Chapter 32 <Father dies before mother>

A person with superstitious thoughts, ask a fortune teller to calculate the life expectancy of his parents. As usual, the fortune teller first asked the date of birth of the visitor and his parents, and then pretended to count with his fingers for a while, then replied: the father dies before the mother. After hearing this, the man thought for a moment, paid the money and left. Why do the fortune-seekers pay the money and leave without doubting the fortune-teller's words?This is because the saying that the father dies before the mother is ambiguous, people can have different understandings of it, or it can express different judgments: the father is still alive, the mother has passed away; the father died before the mother, that is, the mother is still alive. Now, the father has passed away.And these two interpretations apply not only to the present, but also to the past and future.

If the querent's parents are actually dead, the fortune-teller will say, I'm talking about the past; if the querent's parents are still alive, the fortune-teller will say, I'm talking about the future; If the seeker's father is present or the mother is absent or the mother is present, the fortune teller will also give an explanation. In short, no matter what the situation is, the fortune-seeker will feel that the fortune-teller is right.In fact, the fortune teller is deliberately playing with the sophistry of ambiguous sentences in order to deceive people.