices, and they should and can find at least one appropriate way from them. "He did it, but he did it well!"

Choice judgment is a judgment that determines some possible situations of things.

In selective judgment, every possible situation of reflected things forms a branch judgment, which is called selective judgment. There are at least two optional branches to choose from. The whole judgment did not make a final judgment on everything.

Judging whether it is selective or not and whether it is true or not are two different problems.

Whether the choice of words is true or not is related to whether the choice of words is exhausted. Exhaustion means listing every possibility.

Detailed selective judgment must be true selective judgment. In a specific range, all realistic possibilities have been included, at least one of which must be true, so the whole judgment is true. For example, the land subsidence in Shanghai is caused by rising sea level, pumping a lot of groundwater, the pressure of high-rise buildings or the exploitation of underground natural gas. All the possibilities are exhausted here, so it is a real choice of words.

A true selective judgment can be endless. "Zhang San is either from Guangdong or Jiangxi", if we can determine whether Zhang San is from Guangdong or Jiangxi, even if this choice of words is endless, it is true.

Word selection judgment is a common form of thinking. Public security personnel should list all kinds of possibilities when solving a case, a commander should make all kinds of operational plans for comparison, and doctors should put forward all kinds of assumptions when seeing a doctor ... This kind of selective judgment can estimate all aspects of the situation, make people think about the problem carefully, thus indicating the scope of understanding the problem and providing clues to solve the problem.

Galileo of Italy is a master of modern experimental physics, and his intelligence has also shone brilliantly in solving crimes, but it is not widely known.

One day, a rich man with many birds in his family held a banquet in his villa in the suburbs. Shortly after the banquet began, a countess among the guests lost a diamond ring. Before washing her hands, she put the diamond ring on the table in the living room on the third floor, but when she returned to the living room from the bathroom, the diamond ring disappeared and there was a small toothpick on the table. The same thing happened here before, and there was a small toothpick where the diamond ring was lost.

The diamond ring was indeed stolen, which is not a false report. Everyone is talking about it. The thief either came in through the door or climbed in through the window. However, the living room on the third floor was locked when the diamond ring was lost twice, which ruled out the possibility that the thief opened the door with a key. There are no ladders and other climbing tools outside the window. The diamond ring is really gone.

Just as the guests were puzzled, Galileo sent the latest telescope ordered by the rich man. Someone said to him, "Mr Galileo, you have superhuman wisdom. Can you help us solve this case? " Otherwise, we are all suspects. "

After listening to the introduction of the theft twice, Galileo asked, "Where was the bird man in the villa at the time of the crime?" The rich man said, "He is in the hut on the other side of the yard and has never been here."

Galileo said, "He is the mastermind of the theft. He can't be wrong! "

The bird man confessed. Galileo was praised as a scientist with brains, agility and open mind.

It turns out that the birdman secretly trained his bird to fly to the third floor to hold a diamond ring. In order to prevent the bird from singing, he asked it to hold a small toothpick. If the bird that stole something is caught, people will not pursue it.

The guest's comment that "the thief either opened the door or came in through the window" is incoherent. I just missed the real choice of words, so I chose the wrong words.

In ancient times, there was a joke that there was a Lu man who wanted to go to town with a long bamboo pole. At first, he held it vertically, because the bamboo pole was too high to enter the door. It's too long to hold it sideways, but I still can't get in the door. He can't think of a way. An old gentleman said to him, "I am not a saint, but I have seen many." Why don't you cut it out and bring it in? "

Neither of them knows the simplest common sense of life, which is really pedantic and ridiculous. The thinking process of the two gentlemen can form endless choice of words and judgments on how to bring bamboo poles into the city. Although the old man's idea is a bad idea, you can't help but say that it is also one of the plans, and you can't help but admit that this topic is true. Because it just omits the more convenient method of holding the pole into the door, it is not an appropriate choice of words. But it is not logical to judge whether it is appropriate or not.

There are many amazing examples of success in life, which are worth learning. Sima Guang of the Song Dynasty was very clever from an early age. Once, a child fell into a big bucket full of water, and his life was dying. A large group of children panicked. At this time, Sima Guang picked up a big stone, smashed the jar without hesitation, and rescued his companion in time.

There are various rescue schemes, and the parties concerned should make corresponding choices according to the specific circumstances.

There was a heavy truck under the bridge to pass, because the cargo was too high, exceeding 10 mm, and the driver got off and watched it for a long time. He is considering whether to unload the goods, drive there and reload them, or take a detour for an extra 30 kilometers. At this time, a child on the side of the road said, "You should deflate the tire a little and drive slowly."

This is really a brilliant idea. The choice of words made by the driver is endless, and he hasn't found the best solution yet. The method of deflation is the blind spot for drivers to think about problems.

There is an intelligence test, the topic is to insert a cork into the bottle mouth of a beverage bottle, and the cork is flush with the bottle mouth. How can we get a drink as soon as possible? Don't forget, the best solution is to force the cork into the bottle. This is also a blind spot to solve the problem, because usually the cork has to be pulled out.

A famous aircraft designer said that when seeking the best scheme, sometimes we will deliberately look for the so-called absurd places, which may lead to success. Of course, how to find the optimal solution and how to comprehensively judge the actual situation is not something that logic itself can solve.

Word selection can be divided into compatible word selection and incompatible word selection. The so-called compatible selection judgment means that all the things or situations reflected by each selection branch can be saved, and two or even all of them can exist at the same time. The previous alternative judgment on land subsidence is a compatible alternative judgment.

In the judgment of compatible choice words, the choice relationship of each choice branch is generally represented by the conjunctions "or ……, or ……", "maybe ……, maybe …" and "maybe ……, maybe …".

If the consistent disjunction judgment is true, then at least one branch judgment is true, and two branch judgments or even all branch judgments can be true. If none of the judgments is true, then the whole judgment is false. For example, "Confucius is either a thinker, an educator or a philosopher." In this true selective judgment, all three judgments are true. For another example, "Saturn's sixth satellite is either alive or dead." This disjunctive branch, which is incompatible with disjunctive judgment, cannot be saved. One and only one of it is true.

Things or situations reflected by incompatible substitutes cannot exist at the same time. An alternative judgment containing an incompatible alternative branch is an incompatible alternative judgment.

In general, the choice relation of disjunctive branches in incompatible disjunctive judgment is indicated by the conjunction "either", or "either" is sometimes used as a conjunction to judge incompatible sentences.

Since "or" and "or" can indicate the choice relationship of compatibility or incompatibility, how to judge whether they are compatible or incompatible? This needs to analyze the specific content, and formal logic itself is powerless.

Let's analyze an example:

This work has shortcomings in ideology, artistry or both.

For the above judgment, a book said: "Adding' both' here clearly shows that there are shortcomings in thought and shortcomings in art, which are compatible."

This view is actually wrong. If the above judgment does not talk about "or both", it is a compatible choice of words. Judging from the content, there is a third possibility, that is, there are shortcomings in both thought and art. However, since the above judgment lists the third possibility, it cannot be said that the first alternative branch is compatible with the second alternative branch.