Diary of an Epistemological Nazi

“You’re the best dad in the whole wide world!”

I cringed. Like Adam who likely had a flurry of compulsions simultaneously hit him for the first time after eating the forbidden fruit, the strong compulsion to respond in a logical manner hit me. See, I have an aversion to statistical and philosophical inadequacies that I tend to want to correct every so often.

I looked at her bright face, waiting in anticipation for my response. I could follow my compulsions and explain, “That is a very unreliable statement”. 

This would likely draw a quizzical look from her. The quick transition from excitement to confusion would undoubtedly be comical.

“You see, given your very limited experience with other fathers, or what we statistical theorists call the sample size, and given that there are billions of fathers, your sample size is too small, thereby making the margin of error for that statement substantially high. Therefore, sweetie, me being the best dad in the world is highly statistically unreliable.”

I would feel the tension subside, my muscles relax, my heartbeat normalize, and perhaps some dopamine would spurt around my brain, providing me with a sense of satisfaction and happiness. Like a cocaine addict having his fix after a period of delay, I would feel the world dissipate around me, leaving me floating in the abyss of ecstasy.

On the other hand, my sweetie-pie – of course, metaphorically speaking, she is closer in character to a honey-flavoured biscuit, if a rigourous technical metaphorical analysis were to be conducted. But it is apparently unconventional and ‘not fun’ to refer to my daughter as honey-flavoured biscuit, or even just HFB – would have held her hand to her face and heave a sigh of frustration. Even a “thank you sweetie” would have sufficed for her.

“The less controversial statement would be to say that I am a good dad.”

“Okay dad, you’re a good dad.”

Yet I was not completely satisfied.

“Even that is not without its ambiguities.”

“Argh!” She would yell.

“A good dad would have to be rigidly defined and possibly indexed, and my performance as a father would then be compared to this ideal.”

Satisfaction complete. 

She’s just six years old, I would think. I need to ignore my compulsion and do the right thing.

 

“You’re the best daughter in the universe!”

“Provided there are other intelligent societies on other planets, else it is more efficient to simply use earth as the comparative boundary.”