A favorite joke of mine goes as follows:
Descartes walks into a bar and proceeds to get totally smashed. After 14 beers, he asks the bartender for one more, to which the bartender replies "I think you've had enough." Descartes pauses a moment, says "I think not!" and disappears.
I told this joke to my philosophy professor one day after a class where he had mentioned Descartes. Expecting a fair volume of laughter, I was disappointed to instead see a knowing smirk on his face. Not only had he heard the joke before, but he also knew that it was wrong. Now, before he said that, I didn't know that a joke COULD be wrong so I asked him to clarify.
He told me that actually, that joke is based on an invalid argument that goes as follows:
1. If I think, then I exist.
2. I do not think.
---------------------------------
3. I do not exist
"In that argument, you're trying to negate the antecedent, and that doesn't logically follow," he told me.
I wept, as the last vestiges of childhood joy that remained within me were ripped from my being by the soul vacuum that is philosophy.
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