The Philosopher & The Engineer

[Edwardo Piet]

I found this rather funny, from Saturday Morning Breakfast cereal, comics, it's what happens when an engineer discusses with a philosopher, lol:



http://www.smbc-comics.com/

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Puts me in mind of this one:

A philosopher, a physicist and an engineer are escorted into a room in which a stunningly beautiful woman is reclining on a sofa, wearing nothing but a hair ribbon and a smile. They are told to approach her asymptotically.

The philosopher thinks for a moment and says, 'This is clearly a Xenoic paradox - I would first need to cover half the distance to this woman then half of the remaining distance, and so on. Since there would always be half of the remaining distances to cover - an infinite series- I could never actually reach, so the attempt to do so would be futile. '

The physicist looks at the philosopher as if the latter has suddenly sprouted a second nose and says, 'While I agree with you about the impossibility of traversing an infinite series, I could certainly get close enough to make it worth my while. '

The engineer scratches his head and says, 'Why would I want to approach THAT?'

Boru

[Whateverist]

Puts me in mind of this one:

A philosopher, a physicist and an engineer are escorted into a room in which a stunningly beautiful woman is reclining on a sofa, wearing nothing but a hair ribbon and a smile. They are told to approach her asymptotically.

The philosopher thinks for a moment and says, 'This is clearly a Xenoic paradox - I would first need to cover half the distance to this woman then half of the remaining distance, and so on. Since there would always be half of the remaining distances to cover - an infinite series- I could never actually reach, so the attempt to do so would be futile. '

The physicist looks at the philosopher as if the latter has suddenly sprouted a second nose and says, 'While I agree with you about the impossibility of traversing an infinite series, I could certainly get close enough to make it worth my while. '

The engineer scratches his head and says, 'Why would I want to approach THAT?'

Boru

I'm having a thick moment (of indeterminate duration perhaps) but I'm not getting it.  Any help?

[Edwardo Piet]

I get the joke if you replace "would" with "wouldn't".

[vorlon13]

The engineer doesn't know what part of the lady is her asymptotically.


And I confess, and it's probably due in my case to the homo thing, but I don't know what that is either.

[Edwardo Piet]

Nah, they're approaching her asymptotically, which is a specific way of moving based on mathematical principles (hence the mention of Zeno of Eleca's Dichotomy Paradox)... I just don't see why the engineer doesn't want to come into contact with the woman even if he could. I thought his answer would be "Why WOULDN'T I want to approach HER?" rather than "Why would I want to approach THAT?", so I don't get it. Unless he is referring to the problem, IOW, unless he means "Why would I want to approach the problem rather than approach the lady? Stop the mental masturbation and just approach her already!"?

[Whateverist]

Yeah but I can smooth out the wrinkles. I would have thought Vorlon would be down with ass-in-totally. I'm thinking maybe the engineer would prefer her front door? Not clear.

[Doubting Thomas]

I thought maybe it was going to go something like this:

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."

The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."