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Klosterman’s Questions: 1 of 23

In a PHL lecture last week (originally posted on 7/26/2010), we were introduced to Chuck Klosterman's "23 Questions I Ask Everybody I Meet In Order to Decide If I Can Really Love Them" from his book "Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs". After hearing two of the questions, I knew I was going to have to look these up & attempt to answer them all. Plus, I thought this might convince E that I was actually paying attention in class. Feel free to respond & give your own answers. Now, let's get introspective:
Let us assume you met a
rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks--he can
pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn
the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar
vein. These are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only
do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with
real magic. It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out
of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately
magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence. Would this person be more impressive that Albert Einstein?


Yes. The fact that the question
asks "impressive" instead of "important" is essentially why I came to
this conclusion. In theory, if a person had a similar upbringing,
education & thirst for knowledge, they could have achieved anything
that Einstein did, if not more. Plus, Einstein was looking at things
that fit the accepted laws of the world around us while the magician
would've been breaking those same rules by applying his trade. By
Einstein's own beliefs, what the magician does would be impossible. Now,
how can you not be impressed by that?

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