Monday 15 January 2007

Alexia = Ugly

A Mathematic statement that appeared as a girl's nick name in MSN.

Point to keep in Mind No1: MSN is public.
Point to keep in Mind No2: Mathematic statements can be falsified.

Background Story: I do not know this girl. I have never met her and most likely I never will. This girl was interested in Alexia's boyfriend. But apparently the choice of the part tense is wrong.

Alternative History: If Alexia was Queen Alexia of the Big Glorious Empire, in Medival times this girl would be proclaimed a witch and would be burned alive to purify her soul.

Damn the enlightment and the modern times....

Leaving aside the backgroud stories and the evil reactions a mathematic statement such as this can be treated as a hypothesis and thus can be tested. So me being a behavioural political scientist (aka number cruncher) I will attempt to test this hypothesis against all the available evidence and finally accept or rejected.

Unfortunatelly the ethical reward of all these is non-existing as I am an advocate of freedom of speech... and against capital punishment. (How very hippie of me!)

Hypothesis: Alexia = Ugly

Evidence: Alexia's boyfriend is not blind
Discussion: Although that could be a good proof against the hypothesis then we have to find evidence to support that Charlie's (Alexia's boyfriend) taste is objectively good. That might be the case as he likes classical music, Lord of the Rings and great nana's good old cheese biscuits, which are a proof enough of good taste. But of course we might end up in the deadend that objectively good taste does not exist... So we better look for different evidence.

Evidence: When People meet her they do not look away disgusted but they smile instead
Discussion: Assuming that someone is extraordinarily ugly then people would try to avoid them This is not the case for Alexia. However that just might mean that she is not extreamely ugly but just ugly... or a little ugly. Unfortunatelly the degree of uglyness is not defined in the hypothesis.

Evidence: Laurence says Alexia does not have a big ass
Discussion: That would be of any help if only ugly people had big asses. Sorry Laurence... you are not helpful here.

Evidence: When Alexia was little the other kids at school teased her that she had a small nose
Discussion: That only proves that Alexia has a small nose. That can also be measured.

Just about here my imagination and creativity stopped. The hypothessis cannot be proven. Sorry, tough luck. It is this kind of mathematical statements that fall into the personal judgement category. Some people will agree and some people will get pissed off that it was even expressed.
Each one of you can have there own opinion on the statement. After all it is a free world.
The only question is.. how far should we go with that freedom. Should we be allowed to post every little opinion we have as offensive as it might be to a public place?

The only closing I could think for this entry is Voltaire's quote: I disagree with everything you say but I will defend with my own life your right to say it.

On the other hand.. witch burning was not all that bad.

PS. I urge all the reader to have an opinion on the hypothesis. Let's put it on a public vote! What more democratic than that :P

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think it's clearly false to start with. I know my taste in women is good and I asked you out once.