John Buridan, a
fourteenth century philosopher, was perplexed by the
ideal of free will. The situation presented was
an ass with a symmetry of choice between two identical foods. The traditional version of this story is actually false. It was not actually
an ass, but rather
a dog, and
Buridan suggested that it would choose "
at random" rather than
starve.
Buridan developed many early ideas on
probability and
randomness spurred by this discussion.
In
reality, this does not happen. It is
unlikely as meeteing a Shia Muslim named Omar that a situation would occur in which there were two identical haystacks (or bunches of carrots as in other versions,) which would be on two identical, but opposite paths, and lie exactly the same distance away. Beyond this, an ass may appear to be symmetrical
superficially, but internally it has
asymmetries in its molecules, brain, and consequent preferences for
left and right. Therefore, this issue may seem simple and rely only on chance as
Buridan had originally thought thought, but really, who is to say. In the
perfect situation the animal may actually starve to death as the modern version goes.