The Self-Defeating Principle
Colloquially, shooting yourself in the foot, hoisted by your own petard, cutting off your nose to spite your face, premeditated masochism, self-sabotage, the jinx, sod's law, call it what you will, the self-defeating principle embodies a distinct yet subtle flavour of stupidity quite unlike any other. To the man in the street it may be as simple as stubbing one's toe, but for a true master of the art there is so much more than simple mishap: only after detailed and extensive analysis does a self-defeating theorem reveal the extent of it's own futility.
The self-defeating principal has many corollaries:
- Any planned demonstration of the self-defeating principle will only backfire in the least helpful fashion.
- If the self-defeating principle is erroneously believed to have been applied, it's subsequent application in precisely the manner imagined will occur precisely when the original mistake is discovered.
- Every self-defeating action precipitates its own equal and opposite counteraction.
- Any attempt at analysing the self-defeating principle, whether successful or otherwise, yields no valid information.
Having no innate purpose, the self-defeating principle exists entirely as a parasitic concept, preying on more useful self-sustaining or symbiotic concepts. Simultaneous opposed to myriad conflicting yet potentially constructive ideas and exerting no independent force of its own, it inherently possesses neither magnitude nor direction. Yet although it cannot be measured, demonstrated or proven, it can clearly be seen to exist. Consequently the principle yields what is probably its single constructive output: a demonstration of the incompleteness theorem.
The self-defeating principal has many corollaries:
- Any planned demonstration of the self-defeating principle will only backfire in the least helpful fashion.
- If the self-defeating principle is erroneously believed to have been applied, it's subsequent application in precisely the manner imagined will occur precisely when the original mistake is discovered.
- Every self-defeating action precipitates its own equal and opposite counteraction.
- Any attempt at analysing the self-defeating principle, whether successful or otherwise, yields no valid information.
Having no innate purpose, the self-defeating principle exists entirely as a parasitic concept, preying on more useful self-sustaining or symbiotic concepts. Simultaneous opposed to myriad conflicting yet potentially constructive ideas and exerting no independent force of its own, it inherently possesses neither magnitude nor direction. Yet although it cannot be measured, demonstrated or proven, it can clearly be seen to exist. Consequently the principle yields what is probably its single constructive output: a demonstration of the incompleteness theorem.