Hello! fellow hive bloggers, today I am going to talk about some mind-boggling paradoxes. Paradox as you all know is a logical statement that contradicts itself and has contradictory yet co-existent elements. Paradoxes have been present all through the history of philosophical thinking and have always intrigued our cerebral capacity to think something to be true on its surface but also think of probably possible situations that are in fact just as probably impossible. Braindead already?
The famous philosopher and logician W.V.O. Quine in his lecture ‘The Ways of Paradox’ at the University of Akon presented and differentiated between three kinds of paradoxes: -
A Veridical paradox has a result that is absurd but presented in a way that makes it appear true. It is a situation seemingly impossible or contradictory but nevertheless true.
(
In the operetta, The Pirates of Penzance by W.S. Dilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, a young man by the name of Frederic joins the pirates at the age of 21. The conditions of his contract prevented him from joining before his 21st birthday. Frederic was born on 29 February. He was 21 years old but he only celebrated his 5th birthday. Fair enough?!
A Falsidical paradox has a result that does not seems false but actually is false and usually presented with seemingly correct reasoning such as that leads to an illogical and false conclusion.
All horses are the same colour is a falsidical paradox that arises from a flawed use of mathematical induction to prove the statement All horses are the same colour. There is no actual contradiction, as these arguments have a crucial flaw that makes them incorrect.
One man’s antinomy can be another man’s veridical paradox, and one man’s veridical paradox can be another man’s platitude._ ~Quine
Antinomies are self-contradictory in the way they are presented or in reasoning, and the contradiction was caused by the adopted principles of reasoning. Seemingly correct reasoning proves that the reached conclusion is both true and false.
Let’s say we have a ship, but after a while, we end up replacing all the wood and then a while later we replace the sales, and then a while later we replace the hooks. Is it still the same ship? Or is it a new ship? A Different Ship? Let’s go a step forward and say we retained all those parts which were replaced and make a new ship with it ….an identical one. Now is this one the original or the previous one? Or they both not original? What makes something truly original? PARADOX!!
We need some sand now!
Sorites (meaning heap in ancient Greek) so here we have a heap of sand.
Now, what happens when we take away a single grain of sand from it? Well, it’s still a heap. But then we take another, and another, still a heap, Right? But then we take every single grain of sand until only one is left….is it still a heap? At what point do we no longer consider it a heap? PARADOX!!
Let’s reverse this. We start with a single grain of sand. Obviously not what would we consider a heap but then we add another grain of sand and then another, and another, at what point will it become a heap? PARADOX!!
Now, instead of using objects as our examples let’s use words…
We are going to discuss only 2 words here, autological and heterological.
An autological word is a word that describes itself. For example pronounceable is pronounceable, polysyllabic is polysyllabic, and a noun is a noun.
Then there is heterological where a word does not describe itself. For example, 'circle' is not a circle, hyphenated is not hyphenated, and orange is not orange (orange is the new black btw ;)).
The paradox comes into play when we ask the question: is the word ‘heterological’ heterological ?. If you say no, then it does not describe itself. And if it is not heterological then it must be autological and define itself. But if it is autological then heterological describes itself and is heterological. PARADOX!!
If you say Yes then, heterological does not describe itself then that means heterological is not heterological. PARADOX!!
Let’s say we have a machine that can ‘teleport’ you from point A to point B anywhere in the world. Now to proceed the machine kills you and breaks down all the atomic bonds in your body. It then transfers all the data about what you were to another machine in a different location which remakes you (putting different atoms in the right place). So now the question is, is the same person that went into the machine at point A is coming out at point B? I mean you will have the same memories and personality which you had before but the physical properties of your body would be replaced with possibly similar as before. PARADOX!!
