Message-ID: <896@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 11:05:53 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.896
Posted: Thu Mar  7 11:05:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 06:22:29 EST
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 25

From: Chris Jarocha-Ernst 


I don't know where you get the impression that the Imp of the Perverse
is at all related to Murphy's Law.  In Poe's short story (not an essay, as
earlier reported), the Imp is merely a name given to certain self-destructive
tendencies.  Poe gives an example of someone on the edge of a precipice,
looking down and wondering what it would feel like to jump.  Of course, it
would be fatal...  But what would it *feel* like?  As you dwell more heavily
on a self-destructive option, Poe says, the "Imp" tries to make that option,
not more attractive, but more likely.  The story itself involves someone
who has committed The Perfect Crime... but (of course) no one knows about
it, so no one knows how clever he is.  To tell would surely lead to prison.
But, *Damn*, it was a clever stunt.

Get the idea?  Knowing that this self-destructive tendency is caused by
the "Imp" doesn't help; the tendency remains.  I assume that's what the
button's creator meant.

Poe's story has nothing to do with Maxwell's Demon.

In fact, I can't see what Murphy's Law has to do with Maxwell's Demon.

Chris
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