Monday, February 06, 2006
(8:49 PM) | John Emerson:
Superbowl XL (et. seq.)
Well, the fact is, no matter how much you want it to happen, both teams can’t lose. That’s just the way the game is organized, and there’s no use whining about it. Every sports league has a net .500 record. That’s one of the a priori truths, like causality and free will.
This is what Leibniz was talking about with incompossibility. Sure, in an ideal world all sports teams would lose all the time. But that’s formally impossible, just like a square circle. Get over it.
P.S. Forget about it. Interleague play is an impious abomination, like pork chops, the DH rule, and instant replay. You thought you had me there, didn't you?P.P.S. Did this Superbowl strike you as "extra large"? Me neither.
(Adapted from a comment at Crooked Timber, where it was lost at the end of a long thread.)
