Got Paradox?

[WeekendLazyness]

Post your paradoxes!

The following sentence if true.
The preceding sentence is false.

[kongurous]

I always lie.

[EdvardMunch]

I like this one:

"Which is better, eternal happiness or a ham sandwich? It would appear that eternal happiness is better, but this is really not so! After all, nothing is better than eternal happiness, and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness."

[Battlecruiser]

I like this one:

"Which is better, eternal happiness or a ham sandwich? It would appear that eternal happiness is better, but this is really not so! After all, nothing is better than eternal happiness, and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness."
Haha, I love those ones. This one I saw posted by wraizyr somewhere.

I am nobody.
Nobody is perfect.
Therefore I am perfect.

But thats not really a paradox. Just a play on words.

I remember a paradox about a forest with 2 paths. You would have to choose one to go to truthville, and the other leads to falseville. If anyone remember the rest of it, please post it.

[Valjean]

I wish my wish won't come true. >_>

[UED77]

The Universe began with an explosion that created all matter.

UED77

[Magmaniac]

I love myself!:D
I hate n00bs! =\

[Modred]

I remember a paradox about a forest with 2 paths. You would have to choose one to go to truthville, and the other leads to falseville. If anyone remember the rest of it, please post it.
It isn't a paradox, so much as a riddle, but here you go.

You are walking down a path, and come to a crossroads. The road forks into two paths, each leading to a different town and a different path. In one town, every citizen tells nothing but lies, while in the other, every citizen tells nothing but the truth. Standing at the crossroads, you see a man who is obviously from one of the villages also standing nearby. You need to pass through the town of truth tellers, but because there are no signs, you ask for help. There is one question that guarantees he shows you the correct path. What is that question?

Here are a few paradoxes:

Military Intelligence (this is offered lightheartedly, in jest)
Freezer Burn
Static Change
Falling Up
Life after Death

[Battlecruiser]

Here are a few paradoxes:

Military Intelligence (this is offered lightheartedly, in jest)
Freezer Burn
Static Change
Falling Up
Life after Death
Aren't some of those are oxymorons?

And thanks for posting the riddle. I always thought it was a paradox, since I never knew it had a solution.

[GrassDragon]

How about the ever popular, "go back in time to kill your father before you were born" paradox?

[WeekendLazyness]

How about the ever popular, "go back in time to kill your father before you were born" paradox?It's not possible, unless you killed the person you thought was your father, concluded that the woman who is your mother isn't, and made a baby which turned out to be you. Like in that episode of Futurama, but instead Fry killed the man he thought was his grandfather.

[Grom_Icecream]

Hrm.... I can't totally remember the Catch 22 paradox but it's always been popular. It goes something along the lines of:

Anyone who wants to be at war is crazy. People who are crazy cannot be in the army. Anyone who wants to leave the army is obviously sane, and thus they must stay in the army.

ARRR i cant remember the rest, but someone look it up. Its one of those real life paradoxes

[UED77]

You are walking down a path, and come to a crossroads. The road forks into two paths, each leading to a different town and a different path. In one town, every citizen tells nothing but lies, while in the other, every citizen tells nothing but the truth. Standing at the crossroads, you see a man who is obviously from one of the villages also standing nearby. You need to pass through the town of truth tellers, but because there are no signs, you ask for help. There is one question that guarantees he shows you the correct path. What is that question?
Oooh, I love riddles!!

It seems that to receive any usable information, you would have to force them into a double negative, by forcing them to answer the question as if they were from the other village, causing the answer will be the same no matter whom you ask. This way, there are two questions from which you can deduce the correct path, with one of them directly giving you your directions to Truthville.

In my opinion, that question is:
"What would a man from the other village tell me upon asking him which way is Falseville?"
Let's pretend Falseville is to the right, and Truthville is to the left.
When you ask someone from the Truth village this question, they know that someone from Falseville will say Falseville it to the left, and they say it. Answer: "To the Left"
Someone from the False village knows that a Truth-villager would say it's to the right, and because they have to lie, they tell you: "To the Left".

Therefore, Truthville is to the Left.

UED77

[WeekendLazyness]

Hrm.... I can't totally remember the Catch 22 paradox but it's always been popular. It goes something along the lines of:

Anyone who wants to be at war is crazy. People who are crazy cannot be in the army. Anyone who wants to leave the army is obviously sane, and thus they must stay in the army.

ARRR i cant remember the rest, but someone look it up. Its one of those real life paradoxesCourtesy Wikipedia:

* One may only be excused from flying bombing missions on the grounds of insanity;
* One must request to be excused;
* One who requests to be excused is presumably in fear for his life. This is taken to be proof of his sanity, and he is therefore obliged to continue flying missions;
* One who is truly insane presumably would not make the request. He therefore would continue flying missions, even though as an insane person he could be excused from them by asking.

[TheBB]

(...)

In my opinion, that question is:
"What would a man from the other village tell me upon asking him which way is Falseville?"

(...)

You could also simply ask which way to his home town. The answer would always be in the direction of Truthville.

It's not possible

So, presumably, you've tried real hard before coming to that conclusion then?

[Sirion]

lol! UED77 typed all that up, only to be beaten by TheBB in one sentence!

Here are a few.

Suppose you have a lamp with a simple on/off switch. Press the switch when it is off and the lamp will be turned on, press it again and it will be turned off. Now suppose you run the following experiment. You turn the lamp on at the start of a minute. Thirty seconds later, you turn it off. In another fifteen seconds, you turn it back on, then 7 1/2 seconds later back off again, and so on throughout the midpoints of whatever time remains. Now the question is this. At the end of the minute, will the lamp be on or off?
Since the lamp has been turned on and off an infinite number of times, for every time it has been turned on, it has been turned off, and vice versa. At the end of the minute, therefore, it can be neither on nor off. But it must be one or the other.

*****

What would happen if an infinitely divisible stick were cut in two, then half a minute later each half were again cut in two, then a quarter of a minute later each fourth cut in two, and so on ad infinitum. At the end of one minute what would be left? An infinite number of pieces? Would each piece have any length?

*****

In a certain village there is a man, so the paradox runs, who is a barber; this barber shaves all and only those men in the village who do not shave themselves. Query: Does the barber shave himself?

*****

I wish to prove to you that there exists a unicorn. To do this it obviously suffices to prove the (possibly) stronger statement that there exists an existing unicorn. (By an existing unicorn I of course mean one that exists.) Surely if there exists an existing unicorn, then there must exist a unicorn. So all I have to do is prove that an existing unicorn exists. Well, there are exactly two possibilities:
(1) An existing unicorn exists.

(2) An existing unicorn does not exist.

Possibility (2) is clearly contradictory: How could an existing unicorn not exist? Just as it is true that a blue unicorn is necessarily blue, an existing unicorn must necessarily be existing.

*****

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) made the following interesting point regarding the shape of an infinite circle. The curvature of a circle's circumference decreases as the size of the circle increases. For example, the curvature of the earth's surface is so negligible that it appears flat. The limit of decrease in curvature is a straight line.

An infinite circle is therefore... a straight line!

[hammocksleeper]

This sentence is false.

[Semi]

The only good paradox I can recall at the moment is Russel's Paradox:

Let R be the set of of sets which are not members of themselves. Then R is both in and not in R at the same time.

[KillJoY]

Save the world, kill yourself.

But thats not really a paradox.

[Modred]

Aren't some of those are oxymorons?
Ah, you're right.

Oooh, I love riddles!!

It seems that to receive any usable information, you would have to force them into a double negative, by forcing them to answer the question as if they were from the other village, causing the answer will be the same no matter whom you ask. This way, there are two questions from which you can deduce the correct path, with one of them directly giving you your directions to Truthville.

In my opinion, that question is:
"What would a man from the other village tell me upon asking him which way is Falseville?"
Let's pretend Falseville is to the right, and Truthville is to the left.
When you ask someone from the Truth village this question, they know that someone from Falseville will say Falseville it to the left, and they say it. Answer: "To the Left"
Someone from the False village knows that a Truth-villager would say it's to the right, and because they have to lie, they tell you: "To the Left".

Therefore, Truthville is to the Left.

UED77
Ok, that works, but it's a little more complicated than what I was thinking. You could just ask "Which village are you from?" and get the same result. The truthful person leads you to truthville, and the lying person leads you to...truthville. =D

[LinkTheGameFreak]

a smart stoner.

[WeekendLazyness]

That's an oxymoron.

[hammocksleeper]

That's an oxymoron.
It could also be perceived as a paradox.

Oxymoron in the sense that stoners make stupid choices and therefore can't be smart. Paradox in the sense that, although a particular stoner makes poor choices, somehow he scores well on tests and such.


Eye of the beholder ;)

[GrassDragon]

It could also be perceived as a paradox.

Oxymoron in the sense that stoners make stupid choices and therefore can't be smart. Paradox in the sense that, although a particular stoner makes poor choices, somehow he scores well on tests and such.


Eye of the beholder ;)
That seems more like irony; it is possible for a stoner to make poor choices and do well on tests, so it can't be a paradox.

[hammocksleeper]

That seems more like irony; it is possible for a stoner to make poor choices and do well on tests, so it can't be a paradox.You're right! It could also be perceived as irony. In fact that's probably the most common interpretation. It can be a paradox indeed if you allow that all stoners are dropout scumbags, to which more than a few people will agree (whether you have met them or not).

[KillJoY]

Remember before you forget.

Damn thats not a very good one either.

You know whats funny? Sayong something like "If I were invisable you couldn't see me," and "I can't smell that funny smelling food." No that one was dumb. Actually they both were.

Have fun stoner Jim!

[Sirion]

My advice is to never take advice from someone over the internet.