🧠 **哲学视角下的反归纳困境**：文章分享了一个关于外星文明的哲学笑话，该文明因信奉“反归纳法”（即过去发生的事件越可能不发生）而导致生存困境。这深刻地揭示了逻辑思维的局限性，以及不合时宜的哲学观念如何阻碍实际发展，引人深思。笑话中，地球学者对当地哲学家的回应“它以前从未奏效过……”更是点睛之笔，讽刺意味十足。

⚖️ **伦理困境中的两难选择**：一个关于交通事故的笑话，通过一个司机在紧急情况下被迫在撞击多人与撞击一人之间做出选择的情节，探讨了道德困境。当司机被指控为“杀人犯”时，他解释了自己选择撞击单人以避免撞击更多人的艰难决定，并进一步阐述了最终造成十三人死亡的原因。这个故事以一种黑色幽默的方式，触及了道德哲学中的“电车难题”和责任归属的复杂性。

➗ **不同学科解决问题的思维差异**：数学、物理和工程学领域的三位学者入住同一家酒店，当房间着火时，他们各自的反应展现了不同学科的思维模式。工程师用水龙头的简单粗暴，物理学家精确计算水量，而数学家则通过逻辑推理证明了“解决火灾问题的可能性”，却并未实际灭火。这个笑话生动地比喻了理论与实践的差距，以及不同领域解决问题方法的本质区别。

💬 **心理学中的关系互动与自我认知**：一个简短而富有洞察力的心理学笑话，描述了两位行为主义心理学家在性行为后的对话：“你觉得怎么样？我怎么样？”这则笑话巧妙地讽刺了行为主义过度强调外部刺激和可观察行为，而忽略了内在感受和情感交流的局限性，也暗示了人际关系中对彼此反馈的关注。

💡 **改变的内在驱动力**：关于心理学家和电灯泡的经典笑话，“需要多少心理学家才能换一个灯泡？只有一个，但灯泡必须真心想改变。”这则笑话以一种幽默的方式，强调了个人内在的意愿和动机对于改变的重要性，无论是在心理治疗还是个人成长中，外在的干预只有在个体主动求变时才能奏效。

Published on September 18, 2025 7:48 PM GMT

I curated a collection of 9 of my favorite intellectual jokes. I will repost five of them here. In the final section, I offer a small treatise on when I like them, and why I consider many other “smart people jokes” to not reach this bar.

Philosophy

In xenosociology class we learned about a planet full of people who believe in anti-induction: if the sun has risen every day in the past, then they think it’s very unlikely that it’d rise again.

As a result, these people are all starving and living in poverty. An Earth xenosociologist visits the planet and studies them assiduously for 6 months. At the end of her stay, she asked to be brought to their greatest scientists and philosophers, and poses the question: “Hey, why are you still using this anti-induction philosophy? You’re living in horrible poverty!” The lead philosopher of science looks at her in pity as if she’s a child, and replies:

“Well, it never worked before…”

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A mob drags a man into a police station for running over 13 people, while shouting "Murderer!" "Killer!" The policeman disperses the crowd and begins to interrogate the suspect.

The policeman: "Tell me what happened."

The suspect: " Sir I was driving home within the speed limit when my brakes failed. I had no choice but to crash the car into a group of 12 people or to swerve into a single person. Am I a monster for deciding to swerve into the single person?"

Policeman: “No, that sounds like a difficult yet reasonable decision. But tell me how did you end up killing 13 people?"

Suspect :" Well that selfish bastard ran towards the other 12.”

Mathematics

A physicist, a mathematician and an engineer were attending a conference. That night, they're sleeping on different floors of the same hotel.

The engineer wakes up to see that his room is on fire. He quickly activates all the emergency fire hydrant systems in his room, completely putting out the fire but drenching his room in the process. He gets back to bed and uncomfortably goes to sleep.

The physicist wakes up to see that her room is on fire. She takes a pitcher, walks to the bathroom, and carefully estimates how much water is needed to put out the fire. She puts out the fire with precisely the right amount of water, gets back to bed and goes to sleep.

The mathematician wakes up to see that his room is on fire. He takes out a pencil and notepad, walks to his desk, and starts madly scribbling. The fire gets bigger and bigger and he scribbles faster and faster. Finally, he writes QED down, and slams his notepad on his desk. "A ha! I have proven that it's possible to solve the fire problem!" He gets back to bed and goes to sleep.

Psychology

Two behaviorists were having sex. One turns to the other and asks: “That was good for you. Was it good for me?”

__

Q: How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Only one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change.

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Check out the other 4 jokes, and why I think intellectual humor is different from mere "smart people jokes" here:  https://linch.substack.com/p/intellectual-jokes