The Rule of Jacobowsky

"In life, there are always two possibilities"

"Me and the Colonel" is a 1958 American comedy film, in which a fictional Polish Jew named Jacobowsky is fleeing from the Germans in France during the Second World War in the company of an aristocratic Polish colonel, both from the same home town, but separated by class.

During the strenuous flight, Jacobowsky repeatedly states that his mother taught him that "there are always two possibilities in life", meaning there is always an alternative of action or happenstance, thus posing a way out of any predicament; while for the colonel, as a man of honor, there is always only one, a principle that gets the fugitives into trouble more than once (during the end of the movie, cornered by his pursuers, Jacobowsky realizes that for him, too, there now may be only one option left - and therefore, death).

Besides it being a movie unreservedly worth watching, this concept of there being "always two possibilities in life", exaggerated to “there are always exactly (or just) two possibilities", delivers a wonderful method to break down any decision chain.

“Jacobowsky's Razor” - The yes/no digitization of thinking.

According to (fictional) Jacobowsky's fictional mother, there are always two options in life - for if there is only one left, in the end, you are dead (in a way making that final decision for you - and no thanks asked).

Fundamentally, any abstract chain of events or decisions can be reduced to a sequence of consecutive A-or-B decisions - if one is careful enough; and then there are only two options in each step:

A or B

An option C does not exist this way; instead, C might turn up in the next decision to make:

If A, then either C or D
If B, then either E or F

and so on.

At most, C (or D) = E (or F) may occur, which reduces the selection in the results - but only there.

In fact, a "To be, or not to be" type of decision tree seems to be the most common:

Either A, or not A.

If A, then either B or not B;

If not A, then either C or not C;

and so on.

Avoiding the Black Swan

Every chain of decisions can be resolved in this way, and the results can be quite astounding; for if done carefully, it reliably shows up hidden assumptions, thin ice or traps you are trying to skid over, and so poses a very nice supplement to Ayn Rand's thought on right and wrong assumptions when addressing reality.

It helps to find possible misconceptions or wrong assumptions in your train of thought. Wrong assumptions, so it seems, being the most common cause for mistakes and wrong decisions leading to unexpected results.

A short chain:

1) Either a) something happens or b) nothing happens

2) If a) something happens, either c) A or d) B will happen.

If, for example, you decided in advance (and perhaps for good reason) for d) B to be the (desired?) final outcome, you would have ruled out two (b, c) out of three (b, c, d) possibilities, in this short chain alone; consciously or not; and one of them, b, was an option for zero.

And what about long chains? Well, in the end you may have had the choice of several hundred possibilities ... and you only realize it when you actually break it down.

Otherwise you might end up believing yourself...

Another example:

Given a triangle with the corners A,B,C.

Question: Which corner is at the top?

Randomly start with, let's say, A:

Is A at the top? No.

If A is not at the top, is B at the top? No.

If B is not at the top, is C at the top? Yes. Bingo.

Or starting with B:

Is B at the top? No. If B is not at the top, is C at the top? Yes.

Or starting with C:

Is C at the top? Yes.

Which one did you miss?

This one:

IS there a single top corner?

(Flip the triangle on its head, and there are two)

And there you have it:

The Fallacy of False Assumptions