Shandy, the Bone, and You

In Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, he briefly outlines an allegory. To paraphrase:

Shandy is a dog, and her master has just thrown her favorite bone to her. Unfortunately, the master's aim is a bit off, so it lands just the other side of a chain-link fence. Down the fence some thirty feet is an open gate. There's that tasty bone, sitting right next to the dog's nose, except for that troublesome fence. What does the dog do?

Some dogs will sniff at the bone, eye it hungrily, and never move away from it. After all, if the goal is to get closer to the bone, going farther away from it is ludicrous.

Or is it?

Smarter dogs will view the problem in a different light. Namely, that the first goal is to get around the fence, and then getting to the bone is possible. Hence, going through the gate gets the dog closer to the goal, even though it is moving physically farther from the bone.

In our human minds, we wouldn't have much trouble getting to the other side of the fence. But we run into similar problems all the time. In particular, the goal of material comfort.

On the surface, getting a lot of comfort seems easy: just buy a bunch of luxury items that will make your life better! Of course, if you don't have the available resources, then you can just charge it on credit. After all, the goal is to be comfortable, so make it as comfortable as you can!

Unfortunately, this breaks down eventually, usually when someone is saddled with more debt than they can carry.

Paradoxically, the real solution to having material comfort often involves going without for some time (at least to some degree), so one can get a firm financial footing. Who would have thought that buying less things would enable one to have more (and more lasting) material comforts?

Next time you're faced with a problem (particularly one where you're repeatedly stuck in the same spot), consider Shandy and the bone—try looking for a gate!