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Catch-22 is a term coined by Joseph Heller in his novel Catch-22, describing a paradox in a law, regulation or practice in which one is a victim regardless of the choice one makes[1]. In probability theory, it refers to a situation similar to Heads I win, tails you lose. A familiar example of this circumstance occurs in the context of job searching. In moving from school to a career, one may encounter a Catch-22 where one cannot get a job without work experience, but one cannot gain experience without a job. Catch-22 situations are also sometimes called the chicken or the egg problems. The concept (and the book) was originally to be called Catch-18, until a novel called Mila 18 by Leon Uris was published during the final stages of Heller's work (to Heller's deep disappointment).
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Original use
The prototypical Catch-22, as formulated by Heller, considers the case of a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier who wishes to be excused from combat flight duty. In order to be excused from such duty, he must submit an official medical diagnosis from his squadron's flight surgeon, demonstrating that he is unfit because he is insane. According to Army regulations, any sane person would naturally not want to fly combat missions because they are so dangerous. By requesting permission not to fly combat missions, on the grounds of insanity, the bombardier demonstrates that he is in fact sane and therefore is fit to fly. Conversely, any flyer who wished to fly on combat runs implicitly demonstrated that he was insane and was unfit to fly and ought to be excused, and to be excused this person would only need to submit a request. Naturally, such flyers never submitted such requests. Of course, if they did, the "Catch" would assert itself, short-circuiting any such attempt to escape from combat duty. This seemingly irrational situation does have a rational basis, if sanity is a prerequisite to discovering one is insane, which the Air Force in the book believes. If one submits a request to stop flying because one is "insane," it shows enough sanity to recognize one is insane. In other words, one has to be sane to recognize one's own insanity. Another Catch-22 is depicted in a scene with Luciana and Yossarian. Luciana is distraught because no man will marry her because she is not a virgin. Yossarian offers to marry her, but she claims he is crazy for wanting to marry a non-virgin like herself and says she can't marry him. In words, Catch-22 can be expressed as: "C requires (implies) A and B; If A then not B; If B then not A". In formal Propositional logic symbolism this can be expressed as "<math>((C \Rightarrow (A \land B)) \land (A \Rightarrow \neg B) \land (B \Rightarrow \neg A))</math>". In this example, in order to leave the Air Corps (outcome <math>\!\,C</math>), you must be both crazy (proposition <math>\!\,A</math>) and request to leave (proposition <math>\!\,B</math>). If you're crazy (<math>\!\,A</math>) then you won't request to leave i.e.(<math>\neg B</math>). But if you do request to leave (<math>\!\,B</math>) then you're not crazy! i.e.(<math>\neg A</math>). Thus you can never leave (<math>\!\,C</math> cannot occur). However, in Heller's text, two meanings for Catch-22 exist beyond that of an unsolvable logical dilemma. In the first chapter, officers who censor the privates' letters must sign their own name according to Catch-22, and in the final chapters it is restated simply as "anything can be done to you that you can not prevent," the logical conclusion being eventual destruction or assimilation ...unless one breaks out of the system entirely. The solution for Heller is, to borrow a Prussian expression, die Flucht nach vorne antreten ("to take flight (flee) forward") decisively freeing oneself from a situation in which it is not possible to withdraw. In the case of Heller’s hero Yossarian, this was done by deserting and fleeing to Sweden. Note that the act of fleeing is not the primary issue: The central point is a decision to be free of a constraint combined with a strong course of action; such decisions are probably more typically found in the philosophy of existentialism than other systems of philosophy.
Deadlock
In computer science, a deadlock is a condition whereby two competing processes are each waiting for a resource which the other has control over. Each process will only release the resource it has control over after it has received control of the resource it is waiting for. Therefore, a resource will only become available for one of the processes if the other releases it — which neither will do, until it receives the resource that the other has. For example, suppose Process A has a block of memory, and needs to access a disk drive. Meanwhile, Process B has control of the disk drive, and needs to put its information in memory — specifically, it needs the block of memory Process A controls. Process A will hold onto its block of memory and wait for the disk drive to become available, while Process B will hold onto the disk drive and wait for the memory to become available. Both processes are dependent on the other, thus they will wait for each other forever unless the computer, sensing the deadlock, chooses a "deadlock victim" and forces the victim to release its resources. Thus, this situation is a vicious circle and is a good example of a Catch-22. This type of situation has also been referred to as a deadly embrace. A deadlock is, of course, an undesirable state in a computing system.
Other examples in popular culture
In a famous retort to U.S. Country clubs of the period not accepting minorities, including Jews, as members, Groucho Marx, in claiming a club had made him an exception, quipped: "I sent the club a wire stating: Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." Here, Marx is either not a member of a club, or if a club would accept him, he would immediately resign on the grounds that it would accept him. This leaves Marx completely unaffiliated no matter what – while he might wish to join a club, his acceptance would immediately cause him to leave.
See also
- Hobson's choice
- Morton's Fork
- Circular logic
- Double bind (a type of formalized Catch-22 which is found in psychology and psychotherapy)
- Reductio ad absurdum
- Lesser of two evils principle
- No-win situation
- Zugzwang
- Paradox
- The Lady and the Tiger
