Wednesday 13 June 2012

Buttering cats

I'd not heard of the buttered cat paradox until commenter JC referenced it:
Frankly, both these scenarios horrify me so I guess we'll get some ungainly version of the the "buttered cat" bouncing between the two extremes.
I couldn't imagine a buttered cat would bounce, so I proposed the following experiment, the results of which (thought experiment conducted in my head) I also reported:
Hypothesis: A buttered cat will not bounce but rather will sit and lick itself until clean.
Materials: One cat. Butter.
Method: Butter cat. Drop from 1' height onto solid surface. Observe whether cat bounces or stops, sits, and licks self until butter is gone.
Observation: Cats do not being buttered. Pointy ends matter.
Conclusions: Do not butter a cat.
Turns out, somebody's actually run the experiment. Except using buttered toast. The cat wins.


As always, my commenters help me to learn things I didn't know before. Thanks!

10 comments:

  1. I'm not convinced about the tests in that video -- the bread was under-toasted and poorly buttered.

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    1. I didn't know that the toast theorem had such strict guidelines. But, Duhem-Quine is always a problem.

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  2. If you do it right this is what really happens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc

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    1. Wow. I was in the dark about a huge meme. That doesn't usually happen. I must not be wasting enough time on the internet.

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  3. Here's the specifics of space flight energy from the buttered cats:

    http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Murphy%27s_law_application_for_antigravitatory_cats

    Its application to Chch is there will always be too much or too little butter, causing a very erratic redevelopment.

    JC

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    1. Dear Gods. People have put more work into this problem than the Wikipedia piece I linked? On the other hand, even a low probability of infinite free energy seems worth putting some effort into investigating.

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  4. This test didn't prove anything. Not enough butter and not nailed to the cat.

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    1. Every test is both a test of the stated hypothesis and of all of the unstated auxillary assumptions around the hypothesis. What really counts as a "cat" for purposes of the experiment? What's the essential nature of buttered toast? Maybe we've only found that what we thought was toast isn't really "toast". Quinean indeterminacy is a cruel and heartless beast.

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  5. add mustard before drop cat and everything changes, cat, any cat, any cat at all can really bounce, this proves theorem convincing

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  6. another thing you supposed to drop cat upside down, otherwise there is no proof it can move, and as I said above you add mustard up bum and it move ok, its a one off test, then your cat go live down the road, next door, goodbye cat

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