Re: Roshambo Rashomon

OK, I'll be a bit more specific:

http://tinyurl.com/nrmcv

"The measures, then," [Dupin] continued, "were good in their kind, and
well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the
case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are,
with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly
adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too
shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better
reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at
guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration.
This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in
his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that
number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if
wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of
the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay
in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his
opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and,
holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy
replies, 'odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he
then says to himself, the simpleton had them even upon the first trial,
and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd
upon the second; I will therefore guess odd'; --he guesses odd, and
wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have
reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed
odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself upon the first
impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first
simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too
simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as
before. I will therefore guess even' guesses even, and wins. Now this
mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed "lucky,"
--what, in its last analysis, is it?"
"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's
intellect with that of his opponent."
"It is," said Dupin;" and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means
he effected the thorough identification in which his success consisted,
I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or how
stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts
at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as
possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to
see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to
match or correspond with the expression.' This response of the
schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has
been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to
Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; and
the Prefect and his cohort fall so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they
would have hidden it. They are right in this much --that their own
ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but when
the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from their
own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when it is
above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by
some unusual emergency --by some extraordinary reward --they extend or
exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D--, has been done to
vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and
sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches --what is it all
but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of
principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of
his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for
granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter, --not exactly in a
gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg --but, at least, in some hole or
corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to
secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not
see also, that such recherches nooks for concealment are adapted only
for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary
intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article
concealed --a disposal of it in this recherche manner, --is, in the
very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery
depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care,
patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of
importance --or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes,
when the reward is of magnitude, --the qualities in question have never
been known to fall. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting
that, had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits
of the Prefect's examination --in other words, had the principle of its
concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect
--its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question.
This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the
remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister
is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are
poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non
distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools."

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