Talk:Catch-22 (logic)

message: These examples are really unclear:
Besides referring to an unsolvable logical dilemma, Catch-22 is invoked to explain or justify the military bureaucracy.
What is that supposed to mean? First we define Catch-22 as an unsolvable logical dilemma, but now we use it for something completely unrelated?
: Not "we" use it for something completely unrelated, the author of the novel did. However, only one of the meanings used by the author caught on in everyday English. I think it is quite useful to point out that not everything called a catch-22 in the Book is a catch-22 in its current meaning. --Ligneus (talk) 14:56, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Other uses from the novel

message: This is a well known saying, so lay-persons should get the point pretty early, and not become bombarded with logic lingo.  Changing the intro.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.44.214 (talk) 10:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we should not change the saying to make it suitable for "lay-persons". Prioritize conserving it's original meaning, instead of making it the most popular phrase to describe any dilemma where there is only one outcome. Thanks. --188.113.67.7 (talk) 14:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: too complicated

message: but why "22" ?
Because it is named after a book called "Catch-22"
:Where did the author get the number 22 for the title of the book?
::I heard somewhere because it'd been turned down by publishers 21 times.
:::Apparently it was meant to be Catch-18 but some other war book used that number so it was changed to 22
Is it important to include the Catch-18 bit in the article, especially in the first paragraph? Why? Brianrein 01:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Brianrein: no.  I took it out.  The answer to why 22 is answered at the Catch-22 page in depth in case any one still wants to know. NJGW (talk) 04:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  22 

message: this is the most horribly written article I've ever seen on this site. What's up Dr. Strangelove 05:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: holy crap

message: The chicken and the egg links to Automated highway system describing exactly the thing that I thought happened with petrol cars and would happen with hydrogen cars. Yet people did buy petrol cars! Why? Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 15:02, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples - petrol cars, Automated highway system 

message: The definition of Catch 22 given in the article of the same name is not entirely correct. In the book, there are in fact no less than a dozen scenarios which are described by the characters in the book as the result of "Catch 22," including the fact that Military Police can do anything they can't be stopped from doing, and the fact that Ex P.F.C. Wintergereen cannot run away from the army again, or else he will be executed (even though its his self appointed duty to do so).
However, the construction and symbolic logical demonstrations are well done.
Nice Guoanxiang1 (talk) 04:17, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Catch 22 definition 

message: Whats with Star Trek exam thing? it just looks silly and out of place. Clever spamming in my regard. --Duey Finster 14:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star Trek 

message: The symbolic logic definition of "Catch-22" here seems faulty; The expression written does not mean that A would have to take place before B and vice versa to be true but really only that they occur at the same time, or both have a truth value at the same time.  Therefore the formula is satisfiable.  Any dissenters?--Zoso Jade 16:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're absolutely right. The definition as written is basically just "~A <-> ~B", and is true if A and B have the same truth value. This needs to be corrected. -- Ritchy 17:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: To describe this in logical terms would require the introduction of temporal logic or something to the point. There is not a lot of gain. Mariano 19:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily. It could be possible to do it with "if then" statements. How about: (A <-> B) & (~B <-> A)? It's always false. And we can apply it to the example with A = request an exemption from combat flight duty and B = insane. You can request to be excused from combat flight duty if and only if you're insance, but you're fount not insane if and only if you're ask to be excused from flight duty. Seems to work, unless I made a mistake somewhere? -- Ritchy 19:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: (Please forgive my lack of notation)  The definitive Catch-22 seems to be of the form: "IF A AND B THEN C; IF A THEN NOT B;  IF B THEN NOT A;"  In this example, if you're insane and you request to leave, then you can leave.  If you're insane, then you can't request to leave.  If you request to leave, then you're not insane.  Therefore, you can never leave.
Implies doesn't mean requires and the article suggests it does. I don't know which way it should be, so I can't correct it myself. 83.29.246.76 19:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Doesn't it?  A is human and alive -> A has a brain.  Doesn't A is human and alive REQUIRE A to have a brain?  A->B can be said "A is sufficent for B", or "B is necessary for A." 24.59.111.68 (talk) 22:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mathematical Definition?

message: I did imagine one possible solution. If the only way to obtain an insanity certification is to present oneself to the doctor as insane, there is indeed no way out. But, what if another person (a confederate or concerned friend) drags you in and asks the doctor to certify you, while you're protesting the action and proclaiming that you can't wait to get out and fly missions?
: Heller would probably have said that the doctor would be obliged to trust the patient's judgement over his friend's. In the book, catch-22 is not just a single rule to catch out shirkers, but a principle that ensures the triumph of bureaucracy over the individual (and, ultimately, common sense).Le poulet noir 17:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, they don't ground anyone unless they personally ask. Otherwise, they'd ground everyone. Also, the only "concerned friend" would probably also be flying or in the Army Air Force, which would make them crazy as well, and we all know you can't trust a crazy person. Artiste-extraordinaire 13:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

text: How about: "Beg to fly a dangerous mission and classify yourself as sane. Only an insane person would want to fly, and a sane person would not want to fly. Also because you presume yourself sane, but want to fly, you have to be insane because you are self contradicting." There problem solved. (--207.233.77.190 21:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A solution? 

message: Is the word pronounced "catch twenty-two" or "catch two two"? The only place I recall having heard it spoken is in the song The Shortest Straw by Metallica, and there James pronounces it "catch two two". But he could be wrong. 
What is the correct pronunciation? Does anyone know? SpectrumDT 17:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always heard "Catch Twenty Two" used, and it's not uncommon for songwriters to take liberties. Static Universe 18:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is it pronounced? 

message: Seems that the source of the term is adequately identified, what else more is needed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Efalk (talk • contribs) 17:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove References tag? 

message: People keep inverting the paragraph with the logic proposition. Maybe that section should be clarified.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nehalem (talk • contribs) 19:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic paragraph 

message: It's out of place (disruptive) and plenty of discussion above calls for removal.  I'm taking it out.  NJGW (talk) 04:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  removing Star Trek example 

message: The proposed English translation for the Prussian phrase "die Flucht nach vorne antreten" seems to ignore "antreten," which has a martial connotation, as in lines/orders/ranks and files. Google doesn't translate "antreten" at this time, so the editor may have left it out inadvertently. To try to make sense of the phrase, I submit http://www.babylon.com/definition/Antreten/ and http://www.dict.cc/?s=antreten.
The impression (it's only that) I get is that this phrase might be better translated as "Escape to the front line." Perhaps someone who is fluent in German could advise on this, and whether the irony I find in this translation is intended in the original German. Pulsadinura (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's wp:or.  NJGW (talk) 21:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antreten 

message: Thank you!--Mbz1 (talk) 15:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thank you 

message: I might be mistaken, but couldn't a pilot be referred to see a doctor about their insanity by a fellow pilot?
Is that not how many people are diagnosed with insanity in the first place (Unfit).
Unless of course I am missing some obvious part of the whole logic thing...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by LiteralStar (talk • contribs) 07:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pilot Refferal 

message: I believe that the step from 4 to 5 will lose a fair share of readers.
:# (E \Rightarrow (I \land R)) (Premise: If a person is excused from flying (E), that must be because they are both insane (I), and request an evaluation (R));
:# (I \Rightarrow \neg R) (Premise: If a person is insane (I), they should not realize that they are, and would have no reason to request an evaluation)
:# (\neg I \lor \neg R) (2, Definition of implication: since an insane person would not request an evaluation, it follows that all people must either not be insane, or not request an evaluation)
:# (\neg (I \land R)) (3, De Morgan: since all people must either not be insane, or not request an evaluation, it follows that no person is both insane and request an evaluation)
:# (\neg E) (4, 1, Modus Tollens: since a person may be excused from flying only if they are both insane and request an evaluation, but no person can be both insane and request an evaluation, it follows that no person can be excused from flying)
I believe that exposition should be something like
:# [E \Rightarrow (I \land R)] — blah blah
:# [\neg E \lor (I \land R)] — blah blah
:# [(I \land R)\lor \neg E] — blah blah
:# (I \Rightarrow \neg R) — blah blah
:# (\neg I \lor \neg R) — blah blah
:# [\neg (I \land R)] — blah blah
:# (\neg E) — blah blah
(with, of course, something other than “blah blah”). —SlamDiego←T 09:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion desirable 

message: Shouldn't this problem be moved into the "Non-false dilemma situations" section? It would appear that it is not an example of a false dilemma or circular logic but is instead a type of "Lesser of two evils principle" problem.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.11.96.210 (talk) 22:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Lady and the Tiger 

message: As someone pointed out earlier: "Catch 22 is NOT the same as the chicken and egg problem. The two are different. The chicken and egg problem is something like - You need work experience to get a job, but you have to have a job to get work experience. A Catch 22 situation would be something like - You want to get a job at the employment agency which happens to be situated inside an office complex where only employees are allowed. If you show up at the counter, you are disqualified since your mere presence there implies you already have a job, and cannot qualify."
Why are these examples back in the article? All of these "real life examples" are chicken and egg problem moreso than catch-22's.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.16.210.61 (talk) 17:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are they back 

message: "Americans in both the living room and the boardroom are growing more fearful about the economy" doesn't sound very NPOV. --Blacklemon67 (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV? 

message: The original stated:
"an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that very situation; therefore, the acquisition of this thing becomes logically impossible"
I added that it can be acquired by performing an action (which is not stated as it should), and that this action only leads again to the same situation. That is, (but I didn't add this further explanation), the action that would lead out of the situation, that is required by some external authority maybe, is also the one leading him back to where he or she are.
62.1.102.109 (talk) 13:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small addition to the intro, rephrased a sentence to make it more clear 

message: Why is the quote punctuated like this?
:«You mean there's a catch ? » « Sure there's a catch », Doc Daneeka replied. « Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy. »
Catch-22 was written in English, and we don't usually use guillemets (« and ») in English. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:22, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punctuation 

message: In the book, the paradox is presented thus: in order to achieve something (goal), one must do something (action) that automatically prohibits you from achieving the goal.
In my opinion, this very much differs from how the phrase is used today - people tend to refer to any dilemma that ultimately leads to the same outcome, regardless of what option you choose, as a catch-22.
Consider the following:
«You can’t get hired unless you have experience; but you can’t get experience unless you’re hired.»
In a proper Catch-22, the (in my opinion incorrect catch-22 example) would be as following:
«You can't get hired unless you get experience. By getting experience, you can't get the job, because people with experience cant apply.»
Now, my example is a bad one, because a catch-22 doesnt apply very well to such situations. In other words, it's wrongful use of the (phrase that once was a) neologism.
There are several reasons for my opposing the "modern" usage of the phrase. First of all: Common, circular logic existed long before both JH and his book; what made the phrase so popular, was the simple (yet complex) beauty of the catch. It wasn't the fact that Yossarian had to fly no matter what, but that he had to declare himself insane, which he wouldn't do if he actually was insane. What you had to do in order to achieve something was, in fact, what prohibited you in achieving it. The ingenious part isn't that whatever you do, you can't get what you want. Catch-22 would never have been popular if Hellers formulation of the catch had been «If Yossarian wanted to be grounded, he would have to fly. If he wanted to fly, he had to fly».
Wikipedia used to have a better description of the logical paradox some time ago, where it was emphasized that it was a Catch-22 when, and only when, the premise for what was attempted was, in fact, what made it all impossible. It is the catch that is noteworthy; the actual catch in the middle of the reasoning, the contradictory requirements, and not the 
I see people referring to any form of circular logic as a catch-22, and it is hardly ever comparable to Hellers version in the book. Input?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.113.67.7 (talk) 14:16, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simplified to a common dilemma 

message: Interestingly, an (imaginary) "Article 22" is traditionally invoked by French military, but with a different meaning, when a difficult problem arises:
"Article 22: on se démerde comme on peut" (literally: we get out of the "merde" as we can).
In that case the number 22 "vingt-deux" is for euphony (rhyme with the last word "peut").
Pat22 (talk) 23:57, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Article 22" (French meaning) 

message: The Law philosopher Carlos Santiago Nino, in his book: 'Introduction to the analysis of Law', proposed what seems a local case of Catch-22 situation. Some mental therapists were brought to courts, and asked about individual patients, their diagnoses, and therapy applied, the questioned subjects complained that if they responded to the judge's question, they could be blamed for breaking the confidentiality, and if they didn't provide information, the possibility of accusation for refusing to cooperate with justice was impending. Law specialists point that not all rules have the same rank, HLA Hart wrote about this, also punishments are not the same for different offenses. The doubt arouse, in the Spanish law system, about when a forensic, or any other practitioner, is not in the condition of issuing a prognosis for a case, not enough information, or complex situation, the penalty for injuries is in proportion to the time it took for the lesion to heal, the use is writing down: 'Reserved Prognosis', but the judge may think, and act accordingly: 'Who does this doc think he or she is to hide information from me?', in the South American cases, also an international diagnosis label existed in these days: 'Schyzophrenia induced by psychoanalysis', making things more complex. Beware of the dog!. Regards, + Salut--Caula (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Catch-22 South American example 

message: None of the examples is is a catch-22.  They all lack the paradoxical feedback loop which is IMHO central to a catch-22.
Unless somebody can come up with real examples (or rewrite the existing ones to show the catch-22), I will delete the whole section in a few days. --Ligneus (talk) 14:51, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete section "Usage in scientific research" 

message: The usage of Catch-22 is under discussion, see Talk:Catch-22 (disambiguation)#Requested move 1 November 2020. Crouch, Swale (talk)  21:40, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Catch-22" 

message: What if one person requests a mental evaluation for everybody else? They are all found to be insane and are all grounded. Of course I don't know if you can request mental evaluations for other people but if you could then it would be a surefire way of getting every person except one grounded.
Of course this is bad for the one 'sane' person but it's better than all having to do combat duty180.216.251.175 (talk) 00:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  what if... 

message: In Heller's logical argument regarding the fighter pilot, supposedly you are not able to get out of flying if you are sane because you either take the mental health examination and you're proven you can fly or you don't take the examination and you are assumed you can still fly, and the Catch-22 is that you can't get out of flying if you are sane but you would need to be insane in order to fly. I hope I am understanding that correctly. But what if you face the mental health examination? Shouldn't that show that you can avoid flying if you are sane? Shouldn't that break the argument that you are insane no matter what you do? 162.247.228.13 (talk) 19:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: No. You never get to face the mental health examination. The premise is that only the insane would voluntarily fly, and the sane would try to avoid it. To be excused flying on mental health grounds you have to ask. The act of asking is taken to be proof of mental fitness, and hence no examination is necessary – you are proved sane and you must fly. Captainllama (talk) 01:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Faking it?