Questions tagged [paradox]
This tag is for arguments that produce an inconsistency with common sense.
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Does the paradox of tolerance mean that intolerance cannot be allowed in a tolerant society?
Rainer Forst describes tolerance as a social norm. So intolerant people and groups violate the social contract by denying the social norm of tolerance. See Hobbes, Locke, Kant et al on social contract....
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Is the spiral of silence an original game model?
What are the differences between the spiral of silence and the prisoner's dilemma? Can the spiral of silence be skipped, or should it jump only to score points, as in the prisoner's dilemma?
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how these two statements can be true at same time?
If you consider any two numbers that are not equal in value (2 is not 3), and it is a true statement that they are not. However, it is also true to state that they are the same: both are numbers.
You ...
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Is not knowing whether X is true inconsistent with assigning a probability to it?
I have read that it is wise to assign a non zero probability to beliefs, and not 0 or 1. This is because probability represents certainty and you cannot be certain of anything.
xxxxxx
However, if you ...
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Must all sentences be true or false?
Suppose there is a entity with which you can write down a self-contradictory sentence.Does the entity still exist?For example you know Russell's paradox?There is someone who says:"I always lie&...
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AI paradox in DKIW hierarchy [closed]
You can check this link for basic info.
(Note: 'data', 'information', 'knowledge' and 'widsom' words will be mention as shortened with first letters in this question.)
In summary:
D is the basis of W....
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Is there a couniversal solution to the predicate-theoretic version of Russell's paradox?
In set theory, let us call a solution to the problem of universal-sets-or-proper-classes a couniversal solution when it involves proposing the following:
∃U∀x((x ≠ U) ⟺ (x ∈ U))
This means that U is ...
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If this sentence is false, then it is true
Is the sentence "If this sentence is false, then it is true." false or true (even tautologically true), or is it a paradoxon? The sentence p claims (= is equivalent to?) that ~p → p which is ...
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Is there a distance so small it can't be further divided?
If I shoot an arrow at a target, at some point it will reach one half of the distance to the target. Then it will reach one half of that distance. It will continue to reach the half of the previous ...
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How can we commute the alethic negation in the liar sentence?
Normally, "It is not true that F," equals, "It is true not that F," or even, "It is true that not F." I can't figure out how to carry this out with the way the truth ...
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Is there a paradox of third-order arithmetic?
Calculus, sometimes analysis or second-order arithmetic, seems more intuitive when formulated in infinitesimal terms than in terms of real-valued limits. However, the meta-theory of analysis, i.e. its ...
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Why doesn't acknowledging the barber's dual identity resolve the Barber Paradox?
The Barber Paradox is given as: "In a village, there is a male barber who shaves only those who do not shave themselves. The question is: Does the barber shave himself?".
But, here is the ...
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A resolution to liar's paradox
Let's consider the famous liar paradox's statement:
This statement is false
Now, in classical logic, principle of bivalence could be stated as "All statements can either be assigned a value of ...
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Can a trier-of-fact in a U.S.-based criminal trial overcome the observer's paradox in order to represent itself as an impartial trier-of-fact? [closed]
This post is to ask the entitled question, "Can a trier-of-fact in a U.S.-based criminal trial overcome the observer's paradox in order to represent itself as an impartial trier-of-fact?" I ...
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"This statement is false" is neither true or false... Am I correct?
I have no background in philosophy. So I apologize if this question seems silly.
The reason "This statement is false" is sometimes considered to be a statement that can be evaluated as ...
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Does the preface paradox undermine long mathematical proofs?
Descartes, IIRC, somewhere says something about the vagaries of memory influencing our justification for believing in our memory, and thence for believing in proofs involving many steps that we have ...
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What if all sets contain themselves? [closed]
If we define (i.e., by definition) a set as an abstract collection of at least one element, and
If we say that by nature (i.e., as an axiom) all sets contain one element that is the set itself at the ...
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What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
Suppose you have a heap of sand. You remove one grain. Is there still a heap? You remove another, until you get down to a heap with three grains, a heap with two grains, a heap with one grain, and ...
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Would it be ethical to help both predator and prey?
A month back, I found a street cat which I started giving food and water too day by day, and yesterday, on a walk to the gym, I found a bird on the middle of the road. The bird had dust all over it's ...
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"This sentence encodes being false," vs., "This sentence exemplifies being false"
Does the liar paradox depend on the admissibility (as meaningful) of, "This sentence exemplifies being false"?
It seems, for Zalta's comprehension principle, that encoding relations are ...
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Is this a way to solve to Russell's/"liar paradox"? [closed]
So only liar paradox
Liar said: Im liar
or little easy
lie is existing ...
as Gödel sad you can't fix paradox in it's own space, so you need a protospace.obviously.
Okey, lets talk about what is a lie....
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Is there a difference between "is an intensional element of" and "is an extensional element of"?
There is a version of set theory according to which there are two flavors (types? categories?) of elementhood relation, and if it's ultimately coherent, it does offer a solution to Russell's paradox (...
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Do the derivation of the liar paradox, and the ontological argument, involve the same mistake?
Suppose you introduced the sentence, "This sentence implies a contradiction." Now, on its face, that sentence doesn't seem to imply anything (maybe not even itself) as such.
Reworked: "...
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How would I translate the following statement into higher order logic? Or what book would you recommend to teach myself higher order logic?
"For every liar Sentence, there exists some person for whom the sentence is either self-referential or (purely) negative."
I am a behavior analyst with an undergraduate degree in philosophy ...
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What is the meat paradox?
On the psychology of eating meat and the meat paradox:
One question examined in the psychology of eating meat has been termed the meat paradox: how can individuals care about animals, but also eat ...
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Why is Diogenes the Cynic's solution to Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox insufficient?
According to Wikipedia's discussion of Zeno's Dichotomy paradox (emphasis mine),
According to Simplicius, Diogenes the Cynic said nothing upon hearing Zeno's arguments, but stood up and walked, in ...
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How is this an example of a catch-22? [closed]
This was given as an example of a catch-22:
How is the graphic on the right an example of a catch-22? “If you don’t love yourself, how can you love anyone else?” “If no one loves you, how can you ...
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What is the meaning of “to fight a Catch-22 is to accept it”?
From Wikipedia, it says “Catch-22s often result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to, but has no control over, because to fight the rule is to accept it.” What ...
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Can realism exist? Could somebody make “real-” into an ideology?
[Please bear in mind that I may use different definitions of terms here, than you might know, since I’m a layman/hobbyist. Suggesting other terms for those definitions, that are established in the ...
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If all things come to an end, then wouldn't all things coming to an end itself end?
I saw this question here https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/18991/translating-all-things-come-to-an-end-to-latin and immediately I thought "if all things come to an end, then the action of ...
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Can you lose something that you don't care about?
I'm new to philosophy and as of now, I don't have any knowledge related to what he said in order to properly redirect him to a source that mentions something similar. His philosophy goes like this:
If ...
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What is this category of paradox called
In March 2020 the manager of the group scheduled a daily 15 minute meeting that was supposed to repeat until "things are back to normal."
By October 2022, the new state of things is normal, ...
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Has anyone ever really constructed a countable model of set theory that falls in the trap of the Skolem's Paradox? [closed]
In an article named 'Skolem’s Paradox' on SEP, there is a description of the Paradox I'm asking about here:
Skolem's Paradox arises when we notice that the standard axioms of set theory can ...
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Are there any other "omni-" paradoxes known similar to omnipotence?
The paradox related to omnipotence is well known - in one of the many possible forms it asks whether an omnipotent being can create a stone that it cannot lift.
While there are many similar paradoxes ...
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Does the cardinal Yablo problem have the same solution as the ordinal one?
To quote Kant (as usual!):
A quantity is infinite, if a greater than itself cannot possibly exist. The quantity is measured by the number of given units- which are taken as a standard—contained in it....
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Paradox involving the principle of indifference
The principle of indifference states that:
"in the absence of any relevant evidence, agents should distribute their credence (or 'degrees of belief') equally among all the possible outcomes ...
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Solution for the "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" paradox
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no background in philosophy or logic.
I've just randomly read the short story "What the Tortoise said to Achilles" by Lewis Carrol. As far as I have understood ...
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Irresistible force paradox as an inconsistent formal theory
The irresistible force paradox asks the following question:
"What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
I ask myself the following question: we could construct a ...
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Where Can I Find Discussion on Paradoxes Within Philosophical Positions?
I have become interested in the idea of paradox recently. Not logical paradoxes though, but when philosophical ideas are pursued consistently, and end up arguing against that position. The most basic ...
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Paradox of Plurality as a better idea
If X is in a zone where there is a rule that while a person has right to have/follow any opinion/view point but is REQUIRED (MANDATORY) to respect (and accept) plurality of opinions as a condition to ...
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Graham Priest's "escape from Hell" puzzle
The gist of the puzzle is that every day, the Devil offers to flip a coin to see if you escape; one loss and you're guaranteed to be stuck forever, but each day the probability of a winning toss ...
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How it's possible to describe something if description itself is action that changes universe?
This is some sort of paradox or a fallacy and I want to make sense of it.
This is how I would formulate the problem. To describe Universe we need to take an action - to say the description, write it ...
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A new challenge to physical reality
So recently I was thinking about Zeno's paradox (of infinite sum of 1/2^n in motion). Although I love calculus, I still don't get how it could possibly solve the paradox in Physical world, because ...
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How can an omnipotent god ever find out that he is omnipotent? Isn't it logically impossible for him to understand?
Let us assume that an omnipotent god exists. He by definition can do anything that is logically possible. So if it is logically possible to prove that a being is omnipotent then an omnipotent god can ...
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Does the confirmation bias really exist? [closed]
The confirmation bias is said to be the tendency to exclude information that contradicts our belief.
But does this bias really exist ?
What if the researcher who discovered this bias only gathered ...
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Could everything exist? What would this even mean?
I saw something that said the reason the universe exists is that everything exists, in an infinite multiverse. This then answers why the laws of physics of our universe are the way they are, which is ...
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Problem with infinity? [closed]
Note: See PART 2 for a better question.
1 kg of matter has infinite number of parts. Infinite number of things together can make an infinite amount of matter. 1 kg is not equal to infinite amount. We ...
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How would Nietzsche metaphorically apply the concept of a 'mind control parasite' to human philosophy, in relation to the will to power?
In Frederich Nietzsche's works, when he discusses a 'parasite,' he is indicating the following:
a complete lack of nobility of disposition when someone prefers to
live in dependency, at the expense ...
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Can you explain the following quote: "All evil is good become cancerous"
I am unable to find illustrative examples to satisfy the above-mentioned quote by Isaac Asimov.
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Levels of truth (is the liar paradox generated by equivocation?)
Strictly, Tarski's notion of truth levels, which is based on truth as a predicate (property), has it so that the liar sentence, "This sentence is false," by trying to attach a truth ...
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