Comments on: It’s like the King

By: rea

rea — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:09:42 +0000

Dying is something only the living can do—dead people can’t die. Therefore, while the oldest living person can’t be dead, he or she can certainly die

By: John

John — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 06:35:18 +0000

“While sitting on a bus in London in the early ‘70s, he overheard two pensioners complaining about the newfangled decimal currency. They both agreed that change and progress were good things. But they thought it would have been better if instead of rushing to introduce the new money right away the Government had waited until all the old people had died.” My wife tells exactly the same story with the location being North Queensland.

By: michael roetzel

michael roetzel — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 03:17:39 +0000

this is an old linguistic paradox, epitomized in the cry “the king is dead, long live the king”

By: Brian McDaniel

Brian McDaniel — Mon, 03 Nov 2003 01:02:53 +0000

Well, I’m a lawyer and the first thing that lept to my mind was that the answer is poorley specified. It should say that person X, which person was, immediately before such person’s death, the oldest alive person.

By: aramis martinez

aramis martinez — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 16:02:40 +0000

ps. it should be read to imply a simultaneous experience.

By: Aramis Martinez

Aramis Martinez — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 16:00:50 +0000

Limiting case: all people die (assume the sun goes nova or something)! Implications for oldest person?

By: Eve Garrard

Eve Garrard — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 23:12:22 +0000

Doesn’t it depend on whether the phrase ‘the world’s oldest person’ is a rigid designator or not? If it’s a rigid designator, picking out the particular individual who has the property of being the world’s oldest person, then of course that individual can die. If however it’s not a rigid designator, and tracks the property of being the world’s oldest person through all its peregrinations, then the world’s oldest person is (of course) always alive and never dead.

By: DonBoy

DonBoy — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 22:33:06 +0000

But they thought it would have been better if instead of rushing to introduce the new money right away the Government had waited until all the old people had died. Somewhere in there is the solution to the Social Security funding problem (assuming you think there is one).

By: eszter

eszter — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 19:57:25 +0000

This is a very amusing thread. The following isn’t fully related, but I’m reminded of it so I thought I’d share.:) In Hungarian, it’s very common to say “very last” instead of “last”. This is done sometimes in English as well (“they were the very last in the race”), but not nearly as common. It’s quite redundant though. What would be the difference between being last and very last? (Full disclosure: despite my being conscious of this, I do say “very last” in Hungarian quite often (well, in proportion to how often I use that language).)

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 15:44:46 +0000

Well, if everyone dies, the world’s oldest person dies, so I guess it’s analytically possible. (Philosophers always look to the extreme cases.)

By: pierre-olivier

pierre-olivier — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 15:35:04 +0000

Ah! Very funny. This remind me of a story once heard about the French national railway company, the mighty SNCF. Statistics showed that the last car of a train is more prone to accidents (derailments and the like). In an effort to improve security, SNCF decided to suppress the last car of each train.