Buridan's ass is the common name for the paradox which states that an entirely rational ass, placed exactly in the middle between two stacks of hay of equal size and quality, will starve since it cannot make any rational decision to start eating one rather than the other. The paradox is named after the 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan. Robert Boyles self-flowing flask fills itself in this diagram, but perpetual motion machines cannot exist. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Binomial name Equus asinus Linnaeus, 1758 For other uses, see Donkey (disambiguation). ... This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right). ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Jean Buridan, in Latin Joannes Buridanus (1300 - 1358) was a French priest who sowed the seeds of religious scepticism in Europe. ...

The paradox was, however, not originated by Buridan himself. It is first found in Aristotle's De Caelo where Aristotle mentions an example of a man who remains unmoved because he is as hungry as he is thirsty and is positioned exactly between food and drink. Buridan nowhere discusses this specific problem but its relevance is that he did advocate a moral determinism whereby, save for ignorance or impediment, a human faced by alternative courses of action must always choose the greater good. Buridan allowed that the will could delay the choice in order more fully to assess the possible outcomes of the choice. Later writers satirised this view in terms of an ass who, confronted by two equally desirable and accessible bales of hay, must necessarily starve while pondering a decision. Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ... Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. ... A good in economics is any physical object (natural or man-made) or service that, upon consumption, increases utility, and therefore can be sold at a price in a market. ... Binomial name Equus asinus Linnaeus, 1758 For other uses, see Donkey (disambiguation). ... Hay is dried grass (and pasture flowers) cut and used for animal feed. ...

A typical counter-argument is that rationality as described in the paradox is so limited as to be a straw man of the real thing, which does allow the consideration of meta-arguments. In other words, it's entirely rational to recognize that both choices are equally good and arbitrarily pick one instead of starving. This counter-argument is sometimes used as an attempted justification for faith. The argument is that, like the starving ass, we must make a choice in order to avoid being frozen in endless doubt. Other counter-arguments exist. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A straw man, or straw person, argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponents position. ... Faith is commonly known as a belief, trust, or confidence, not based merely on Logic, Reason, or empirical data, but based fundamentally on volition often associated with a transpersonal relationship with God, a higher power, a person, elements of nature, and/or a perception of the human race as a...

Buridan's ass sometimes finds mention in electrical engineering. Specifically, in digital logic, an analog-to-digital converter must convert a continuous voltage value into either a 0 or a 1. The voltage value represents the position of the ass, and the values 0 and 1 represent the bales of hay. Like the situation of the starving ass, there exists an input on which the converter cannot make a proper decision, resulting in a metastable state. Having the converter make an arbitrary choice in ambiguous situations does not solve the problem, as the boundary between ambiguous values and unambiguous values introduces another binary decision with its own metastable state. In the ass illustration, the ass cannot decide whether or not to choose arbitrarily and so starves to death. Electrical Engineers design power systems… … and complex electronic circuits. ... Digital circuits are electric circuits based on a number of discrete voltage levels. ... An analog-to-digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is an electronic circuit that converts continuous signals to discrete digital numbers. ... now. ... Metastability in electronics is the ability of a non-equilibrium electronic state to persist for a long period of time (see asynchronous circuit). ... Look up binary in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

See also

• Catch 22
• Hobson's choice
• Jean Buridan
• Metastability in electronics
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking

Catch 22 has become a term, inspired by Joseph Hellers novel Catch-22, describing a general situation in which A must have been preceded by B, and B must have been preceded by A. Symbolically, (~B => ~A) & (~A => ~B) where either A or B must come into being first. ... Hobsons choice is an apparently free choice that is really no choice at all. ... Jean Buridan, in Latin Joannes Buridanus (1300 - 1358) was a French priest who sowed the seeds of religious scepticism in Europe. ... Metastability in electronics is the ability of a non-equilibrium electronic state to persist for a long period of time (see asynchronous circuit). ... Spontaneous symmetry breaking in physics takes place when a system that is symmetric with respect to some symmetry group goes into a vacuum state that is not symmetric. ...

References

• Zupko, Jack (2003) John Buridan. Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. (cf. pp. 258, 400n71)