May as well

One day Plato came to Socrates asking for a lesson in reasoning. Socrates temporized for a bit and posed him the following question: "Two men slide down a chimney, one coming out clean and the other dirty. Which one takes a shower?" Plato said that of course the dirty one does. At this Socrates shook his head and explained that since the dirty one looked at the clean one and assumed he too was clean, and the clean at the dirty and derove [stet] a similar conclusion, mut. mut., the clean one took the shower. Plato looked confused so Socrates told him, "think about it; come back tomorrow. We'll start again."

Plato returned the following day and said "I'm ready, Socrates.". So Socrates set him the following problem: "Two men slide down a chimney, one coming out clean and the other dirty. Which one takes a shower?" Plato, being no fool, said, "the clean one, Socrates".

Socrates: If the clean one looks at himself, what does he see?
Plato: That he is clean, of course.
S: And if the dirty one looks at himself, what does he see?
P: Soot and the like, I would guess, Socrates.
S: Does a person take a shower if he sees that he is clean?
P: No, Socrates.
S: When does a person take a shower?
P: When he is dirty, or thinks he is.
S: If the dirty person looks at himself, does he think he is dirty?
P: Yes, Socrates.
S: So who takes a shower?
P: The dirty one, Socrates.

Plato professed to be even more confused at this so Socrates repeated his yesterdaily advice that he think the matter over and return the next day. This being done Plato approached Socrates in the agora and asked him for the next problem, saying he had thought thoroughly about the previous day's lesson. So Socrates set him the following problem: "Two men slide down a chimney, one coming out clean and the other dirty. Which one takes a shower?" At this Plato became nearly incensed, saying, "I do not understand, Socrates. Two days you asked me that same question and the answer was the clean man. Yesterday you asked me that question and the answer was the dirty man. If only one of them took a shower, surely there is no third possibility!" Socrates, giving Plato a sympathetic glance, simply asked, "How could two people go down a chimney and one of them be clean and the other dirty?".

At that moment, Plato was enlightened.

Comments

[Wrongshore]

Should I tell you if I've heard this one before?

[arthegall]

I've seen this described as "endless theorizing about the empty set," but I can never remember by whom -- it remains, however, one of my favorite phrases.

[ben wolfson]

You're Jewish, Wrongshore (aren't you?), of course you've heard it before.

[horus kemwer]

Am I wrong to think that all along Socrates was merely trying to hint to Plato that *he* needed to take a shower?

[Blume]

Clearly one of them went down first and collected all the soot and dirt on his clothes and body, leaving a clean chimney for the second one.

[ben wolfson]

See, that's what I thought, too, when I was recently told the joke (in its original form, in which, among other things, it's just dirty faces).

You have to admit it's a rare chimney-person pair where the former can so easily clean the latter, though.

I concluded I was being too analytic about it (look for the one about Felicia and Todd).

[My Alter Ego]

The chimney was in a newly-built house and had never been used, and thus contained no soot. The first man came out clean, as he was clean when he entered the chimney and picked up no dirt or soot along the course of his downward descent. The second man was Pigpen, he of Peanuts fame, all grown up now, perpetually dirty, and his descent through the chimney actually served to scrape some dirt off him, but not so much that he was not still dirty when he emerged.

Neither of the men took a shower, as the first man was clean, and Pigpen never showers.

[michelle]

Have you ever heard the sound of one hand slapping you?

[ben wolfson]

I am far too much the gentleman ever to have been put in that situation.