Now, I’ve gotten into the whole autism angle before — the whole “strange interests, weird thought processes” thing.

And you will, of course, remember the scene I wrote yesterday, where Dunstana and the Philosophy Trolls (named, incidentally, after these three guys) debated the age-old question of to what extent, if any, a woodchuck might be able to chuck wood, assuming that it could, in fact do so.

And, uh, long story short, I literally kept myself up last night thinking about it.

Also, how Angels wear shirts — but, that’s another story, and as per Aquinas, actually fairly straightforward.

Essentially, I was focused less on anwering the question of woodchucks chucking wood itself and more on how you’d have to frame the question to actually be able to answer it.

For example, when we say “how much wood”, what kind of timeframe are we setting? If we don’t set any timeframe, we get into the whole Infinite Monkeys thing. Basically, given infinite time, a woodchuck will inevitably be able to chuck infinite wood.

So, to actually test the question, we’d have to go something like give the woodchuck thirty minutes to chuck as much wood as possible.

And of course, what do we mean by “woodchuck”. Do we mean any given woodchuck? A specific individual woodchuck?

Do we mean some ideal, hypothetical woodchuck, perfectly representing the Form of Woodchuck?

Of course, it’s entirely possible that woodchucks cannot, in fact, chuck wood and the whole exercise is pointless to begin with.

I could go on, but I think I’ve got the point across that I have the tendency to both overthink some weird stuff and be utterly, utterly humourless about semantics and specification.

So, yeah, this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

And yes, ladies, I am single. Hard to believe, I know.

Also, Woodchuck was a character in the original Lodoss War series.

And, of course, if I haven’t made you too embarrassed to be associated with me at this point, please check out my social media and email newsletter:

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