What's a Sandwich?
It’s a question that has left many puzzled. What, in fact, is a sandwich? Is it the classic two slices of bread, Earl of Sandwich creation? Or is it simply anything in a similar arrangement?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss sandwiches. Tom harks back to his Swedish heritage by posing the question, is an open-sandwich a sandwich? From here we discuss logical positivism, neural networks and Quine’s seminal work ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’. Finally, we share some of our favourite sandwich creations and experiences.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare and Tom Spence of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing what is a sandwich? Tom, what's a sandwich? That's a very good question, Fraser. I hope so, because we've got a whole round topic. We haven't fallen off topic just yet.
Speaker B:Well, we did just then. This is a question that has interested me and bored all of my friends and acquaintances for a long time, which is the question of how do you define a sandwich? I feel like a sandwich is something we all know when we see it, but it's hard for me at least to put together a rigorous definition of a sandwich in words that captures everything that I kind of inherently know to be a sandwich. So to kick us off, I want to go to...
Speaker A:I'm interested just to why you're interested about this, but keep going. Oh, you'll find out why.
Speaker B:Well, yes, it's my heritage.
Speaker A:But if he says, I mean, if Tom were to say, oh, get me a sandwich and I got him a hot dog, have I, or a burger, have I fulfilled... Of course you haven't.
Speaker B:We'll come to that with my working definition. Chambers, the favourite dictionary of crossword puzzles everywhere, has two different meanings for sandwich as a noun. One, the first one, I won't go into it. It describes the classic two slices of bread, Earl of Sandwich creation. And two, then it says, anything in a similar arrangement, an exercise left to the reader.
Speaker A:Similar is doing a lot of work there, isn't it?
Speaker B:So the reason that this question interests me so much is because I'm a fully paid up Swede. Open sandwiches. Exactly. So to me, I see an open sandwich. And yes, that's a sandwich.
Speaker A:It's not, but anyway, keep going.
Speaker B:But it obviously doesn't have two slices of bread. So how can I create a definition of sandwich that allows what I observe to be true of an open sandwich being a sandwich, but doesn't allow, for example, a pizza to be a sandwich?
Speaker A:I mean, it feels to me like I could be sandwiched between two mattresses, but I couldn't be sandwiched by one mattress.
Speaker B:But you're talking about a verb.
Speaker A:I'm talking about a noun. I know, but you couldn't, if someone lying on a mattress, you wouldn't say, God, you look like a sandwich. But if there was a mattress on top of them, you would. You're not quite talking about a noun, actually, because what you've done is put together an adjective and a noun. And all right, it's made a kind of compound noun, whatever it's called. OK, because a sandwich, we all know what that is. But the very fact, if you call something an open sandwich, it ceases to be a sandwich anymore. Is an acoustic guitar there or not a guitar? Guitars are different. We could go down that. Is a Picasso painting? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. No, because. Is a gold statue not a statue? No, because guitar. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Just because he's got an adjective doesn't mean it's not the thing it's.
Speaker B:I know what you're getting at for a reason, because there is a specific name for this type of adjective, which it eludes me. But for example, the classic example given is wax fruit. A wax fruit is not a fruit. And the adjective changes it. But I contend that an open sandwich is a sandwich.
Speaker A:All I'm saying is the fact, it's a bit like when we talked about, we had this very similar podcast on, you know, what's doors and wheels, whatever it was, when we start, of course, you start defining what a door is and you were saying, well, a cupboard's a door because it opens and stuff. Well, and I was saying, well, no, it's probably not. And that's why we've got a different word for it. And all I'm saying is we've got a different word, which implies that it's a different thing.
Speaker B:Okay, so a chicken sandwich isn't a sandwich.
Speaker A:Hold on. Fraser, it's not going to work. Your angle of attack is not going to work. Let's move on to...
Speaker C:Well, no, because you can have an open chicken sandwich. The term chicken sandwich is a shorthand for a chicken filled sandwich. Exactly.
Speaker A:It's not talking about the structure of it. No, well, it actually does hinge on whether open is part of a compound noun, which is what you're alleging, or whether it's an adjective. That's what this is about. Yes, it is what it's about. He's shaking his head, listeners. Because if open sandwich is itself just a separate word, if open... That's what you're saying. Literally, that's what you're saying. You're saying an open sandwich, okay, there's a space in the middle, but stop thinking about it as adjective noun, because what it is is a whole noun and it's something totally different from a sandwich. No. That is what you said. That is what you said. I'm doing you a favour by presenting your argument in a technical way. He is saying that an open sandwich is just another type of sandwich.
Speaker B:So let's take a step back, right? Because ultimately, the question of whether an open sandwich is or is not a sandwich is almost the basis of this, because to me, it is, to Fraser, it isn't. What, an open sandwich? Yeah. Okay, go on, yeah. So we clearly have different definitions of sandwich, but how can I, as an individual, create a definition for me that encompasses all the things that I think of as a sandwich? Well, give us some education. This is, I will in a moment, but I think it's more general, because there are a lot of things that are quite hard to define, but you know it when you see it. And I think it's about whether or not you can always define something. Yeah, what's pudding? I know pudding when I see it, but I don't know how I would write down in words.
Speaker C:There is a nice engineering angle to this, actually. But we'll come onto it.
Speaker B:My working definition for a sandwich is that it has to be a bread-based foodstuff, whereby you can pick up the entire thing only holding bread, well, only touching bread. And the bread has to be cooked prior to non-bread items being added to it. Those are my two tenets. Okay, I like it. So that includes an open-faced sandwich, which was a key cornerstone for me.
Speaker A:I can see what you're closing up here.
Speaker B:It means something like a hot dog, as Nick mentioned earlier, is a sandwich.
Speaker A:Right, see this is where it falls down.
Speaker B:And it means something like a pizza is not a sandwich, because toppings are added to raw dough.
Speaker C:So it's got to be bread. It couldn't be a wafer, like an ice cream sandwich.
Speaker B:No, so this is my definition of sandwich, because I look at an ice cream sandwich, I don't think, well, that's a sandwich. This is working purely on my view of the real world.
Speaker C:My concern with your definition is that it's long. It's complicated. There's lots of really, there's lots of conditions. You've caveated it to hell. What's bread? Yeah, what's bread? But no, biscuit bread.
Speaker A:But I think my problem with it is you're held hostage to your devotion and weird obsession. Misguided, misguided. Yeah, with definitions, right? No, with open-faced sandwiches. Well, well, well, hold on. And what this means is, unfortunately, is you put yourself in the unfortunate position where your understanding of the world and the real things in the world have been obscured and blocked by your attempts to define the world, right?
Speaker B:So that's, I think, quite an interesting question.
Speaker A:Well, it's more than that, but it's also a statement. But it's because, clearly, at the end of all this, if your system spits out that a hot dog is a sandwich, clearly your system is wrong, because a hot dog is not a sandwich.
Speaker B:So if I take a roll. No, no, no, because. Hold on, hold on. No, no, no, because what you're going to do. Let me finish my point, please, Fraser. Fraser, I would like to finish my point.
Speaker A:That's what you're going to do. No, because you're going to go start, ah, well, hold on. What about this definition, if we define it like this? I don't care, because a hot dog is not a sandwich.
Speaker B:Fraser does not want me to continue, because he knows that I'll prove him wrong. No, no, no, because you're going to. I'll tell you what it is.
Speaker A:That's what you're going to do. No. So you're going to do this, right? It's like if I say a dwarf is short and you go, ah, but imagine a person who's tall. Make them one millimetre shorter. Are they not still tall? And then you're going to end up proving that a dwarf is tall. You're going to say, imagine a bun with a hot sausage in it and now just make the bun longer by degrees. No, no, no, actually, to be fair to Tom, sorry, I'll just finish what I want to say, and then I will let you say whatever you want to say. But the point is, I've just said that, no, look, your system is wrong because it uses, you know, whatever the analytical method or decision making process or definitions, because it spits out what I think. Absurdities. Yeah, it spits out absurdities at the end of it and you're about to say, well, no, but hold on. What about, and you're going to follow down the same line. No, he's going to try and prove to you that a hot dog is a sandwich and this is how he's going to do it. Yeah. Off you go. Right. So first of all. But I don't care even if it does prove it because a hot dog is not a sandwich. Let's hear him out.
Speaker B:But yeah, let's hear him out. First of all, I'm not going to do that because I'm going to say a hot dog being a sandwich is clearly not an absurdity. A hot dog is obviously a sandwich. Okay, right. But I don't know how you would think it's not. Yeah. And if I need to convince you of that, I would say a BAP, right? Take a BAP, you know, slice it almost all the way through, fill it with fillings. That's a sandwich. That's exactly what you've done with a hot dog.
Speaker A:But I don't care what sort of arguments you use because a hot dog, by anyone's understanding, is not a sandwich. Except by my understanding. And I think, no, but you've only come to that understanding because you've applied this method. I don't think one day you got up and thought, that's a sandwich.
Speaker B:I've always believed a hot dog is a sandwich. I've always believed a wrap is a sandwich.
Speaker A:So if I say, come round for sandwiches, it'll be nice. We'll have a sandwich tea and it's hot dogs. You'd go, yeah, okay. I'm game. No, no. Of course you wouldn't, Tom. I'd be fine with that. I've got some proposals then about how we take this forward because we can analyse this en route to the sort of logical positivist school. Yeah, yeah. There's a number of things we could be agreeing or disagreeing on. First, it's the extension, right? The extension of the term sandwich. What things does it cover? Now, we've got a distinction already. You don't believe that a hot dog is a sandwich. He thinks it is, right? So you disagree on the extension. That's the first thing you disagree on. You can disagree on the rule. Now, it might be actually that you do agree on the extension, but you disagree on the rule. So for example, he might say that sandwiches have to be wider than they are tall. And I might say all sandwiches need a filling. And in fact, it might be we'd never encountered the edge case sandwich, which was very tall and had a filling or was very wide but had no filling. We might just not have encountered that particular sandwich. So we might rub along fine in sandwich world, agreeing that all these things are sandwiches. But he might be using a totally different method to decide whether they're sandwiches.
Speaker C:And a very tall toast sandwich comes along and throws you off.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly. But there's one further thing, which I think is key to the point you were making there, Fraser, which is that you can take, if you like, a sort of scientific approach. To redefining a sandwich in a way that you think is more useful. So, you know, things like the concept of energy or the concept of, well, I mean, water, for example. Now, these days, water is kind of people used to mean it's that wobbly stuff you can drink. Well, now, really, we mean it's H2O. And if we discovered a new chemical formula that really was exactly looked exactly like water. We'd still say it wasn't water because science has said this thing that you call water. We've discovered what its real nature is. And I think that's where that's possibly what Tom has done here.
Speaker B:I've discovered the true nature of a sandwich.
Speaker A:Well, you're alleging he's alleging that you've done that, that you've redefined it to neatly fit some things in. But you've done violence to the natural language. I have to say, I feel really uncomfortable with Nick here being the arbiter of reason. And it just feels really odd. Well, but keep going. I definitely want to hear from Peter as well. So what this all is about is the extent to which you can apply. So the logical positivist approach sort of, if you like, kind of codified by early Wittgenstein is that basically all disagreements that anyone might have must be about facts or about language. Yeah. Now, if you think a hot dog isn't a sandwich and he thinks it does, then the logical positivist approach would be to say, well, it's two different words. Fraser sandwich, Tom sandwich, they're different words. And we should just because they look the same. We should stop being deceived into thinking they're the same word. But Quine in his famous essay, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, came along and said, well, it's not really as simple as that. And I think this sandwich question feels like it is very much along the Quine lines. I'm not sure if this is one of you is actually just sort of wrong about something or whether it's just. Are you comfortable just saying there's two different words? I don't think you are. I think you think the other person is basically wrong about the hot dog question. And then some more stuff.
Speaker C:Peter. So I think on a practical level in the engineering in me again, day to day, it doesn't matter, does it? You know, when you when you're working on a say we were working on a food classification app. Right? We just pick one and roll with it. And we might have fundamental disagreements that might cause divisions in the team. But ultimately, we have to pick one. So yeah, they say level doesn't really matter. You design your ontology, you design your taxonomy to classify things in a certain way. And you roll with it. And just it will work out 99.9% of the time, because it's really only these edge cases that cause a problem.
Speaker A:I sort of agree and sort of don't in as much as I only care about it when we're talking about it. I don't. And I suspect the same with you, Tom, that you don't wander around a lot of time thinking about sound. Maybe you do. I bring this up at every party. Okay. But actually, you go to many parties. They've dropped off. But actually, on another level, I deep care deeply about it. Because he's wrong. And he's an idiot. You need to be educated. Well, more about to do. But more to do with something we talk about a lot in these podcasts is kind of my view of thinking about the world and your view of thinking about the world, which is you kind of trying to delve in stuff and explain it and define stuff and analyze stuff, which, as we have learned, is definitely not my approach. And so on that level, it's super important to me. But what I want to get at, and I think this is where we need to go, is to get a handle on your intuition that it's not a sandwich. That intuition. So and I think this is this problem about so in the sort of the extremists, the sort of the extremist form of this approach to philosophy was this sort of natural language philosophy approach was very fashionable in the 60s, sometimes called the Oxford School, where you go, someone says, is this a sandwich? And you would say something like, well, some people would say it was. And other people would say it wasn't. And that would be more or less it like no discussion. Doesn't get you very far. But I think that I think that really, people are applying rules that they're not aware of. I think I suspect that's where this comes from, that we have internalized a rule about recognizing that something's a sandwich. And we it's when you get the edge cases that we may not as a linguistic community have had to agree on that before. But now it turns out we do, because, you know, someone's got to go and get the sandwiches for lunch. And what we don't want to do is for them to accidentally come back with a bunch of hot dogs. So what is your intuition? What's driving your intuition that it's not a hot dog? Right. What makes it not a sandwich? Yeah, yeah. So we definitely we need to hear much more from Tom. But I think it's two things. I think, first of all, I think if you would take 100 people, 100 English people, and say, show a picture of hot dog and say, is that a sandwich? They would say, of course, it's not. That's punting it onto something else's definition. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, listen. And so therefore, we are operating in an environment where everyone understands, I feel, what a sandwich is. Okay. And what it is not. But especially if you look at it at the other end, at the end result, i.e. a hot dog, okay? So we're operating in an environment where everybody understands that's what it is, okay? I mean, it is a fair answer, I think, to say if nobody calls it a sandwich, it's stupid to claim that it is. Yeah, right. In a sense. And I think that's probably what I'm getting at. But I think there is a deeper thing. But that's a cyclical argument, though, because as soon as someone does call it a sandwich... Tom, so just to finish off, just to finish off, and so I do, I feel slightly annoyed, because I think it's an element of contrarianism, and also an element, I do think this sort of slavish devotion to, oh, we need to sort of work this through and define it. And I'm going to, I'm going to agree with what the definition is at the end, and be restricted by that. And there's something that sort of inflames like the libertarian in me that I don't like that. Tom.
Speaker B:So are you saying that actually you, you don't think it's a sandwich just because it doesn't feel like a sandwich to you? No. So why isn't it a sandwich?
Speaker A:Because in the common vocabulary of every single person in England, let's say, it's a sandwich. No, it's not a sandwich. Why aren't you, we need to do this. Is a baguette filled with a pate, a sandwich, a baguette sliced that way filled with pate, is that a sandwich? So hold on. So I'm absolutely prepared to answer that. Yes or no. Yes or no. I feel like the Chancellor on the Today programme. Don't wait for the translation, Ambassador Zorin. Yeah. No, I'm absolutely prepared to answer that. Okay. But I, what I will say is with a hot dog, it's just such a clear example. Okay. But let's go to, so a French baguette, just with pate in it. I would probably say no, that it's not a sandwich. Put ham in it. So then it's a sandwich. Then it's a sandwich. Yeah. Okay. So, so then slice a sausage, slice a hot dog very thinly and put that in. Yeah. That would be a sandwich. Right. Now just don't slice that hot dog and put the hot dog in. Suddenly it's not a sandwich. What? So which point, where did it stop being a sandwich? Clearly that point. Yeah. When you started slicing it. Right. So do you think the filling has to be prepared? No, it's not that. It's a preparation. No, it's not that. It's because not slicing a sausage has so clearly become a hot dog. It's its own thing. So Fraser.
Speaker B:Am I right in thinking that you're saying it's not a sandwich because it's a hot dog? Correct. But why is a hot dog not a sandwich?
Speaker A:Because the answer to that is I don't know, but what I do know is it's not a fucking sandwich. Okay.
Speaker B:Because I think while you, I think your criticism that, you know, we're kind of too enthralled to needing to define it is fair and you know, that's, that's a feedback I get at a lot of the parties that I go to. But at the same time, I think that you are equally enthralled to refusal to attempt to understand why you think it's not a sandwich. It's not necessarily about saying, right, these are rules and I'm only going to call it a sandwich under these conditions. But why do you not think it's a sandwich? You're just saying, because it's not.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You're not trying to understand yourself and your own reasoning more. Look deep inside your own sandwich definition.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah. As Buddha said. It's almost a good question that you've asked, but ultimately it's not because it's still going back. It's this kind of.
Speaker C:It's a bit like trying to tell a bear not to poop in the woods though, isn't it? I don't know, maybe.
Speaker A:Fraser doesn't like being told. It's intuition. It's intuition's very powerful gatekeeper. Yeah. No, it does. I think this is quite revealing, actually, because it really does. Actually, I do feel really quite emotional and passionate about this.
Speaker B:That is something that I have found. Anyone that I've brought this up with discovers that they actually have very strong feelings about what is and isn't a sandwich, but can never establish why they have those strong feelings.
Speaker A:Well, I know why. Which it does go back to this. Because it's a hot dog. No, no, no, no. It does go back to this point. I think I do feel quite strongly about, which is I'm sort of quite a pragmatist, I think. And I think it's too much intellectual navel gazing in something like this, for example. Do you feel the same about whether saxophones are woodwind or brass or not? I do. Yeah. See, I think. So I think this is possibly and you're experiencing a kind of challenge to group loyalty. I think linguistic communities. Yeah. He's shaking his head again. I know he hasn't even heard what I've got to say. That linguistic community. People feel very strongly about their language because language is a real social unifier. That's why people get really worked up about so-called Americanisms and, you know, why people don't like it. I'm sure all this is true, but it's not how I feel about this. But go on. No, but this is like what you might not think it, but your brain does. Right. Deep down, your reptilian brain is going, who is this interloper who's come here with a hot dog and is calling it a sandwich? He's not one of us. Must be a German spy. Yeah. Let's destroy him. And I think that deep down, that's why you're reacting emotionally. Because like sharing a language is one of the key ways that a group feels unified. But I want to just have a look at this kind of approach that Tom's taken to coming up with rules. Because I really like these rules. I think they're very elegant. Right. And I think they are standing in for some other fuzzier rules. But I think they're doing a great job at covering them all off. And I think, you know, good rule design is about trying to come up with things that efficiently help you make decisions about something without needing to rely on loads and loads of other indicators. Right. You don't want a really complex, you know, 15 point framework for trying to work out if something's a sandwich. If you can just say, well, can you pick it up using only the bread? I think that's really good. I don't think he's defined a sandwich. I think he's created a set of rules that will 99% of the time will tell you whether something's a sandwich, which is not the same thing. I think this is an empirical set of rules that help sort sandwiches from non sandwiches, but don't actually tell you what sandwich means.
Speaker B:So I've designed a pretty efficient classifier.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But a classifier isn't the same as the natural truth.
Speaker A:Well, that is the interesting question, because maybe it is deep down. Our brains must be doing something like applying, looking for a set of features and calculating, you know, whether something is a sandwich all the time.
Speaker B:And Fraser's neural network's just been trained wrongly.
Speaker A:Yeah. Well, I think, well, I think what we could say is what you've done is some dimensionality reduction. And you've managed to pick out these three things that actually do nearly all of the work.
Speaker B:Two things, Nick. It's far simpler. Pick it out with just the bread? Bread cooked before the non bread was added?
Speaker A:Because you've got the bread, the bread. You originally just said bread based food. But of course, the bread is in everywhere. Can you pick it up with the bread, which is part of it? Yes. Yeah. I definitely want to pick up on the sandwich. Question. And. But we also need Tom's other edge cases. What? Beyond sandwiches, you mean? Is Marmite on toast a sandwich? It is. Swedish person.
Speaker B:It's an open sandwich. Yes.
Speaker A:Bullshit. Something's gone dreadfully wrong.
Speaker B:Another thing that people often contest with me is wraps. I mentioned them before. A wrap is a sandwich. I've always looked at a wrap and thought a sandwich. I'd call that a sandwich. Yeah. It's in the sandwich section in a supermarket. They've got it right. It's not in the wrap section, right?
Speaker A:I think that a surface of bread must be in opposition to another surface of bread. And you are not, your open sandwich isn't a sandwich for that reason.
Speaker B:So at what point? Jam on toast isn't a sandwich. So in your ham and cheese baguette, at what point when you are opening it, does it suddenly cease to become a sandwich?
Speaker C:Beyond the 45 degree angle. Is that necessary or sufficient? Sorry, beyond the 90 degree angle.
Speaker B:If you fill it quite a lot, does it suddenly cease to become a sandwich? Yeah, like a kebab. Is a kebab a sandwich?
Speaker A:No, I think I'm adding a rule. That depends on the bread. You can have a kebab that's just meat on a stick. Yeah, I'm adding a rule because the surface is a bread facing each other in some sense. If you draw, okay, I'm refining it further. If you draw the perpendicular bisectors of the surfaces of your bread, they must cross.
Speaker C:They must cross, yeah. So you could have two pieces of bread next to each other pointing at infinity. He's just trying to serve you. They cross at infinity.
Speaker A:Yeah. No, I think it's got to be 90 degrees or less, actually. The bread must subtend an acute angle at some point.
Speaker B:So an open sandwich. Not a sandwich. If you pick it up and just squash it a bit in your hand. Suddenly a sandwich.
Speaker A:Right. Yeah, if I take a piece of bread like that, I've got my palm open facing the ceiling. Listeners. Put a bread on it, stick some ham on it, squish it like that. Sandwich. Instant sandwich.
Speaker C:I would agree. I often make kind of like half sandwiches because Ada wants a sandwich. They're called open sandwiches. I will do exactly that. Take one piece of bread. I will fold it over. Yeah, I do that. Put something in it and fold it over and that's like an instant sandwich. Yeah. I mean, secret pleasure. I like doing that just with butter.
Speaker B:So here's the thing. All of these are, you know, they're working definitions and they work for your understanding of what a sandwich is. But if you were to go to a party and say that, some people would say, well, no, because no sandwich is a sandwich. Get out of my party. The sandwich extremists. And some people would say, well, no, that's one piece of bread. It can't be a sandwich. So that's the thing. Everyone has their own different, very internalized and very personal definition of a sandwich that they may not have worked out what that definition is. But everyone has it. And everyone feels surprisingly strongly about having it challenged.
Speaker A:I genuinely don't feel strongly about it because of that reason. Actually, I've just examined as to why I might feel so strongly about this. You've introspected. Yeah, I've introspected. That's why it's been so quiet. Yeah, no, it is. Well, actually, it was just an opportunity for me to think. But also, you were waffling about reduction dimensionalities or something. I don't know. So it was probably the appropriate moment for me to tune out anyway.
Speaker C:Changed his emails while you were talking. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Listen, I do want to come on to this again. But what haven't we said? What do we need to finish off on? What more do we need to say? Or have we said it all?
Speaker C:I think it relates to an important thing we do quite a lot when we're doing our analysis. A lot of the things you do when you're beginning a process of analysis is organizing your information or organizing the concepts which you're thinking about. And it's very important to build effective taxonomies and ontologies so you're, A, on the same page. And, B, things are spread across the things you're going to be classifying or working against. And I think the fact that Tom's got a very sort of rule, he's got multiple rules to try to classify a sandwich feels more like a sort of faceted taxonomy to me. So it's got to tick all of these kind of qualities in order to be classified as a sandwich. Two qualities. Two qualities. Yeah, yeah. Well, Nick's adding a third, which is opposing bread. Angles of bread. Yeah. Bread geometry. But that's one form of taxonomical development. Another form would be hierarchical, whereas you could crudely say anything with bread in it. But we have bread products. You have bread-based foodstuffs. That's our higher level thing. And then one of those is a sandwich. And another one underneath there is a hot dog. So that hierarchical structure is very important. I haven't really got anywhere to go. I just wanted to throw that in there and say this. Okay.
Speaker A:Sandwich pragmatism there, coming in against all this sort of sandwich chauvinism. Yeah. Sandwich fascism. Yeah. Yes, I want to say something. I think it's only fair for Tom to have the right to reply. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I've got a question. So look, I was sort of analyzing as to why I feel so strongly about this. And it's honestly not devotion that I feel emotionally attached to this definition. I think what it is, is this. And the closest I felt to this is, I can give two examples. And yeah, this kind of this emotional reaction. The first, and I'm quite prepared to be wrong on this. But I remember saying, I was moaning about Trump to someone, right? Saying, oh, isn't he awful? And they said to me, well, hold on. But the fact that he has been elected as a president, surely you must at least have some respect for that. Okay. Because, you know, 50 odd million people voted for him. And therefore, at least, you know, respect for the office and what he's, you know, that that's what he is. At which point I was utterly inflamed and said, no, no, no. What that means is the system is just totally bonkers and wrong. If I don't give a toss, you know, there's no way I'm going to respect him. Because he's clearly all the horrible things I might think about him. Okay. So although I might be wrong in that, it feels similar. Right. But second and probably closer emotionally is, and I'll try not ramble on about this, is my sons were born three months early. Okay. Which meant they went into, they should have gone into one cohort in their academic years, which would have kind of artificially made them older because they were born earlier. Right. And we were fighting really for about five years with our local council as to which year they should enter. Yeah. You were trying to redefine ages from conception rather than from birth. Well, no, no, no. That is essentially what you would do. I guess. I mean, yes. But I would put it as in birth. I mean, basically, yeah, I'm happy to agree with you on that. And for me, I was just utterly incensed because the council said no. And people were saying, well, at some point, you know, you're going to have to give up all the council says in practical terms, in reality, you're going to have to accept that at some point if they keep saying no. And that just made me keep going. No, no way. And I've never been. You were in the paper, weren't you? I was. Yeah. Yeah. And I just I just I just knew that they were wrong. Just absolutely. And I just was not. And it's one of the few things in my life I've just been absolutely certain of. And that's how I feel about hot dogs. So I have a. And for me, it's a kind of actually it's a it's a kind of authority thing that I don't care what some system says or some taxonomy. I don't care. That's a fucking hot dog.
Speaker B:So I feel similarly about something, which is that there was a guy who was he was trying to tell me there's some kind of gospel truth that a hot dog wasn't a sandwich. Yeah. And I know deep down that a hot dog is a sandwich, that an open faced sandwich is a sandwich. And I don't think you feel about it like that. I feel. With no justification, with no reasoning behind it was saying, no, that's not a sandwich. You're wrong. So no, no, no, no, no. I said he tried to.
Speaker A:Did they try to insinuate that you were an authoritarian fascist trying to oppress their children? I think they might. Yeah. But that's the thing. But you said that feels like, oh, I recognize that feeling. No, you don't recognize that feeling. I had it just now. I strongly suspect that there's no way you feel as strongly about this as I do.
Speaker B:So but that's my my point there is that it that example of the sandwiches goes both ways. You are just adamant that a hot dog is not a sandwich. It doesn't. I am. A hot dog is a sandwich. But what we can all agree on is that hot dogs are great. They are great.
Speaker A:Yeah. Hot dogs. Great. They're a great subset of sandwiches. Great. Well, we've all come together at the end. Brilliant. Just finish off. So time for that final question. Yes. Fraser. Yeah. What's your favorite sandwich? I've got my answer. Be as controversial as you want. I've got my answer. Nick. The humble toast sandwich, which I think is very underrated and. Describe it to me. And so minimalistic. It's beautiful. So basically, you get you've got to get really like, you know, supermarket 38p a loaf, white bread, spongy white bread toast reasonably well. Butter both sides, salt and pepper on both sides in between two other pieces of bread. And then, of course, cut it into two triangles. It is absolutely beautiful. Hold on. So you made a sandwich out of the toast. The filling is bread. Yeah. No, the filling is the toast. Yes. I'm sorry. That's what I meant. Yeah. So and it is basically like a really cheap chicken escalope. It's quite extraordinary. But it is one of those things where when you try it. And the outer bread isn't toasted. No, that's just that's lovely, soft, straight out of the packet bread. It's, you know, underrated, not even very well known. And I just I think I think because it's so simple, it's so perfect. The toast sandwich gets my vote. Interesting. OK, I'm going to try that.
Speaker C:Peter. So mine is not a recipe. Mine is context defined. Christ, where's this going? I thought I just asked what your favorite sandwich was. So actually, it can contain anything, but it's it's the having just climbed a mountain sandwich. Yeah. Oh, I see.
Speaker A:More generally, the sandwich you have, which is all squished in your rucksack.
Speaker C:It's usually slightly squished. It's usually much bigger than you need to be because you've kind of made it on the fly. But it's sort of, you know, you might have bought everything in in Londis on the way there, but it's just something like something like a big baguette filled with ham and cheese and whatever you kind of had on hand. But the key thing is it's after having done lots of physical exertion and you're really hungry and just it's perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah, really nice answer. I like that. It's only fair to leave the last bit to me. So my one would be. Hot dog. No, my one is just a humble cheese sandwich. And I think.
Speaker B:Cheese and pickle or just cheese?
Speaker A:Just cheese, probably. Butter in there. Yeah, butter. And also probably I never do this. Do you want it toasted? No, no, no. What kind of cheese? Well, just cheddar, extra mature. Right, of course. Although I never do this, grated cheese. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In there. Amazing. I mean, it's exponentially better than just slices. You have to grate the cheese in a cheese sandwich. And just as a really brief diversion, I spent a stint here and there working as a hospital porter. And one of the things, one of the great joys of working in a hospital is, first of all, it's huge and labyrinthine and no one knows where you are. So you can never sleep somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. There's lots of beds around. But the other thing is that the women's, not institute, what they call the Women's Royal Voluntary something. They used to do the teas and the sandwiches and they would make a lovely cup of tea and a beautiful sandwich. Egg and cress probably. No, but cheese, like grated cheese. And the best place to eat that? Accident and emergency waiting room. So I used to sit there reading old copies of Hello Magazine, having this nice cup of tea and my nice cheese sandwich surrounded by people moaning and groaning.
Speaker B:Is this where some poor person with a broken arm is standing next to you? Stuck on their head.
Speaker A:Well, that's interesting. Wittgenstein again. He worked as a hospital porter. So you can clearly overlap.
Speaker B:Tom, the floor is yours. Go for it. The number one for me, it's not actually an open sandwich. It would be, you know, kind of crunchy baguette or crunchy roll. Gotta have a crusty roll. Something crusty. So, you know, to the point of not quite being two pieces, but with a hinge. With butter, ham, cheese and some little gherkins in there. Yeah, gherkins. That would be my number one. Cornichons. A mild cheese, something like an Emmental or a Jarlsberg. Probably not a cheddar for me.
Speaker A:Any particular context you'd like that?
Speaker B:Any context.
Speaker A:Any time, any place.
Speaker B:Hand me that sandwich and I'll be happy. Ham and cheese and cornichons. But I won't object if it's only got one piece of bread. Because it'll still be a sandwich. Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah. I was gonna say no one will object either as long as you don't call it a sandwich. So, yeah. All right. Let's stop there. That was fun, right? Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare and Tom Spence of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye. Bye.
