Monday, November 20, 2006

Your opinion, please

A scenario:

A tiger is rushing at you and you see him coming. The tiger leaps and swipes his arm to get you. You jump out of the way, barely missing the brunt of his efforts and quickly climb a nearby tree to safety.

Were you lucky?

Please comment with your initial reaction AND then if you come to the same conclusion as this first reaction upon further thought.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nope, the Tiger was lucky I didn't give him a punch in the neck.

Sarah said...

Not luck, just decent reaction time. I would expect myself to react even quicker so that he missed me entirely.

Dale said...

Yes and yes.

I'm curious to hear what the psychology behind this question was.

Gtemp said...

Hell yeah, I'm not moving from that tree. I've seen how those Bengals play football and if this tiger is anything like them, I should have got destroyed!

Martha said...

My thoughts on the subject include: he's swiping his ARMS? And if I were lucky enough to climb the tree, I'm probably scared shitless as he can follow me right up!

Anonymous said...

No, all I've done is prolong the agony as he climbs the tree and I have nowhere to go.

Same reaction on further reflection.

Tiger gets lunch either way.

Jessica said...

Depends, if this is truely hypothetical and the tiger can not climb trees or out run me, then yes.
However, if as in real life he can, then hell no. I not only am going to be destroyed by a tiger, but I saw it coming!

Mamma Sarah said...

Arms?? Hmmmm... I would say yes because they're reaction time is a lot faster than mine... up a tree??? I'm still not lucky if I got away cause he's coming after me. Hmmmm.

Mamma Sarah said...

Upon further review of the question... he's gonna come after me with even more fury since he missed me. :-( **taps starts to play**

Viki said...

Initial reaction - you're not lucky, you just have good reflexes.

More thought - you were lucky to have noticed the tiger in the first place, but the good reflexes are still all you.

Viki said...

Hey, so what's up with Megan's blog?

Gtemp said...

Upon further review, if I made it up a tree, I would be sure to have climbed a smaller tree that could not hold the weight of the tiger and tried to get as high as possible. If he couldn't physically reach me, I think I could wait long enough for him to lose interest in a life or death situation.

Karen said...

OK, people, what would you call a tiger's arms? it's more than the paw, "leg" isn't very descriptive as there are four...

Jim and i got in a semantics debate over the word “lucky”. I contest that to be lucky you need to have fortunate events happen to you under no intention or doing of your own. Further, you are not “lucky” if the following two conditions exist: 1) you knowingly and intentionally act on a situation 2) your actions are meant to control the situation.

For example, I do not think you would be “lucky” the tiger didn’t harm you. I say that you were aware of the situation and deliberately acted for your own best interest (to not get hurt). Therefore when the results of your intentional activity are that you are unharmed, you aren’t lucky, you’re reactive and fortunate that your actions resulted in the scenario you prefer (to not be hurt).

Jim contends that “lucky” to a degree is a synonym of “fortunate” and so while you deliberately reacted (jumped back), it was still “lucky” that you weren’t hurt.

For the record, we did look this up in the dictionary and generic “fortunate” is one of the definitions. I just think that’s not specific enough.

Anonymous said...

First off, Roget's Thesaurus lists these synonyms for the word "lucky".

Main Entry: lucky
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: opportune
Synonyms: advantageous, adventitious, auspicious, beneficial, benign, blessed, charmed, everything going*, favored, felicitous, fortuitous, fortunate, golden, happy, hold aces, hopeful, hot*, into something, promising, propitious, prosperous, providential, serendipitous, successful, timely, well

My initial reaction was, "Why the hell would I climb the tree when the tiger could just climb up it?" I think no matter what you did, you're screwed. You just prolonged life by a few moments.

I guess I'd have to agree with Jim on this one. Especially because the Thesaurus says so. HEHE.

Finlands finest said...

My initial reaction was, where am I that a tiger is coming at me...and then why won't the zoo keeper let me out...then....am I awake??

Just kidding. I think that YOU are correct. YOU determined that you were safe...

me said...

Off topic...
Jen needs IM!!!!!

TreyJ said...

NOt really...he's gonna climb up after me.