A Tale of Three Friends

A philosophical fiction

Mr. Lucky, Mr. Smart and Mr. Success have been the best of friends for years and years, and since I don’t know when, they have been meeting every Friday evening, at their favorite pub (“Ye Olde Head and Tail”), for a drink, and play their favorite game. The game is the simplest possible. They get a coin from the bartender (a Mr. John Walker), and try to guess the outcome of tosses. Whoever guesses correctly the most times, wins.

Now unknown to his other friends, Mr. Smart is “friends” with the bartender’s wife, Ginny Walker. She happens to know that the coins in the bar are actually weighted — with a higher chance for falling heads, or tails. Each week, she tells Mr. Smart what the weight of the coin is. Unfortunately, Ginny gets awfully muddled sometimes (it’s the Gin), and tells Smart the wrong side. Regardless, Mr. Smart guesses correctly suspiciously often. Lucky and Success also suspect funny business — and tell off Mr. Smart. At times like this, Mr. Smart tends to reply smugly, “I’m always Smart, ain’t I?”

Now Mr. Walker is unhappy with his wife machinating with Mr. Smart. So he decides to do something about it. He builds a special mechanism on the three friends’ table (upon which the tossed coins fall) such that the special mechanism (magically) listens to Lucky’s call, and flips the coin accordingly. The mechanism is not perfect — but still works most of the time — certainly more often than Ginny Walker is “un-muddled”. So Lucky calls correctly more often than Smart. But unlike Mr. Smart, Mr. Lucky has no explanation for his unusually good luck. And whenever, one of his friends notice that Lucky is unusually Lucky, Lucky shrugs and replies “I’m just Lucky — I’ve always been Lucky. Haven’t I?”.

Now which friend ends up winning? (You might ask)

Lucky? (You might say) No.

So Mr. Success won! (you might reply).

Well — Yes — And — No.

Mr. Success, when he’s not tossing coins, is a renowned particle physicist. Unknown to his two best friends (and even the rest of the scientific community), Success has built a time machine (which he activates with his mobile phone). A few seconds before he needs to guess a coin toss, he activates the time machine, travels into the future, observes to outcome of the toss, travels back to the present, and guesses correctly. Unlike the muddle Mrs. Walker, or the faulty mechanism in the table, Mr. Success’s time machine is perfect, and he never mis-observes the coin toss. Hence, Mr. Success always wins.

(But you protest) So Mr. Success won? Then, why did you say yes — and No?

Well, unknown to Mr. Success, each time he activates the time machine, the future duplicates itself into two parts, duplicating the whole universe with it. So in actual fact, two copies of Mr. Success travel into two different futures. In one future, the coin falls heads — and in the other tails. So while in one future Mr. Success always wins, in the other he always looses, and Lucky (or somewhat less often) Smart, ends up winning.

The End.

Quod ex historia moralis

• It’s better to be lucky than smart
• The one who is successful is the one who is successful, and success beats both luck and smarts.
• Success is not as it seems.