Talk:Hedgehog's dilemma

Hedgehog vs. porcupine
According to the article, Schopenhauer's "Stachelschweine" was originally translated as "porcupine." I don't speak German, but a Google translation gives the same result. When did the animal of metaphor become a hedgehog, and which is preferred by scholars? Teflon Don (talk) 00:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Google Books says that Hedgehog's is more popular; Google Scholar is equivocal (too few hits for either). --Gwern (contribs) 10:08 27 August 2010 (GMT)

I am a native speaker of German, Stachelschweine means in effect procupines. Hedgehog would be "Igel". Every German source (including Schopenhauer's original parabel) refer to the dilemma as the porcupine dilemma, is the use of hedgehogs an English thing or are there examples for other languages as well? 89.204.136.52 (talk) 22:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Simpson's Quote?
Why is there a simpson's quote under the image of the hedgehog? I don't think this is relevant and actually consider this a possible form of vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.71.144.231 (talk) 13:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is there an image of a hedgehog in the first place? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.248.120.79 (talk) 07:57, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree, the image of the hedgehog is extremely unprofessional, and completely distracts from the contents of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.238.13.93 (talk) 03:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible misinterpretation
The following phrase does not seem to be an good example of what the hedgehog's dilemma is: "If two people come to care about and trust each other, something bad that happens to one of them will hurt the other as well, and dishonesty between the two could cause even greater problems." Since the "condition" is usually applied to an individual and not a couple, a better example regarding couple relationships might be: "If an individual becomes very close to another but gets hurt in the process, he or she might not want to get too close to someone again, fearing pain."

Relativity to personality
I believe that people of certain personality types suffer this dilemma more than others. For example, people with a "type B" Personality would probably suffer this more. Other factors probably influnce quite a bit too. Lord Sephiroth 02:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A bit of wording
In order to prevent an edit war (and because I accidentally pressed "enter" before I was done typing my edit summary), I bring this up on the talk page.

"The dilemma is exemplified with hedgehogs because they have spines on their backs."

In my opinion, this sentence is unnecessarily wordy, not to mention that it uses the word "exemplify" incorrectly. Thus I revert. Commander Nemet 06:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Stachelschwein
The article says Schopenhauer used the word "Stachelschwein". However, Stachelschwein indeed means porcupine, and not hedgehog. So which is it? Doesn't matter much for the metaphor of course, but still I'd like to know... Renke 00:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It should be porcupine indeed. Kafka (talk) 08:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

"go fast" vandalism
Vandals have made the beginning paragraph about hedgehogs going fast rather than sharing heat. Someone should revert to a non-vandalized state.--98.249.226.6 (talk) 12:03, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Joke
How porcupines have sex? . . . . . . . Very carefully.

Why no mention of this (in)famous joke? --TiagoTiago (talk) 05:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * According to your father? Witticisms are too far below Wikipedia's neutrality standards. According to your mother? No comment.--84.97.87.225 (talk) 23:07, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Dunno, actually this joke is nothing else than precise and laconic wording of subject of the article. And would greatly add meaning to it. Just find good source for the joke, where it was, if possible, first printed. My preferred wording: How do hedgehogs/porcupines mate? -- Carefully, very carefully... It was quoted in film The Thomas Crown Affair,1999, exactly to illustrate this dilemma. Of people who are in fact in love with each other but hurt themself and other at same time. Off subject witticisms and vulgarisms are definitely against neutrality in style, but here I could see illustration of the subject rather than mere joke. BirgittaMTh (talk) 09:11, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Real life
Do hedgehogs/porcupines actually do this in real life?Hypershock (talk) 05:44, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm wondering about that, too. Is there an actual biological basis regarding porcupines encountering that dilemma, or is it all just our human projection towards the animals using their spikes as an easy metaphor? --93.134.185.65 (talk) 16:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I've seen pictures of hedgehogs lying on their backs in a human's hand, and I've heard from hedgehog owners that their quills don't hurt when they're relaxed, so I would imagine that if hedgehogs needed to huddle they wouldn't have any problems. No idea about porcupines though. 65.34.87.245 (talk) 19:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Isn't it so that porcupines' spikes come easily off their skin and so are much more dangerous to others? Zoological accuracy is not needed for this metaphorical dilemma pictured, definitely. (And so to have this joke as illustration would be even more appropriate.) BirgittaMTh (talk) 09:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

"Citation needed"
There's a part of the article that states that "the hedgehog's dilemma is used to explain self-imposed isolation". This is marked as requiring citing, yet the article quotes "Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Volume 2" by Arthur Schopenhauer that says: "(...) It is true that the need for mutual warmth will be only imperfectly satisfied, but on the other hand, the prick of the quills will not be felt. Yet whoever has a great deal of internal warmth of his own will prefer to keep away from society in order to avoid giving or receiving trouble or annoyance". Shouldn't that quote work as a reference that checks that statement that allegedly needed citation? --Medialunaporelespacio (talk) 06:17, 4 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Maybe? It would be better if the article were expanded and discussed the topic more directly.  For example, the Social psychological research could be more explicit about how the one article references the concept.  As it stands, it talks about people doing the _opposite_ of self-isolation.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 01:10, 5 March 2022 (UTC)