This update of an old limrick from a New Scientist reader tickled my funny bone, so I thought I’d share it with you:
There was a young man who said,
“Damn!
I now understand that I am
A being that moves
In predestinate grooves,
Not a car, not a bus, but a tram”
…and Alan Worsley’s reply:
The young fellow then thought,
“No,
It is not necessarily so,
The argument fails,
I can lay my own rails,
And go where I want to go.”
Revised version of free will v. predestination Limerick, how to deal with defeatist fatalist attitude:
But then the young fellow thought, ‘No!’
‘Precommitment is the way to go.’
‘Cognitive override
Is by what I’ll abide
And I’ll go where I want to go.’