Lately, I’ve been reading up on the subject of logic. (Translation: I’ve been looking through Wikipedia pages related to the matters of logic.)
The segment that really caught my attention was the concept of paradoxes. Usually, these contradictions are found within ancient Greek poems and philosophies, such as the Cretan Paradox. This particular case tells of a Cretan philosopher who claimed that all Cretans are liars. Naturally, this statement fell into a series of “Well, if all Cretans are liars, how is this guy telling the truth? But if he is telling the truth, then not all Cretans are liars, which refutes the sentence!” Presumably, the paradox-analyst (Do they exist?) will conclude with some serious forehead-to-wall-collisions…
Only after some thorough research, (Translation: More Wikipedia pages) did I find that there were actually several proposed resolutions to the perpetual cycle, such as the Principle of Bivalence. In short, it’s a numerical attempt to deduce that a statement can be neither true nor false. Aha, eureka moment here! But I’ll leave this thought for another time…like when I actually understand what’s going on.
As I continued down the list of logical ironies, I began wondering if I could come up with one of my own. How cool would it be to create my legacy in the absurdities of a paradox?!
Okay, so maybe it won’t get me the girl of my dreams…
Unfortunately, (and luckily for my love life) I couldn’t think of a situation that could lead itself in circles. The closest I got was telling my friend not to follow my instructions, to which she gave me a blank glare.
However, I do remember when, back in high school, a classmate won a disputed slice of pepperoni pizza by claiming that the other guy “argues about everything!” The other guy could only stutter in response, knowing that if he objected, all self-dignity would’ve been lost in proving his opponent right.
Perhaps, one day, mathematicians and philosophers will refer to this historical event as the Pizza Paradox...
Needless to say, paradoxes are incredibly interesting! Once you break down the puzzles through logic, you see that there’s both a mathematical and linguistic approach to analyzing, and both fields are significant as well as confusing.
What’s your take on the topic? Any favorite paradoxes? A curious mind wants to know.
I like your blog a lot, I'll be following it to see what else you have to write!
ReplyDeleteas for paradoxes, my favorite one would have to be "If Pinocchio says that his nose is about to grow...does it?"
always kept me thinking.