[math-fun] The logician in hell

This is from Dante's Inferno (Ciardi translation, Canto XXVII, "The evil counselors") -- Later, when I was dead, St. Francis came to claim my soul, but one of the Black Angels said, 'Leave him. Do not wrong me. This one's name went into my book the moment he resolved to give false counsel. Since then he has been mine, for who does not repent cannot be absolved; nor can we admit the possibility of repenting a thing at the same time it is willed, for the two acts are contradictory.' Miserable me! with what contrition I shuddered when he lifted me, saying: 'Perhaps you hadn't heard that I was a logician.' Thane Plambeck http://www.plambeck.org/ehome.htm