Paradoxes

[Kaguya]

Aren't they fun? Let's discuss/try to solve/post some paradoxes~

I'll start with the rock paradox.

 

"Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?"

 

If he could lift the rock, then the being would not have been omnipotent to begin with in that he would have been incapable of creating a heavy enough stone; if he could not lift the stone, then the being either would never have been omnipotent to begin with or would have ceased to be omnipotent upon his creation of the stone.

 

Well, there are ton of fun paradoxes out there. I love discussing on them~

Feel free to post any paradox you've heard of.

Anyone has anything to comment on the paradox I posted?

[Nosebleed]

Paradoxes are one of my favorite subjects in the philosophy field.

 

Regarding the paradox you posted i don't have much to say about it or to add though i know about it.

It's basically just an infinite regress since the omnipotent being can do anything therefore even if he created a rock too heavy for him to lift he could just make himself stronger to lift it but then the rock wouldn't be heavy enough and then the cycle would just repeat itself endlessly.

 

One of the first paradoxes i encountered and also one i'm fond of is: If Pinocchio said "Now my nose will grow" what would happen?

 

My opinion on it:

If Pinocchio said his nose will grow it's obviously a false statement as noses don't grow out of nowhere, but since pinocchio has the ability to grow his nose every time he lies his nose would grow due to the fact he just told a lie, but then that lie would become a truth and so the nose growing shouldn't happen since it's now truth. And thus we reach a paradox, it's not an infinite regress in a sense, it merely has no possible solution from the way i see it, does anyone agree?

 

Another interesting one is: You will never go from point A to point B as you must first get half way there, and half of that half, and half of that half of that half, etc. thus you will never reach point B, theoretically.

 

What do you think on this one?

[Nayleen]

Depends on your definition of time and lies and what "now" is supposed to be.

 

It should be able to grow just fine for telling a lie because it doesn't grow by itself, only by telling a lie - and the fact that it grows as a consequence of that does not suddenly make the former statement true as "now" lies in the past already.

[Nosebleed]

Depends on your definition of time and lies and what "now" is supposed to be.

 

It should be able to grow just fine for telling a lie because it doesn't grow by itself, only by telling a lie - and the fact that it grows as a consequence of that does not suddenly make the former statement true as "now" lies in the past already.

As i searched into it that was the most common way of bypassing this paradox, by using the notion of time and lie. And the word now is there intentionally by the way, the paradox itself states the word "now" so i won't edit it to make it more adaptable to this.

The way i see it is, when he stays "now my nose will grow" he is either telling the truth or lying, if he is lying the opposite will happen which means "my nose will not grow now" and thus reaching a solution, his nose won't grow. If he is telling the truth then his nose will also grow unproblematically.

Still this paradox is one of the first i learned and so it has a special feel for me, so i figured i'd share it either way.

[Katatsumuri]

This is perhaps the first paradox I've ever heard: "I always lie"

 

If he always lie, then his statement is true, yet then he tells the truth. And since he always lie, then he cannot tell the truth.

 

In essence, a very simple paradox

[atchikotchi]

"The Statement below is true.

 The Statement above is false."

 

This is probably the first one i've heard; The statement above is saying that the statement below is true, while the bottom statement is saying that the top statement is false and thus, neither (statements) are true nor false, since it's true value is indeterminate. 

[Nosebleed]

1 - 1,000,000 grains of sand is a heap

2 - A heap minus one grain of sand is still a heap

 

Repetition of premise 2 forces one to arrive to the conlcusion that a grain of sand is still a heap, and removing that grain of sand still leaves a heap, thus even negative grains of sand are still a heap.

 

The best way i see to deny this argument is denying the definiton of heap, thus making the first premise false and making the conclusion drawn from it false as well. That or denying the existence of heaps as an all, making this argument invalid as well.

Another solution would be to fix a limit, for example: Any heap with less than 10,000 is no longer a heap. Thus making the argument invalid once again.

 

Though personally i find the idea of nothingness being something quite interesting  

[Flutterz]

I really like the Monty Hall problem, which isn't really a paradox, but it's a pretty unintuitive problem.

 

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

 

As for actual paradoxes, Catch-22 is my favourite. Originally it goes something like this:

 

 

If a pilot is insane then he can be grounded if he requests it. If a pilot requests being grounded, then he is sane, since nobody in their right mind would want to go on a dangerous mission, and since he is sane he must keep flying.

 

 

[Nosebleed]

I really like the Monty Hall problem, which isn't really a paradox, but it's a pretty unintuitive problem.

I love this, if you switch your first choice you have a higher chance to get it right than if you sticked with your gut but human nature and pride make most of us stick with our first choice. It's mathematically proven though if you switch doors the probability of winning is 2/3 rather than the 1/2 that most people assume.

[nohman]

As for actual paradoxes, Catch-22 is my favourite. Originally it goes something like this:

 

As a little aside, Catch-22 is one of my favorite novels.

 

To keep it on topic, here's one: The paradox of nihilism

 

The lack of absolute truth or meaning is in itself an absolute truth or meaningful.

[Nosebleed]

That paradox explains how we know nothing. Brilliance.

 

This is called Moore's paradox (the most popular variation) and it's one of the simplest ones as well.

 

Imagine someone says "It's raining but i don't believe it's raining"

 

While this seems absurd it is still a paradox due to the fact that:

The sentence can be true

The sentence is consitent

The sentence is not a contradiction

 

I can believe it's not raining even if it is raining, since the premises are consistent i can assert that it is indeed not raining.

 

What the individual said is absurd but at the same time consistent, making it a paradox.

 

There's many variations of Moorean sentences but this is the most popular one and there's generally no actual consent regarding this statement.