overview
in 1812 i invented thinking. it was a grand notion, warranting some sort of parade, but there were distractions at the time. i recall having some problems with my pants that year, as you would imagine the details are a bit hazy. in any case napolean had recently shot his load trying to come to grips with “the calculus” and wasnt about to entertain an exotic new theory such as “thinking”. he even accused me of devising the whole thing as an elaborate scheme to get into his duds. yes, indeed, there were hot pants flying all over the empire that year.
stimulus
i invented thinking, initially, in response to being confronted with the most heinous of all possible analytical problems. this problem, which we shall call the “pant-rowboat-cheese-infinity conundrum” had baffled mathematicians, philosophers and dogs for millennia. stated in its most unambiguous form the problem is: “how do i get from rowboat A in pant A with cheese A, to rowboat B in pant A or B with cheese A, and finally arrive at rowboat C in pant B with cheese B, keeping in mind that some of the aforementioned rowboats and cheeses may in fact be of type non-rowboat and non-cheese respectively (the pants however were not of type non-pant)?” i first struck the conundrum on new years eve of 1811/1812 whilst out with bonaparte, raping and pillaging some local villages which we had rezoned as “spanish”. it was so distressing that i vowed to spend 1812 unraveling it – i would defeat this shiny, slippery, magnificent snake of a conundrum. i told napolean this as we rowed gently up the seine, exotic cheeses moving from hand to mouth and shiny, slippery, magnificent snakes running rampant all over the shop. he looked at me like i was quaint.