Has anyone quoted Einstein to you, claiming he said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting different results?”
I doubt that Snopes is down with this, and other sources refute it. (Quote Investigator gives credit to Narcotics Anonymous). I am usually so busy taking credit away from Einstein that I’ve never thought to evaluate the sentiment itself.
Of the insane people I have known, nome of them do the same thing twice, much less expect results. Expected results would suggest the insane person understoods cause and effect. Instead, they just do things, random things, and don’t think for a second, then things happen they claim are unrelated to them and are not their fault.
I say doing the same thing twice and expecting different results is the definition of stupidity. Or I could see this as a good definition of stubbornness. But if you attribute this to Einstein in front of me you can be assured I will reliably give you the same result: “He didn’t say that.”
2 responses to “Insanity”
Potty training, on the one hand, is not stupidity.
“He learned his lesson, so we don’t have to impeach him,” on the other hand…
So I think it’s highly domain-specific.
But I’m glad that, if desired, someone can demonstrate repeated results from the same stimuli due to your consistency on this matter, whether their behavior is insanity, stupidity, stubbornness, or just aiming for entertainment. 🙂
KC – Well, the teacher does do the same thing again, and again, and that’s what eventually makes the changed result. So that turns everything on its head.