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View Full Version : What in the name of hell is a paradox?


lan_rogers_book
2008-08-08, 09:42
Well I know what a paradox is, I know several examples of them and even pride myself in understanding the vast majority of them but when it comes time to define the word I'm clueless. So, what is a paradox?

LumpySnake
2008-08-08, 10:03
http://www.winnipesaukeewaterfrontmanagement.com/images/crib_dock.jpg

+


http://fotomaya.com/images/high2_Panajacel_dock.jpg

lan_rogers_book
2008-08-08, 10:24
wow... that was informative.

Concrete Donkey
2008-08-08, 10:28
par·a·dox /ˈpærəˌdɒks/ [par-uh-doks]
–noun
1. a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
2. a self-contradictory and false proposition.
3. any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.
4. an opinion or statement contrary to commonly accepted opinion.

Google is your friend

lan_rogers_book
2008-08-08, 10:33
Google is your friend

I had a fight with google last week and we aren't on speaking terms.

Failed Escape
2008-08-08, 10:33
Go back in time and kill your grandfather.

lan_rogers_book
2008-08-08, 10:35
Go back in time and kill your grandfather.

wow..... thats relevant........

Endotropic Decay
2008-08-08, 10:51
Go back in time and kill your grandfather.

Do I get to have sexual intercourse my grandmother?

villageillness
2008-08-08, 12:19
I had a fight with google last week and we aren't on speaking terms.

Or keyword terms?

BSK
2008-08-09, 12:17
wow..... thats relevant........

well that´s part of a time paradoxon, explained in the old film back to the future. micheal j. fox meets his parents when they weren´t a couple and his mother falls in love with him not his dad, making him vanish on a picture he got in his pocket. something similar happens in the film frequency and when homer simpson killed an animal in dinosaur age.

going back in time and killing your roots is a perfect example of a pradoxon, because how can you exist in the past if you won´t even been born? it´s a deadlock in logic, because every theory depends on the existance of a negative polarized version of this theory. if the negative version has the same solution as the positive version although both theories contradict each other in every way, you found a paradoxon.

Mellow_Fellow
2008-08-09, 19:13
If you want to get to grips with a paradox, a quick inspection of the concept of "the trinity" within Christianity should help you out...

God, all powerful, knowing and present decides to manifest himself to mankind, as his... son, in order that man will murder Him, and through that acknowledge and be cleansed of sin, through Him. This then alows God to counter the fall from grace of mankind, a consequence of freewill, even though God.... knew things would be like this when He created the universe? The Holy Spirit serves as nice metaphysical blue-tac to keep things nicely ordered, and happening... moral support to well, God/Himself (who doesn't need support anyway).

Try getting your head 'round that. Or else, just ignore it completely! :D

A simpler example is perhaps:

"This statement is a lie".

glutamate antagonist
2008-08-22, 13:17
The following statement is true.

The previous statement is a lie.

Numberjumbo
2008-08-24, 01:23
The following statement is true.

The previous statement is a lie.Yes..

Toastman
2008-08-27, 06:42
http://www.winnipesaukeewaterfrontmanagement.com/images/crib_dock.jpg

+


http://fotomaya.com/images/high2_Panajacel_dock.jpg

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

A "Pair a docks"


I get it now... wow.. I was looking for something paradoxial about the pictures.

Then later I thought of those puzzle picture things where the pictures represent words of a phrase. THEN I had a realization that this is what Snake did.

Wow.

eesakiwi
2008-08-27, 07:00
These

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/jwarri5/drmartensboots.jpg



Fails, on computer literacy

Nietzche
2008-08-27, 07:11
something that is true but it cannot be true

kinda like an oxymoron but in theory, not in words

Eagle Bay
2008-08-29, 17:12
Logical fallacy is also a type of paradox.

Something that can be explained truthfully and logically, but it is incorrect.

IceCAPPED
2008-08-29, 17:39
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ewu4_s3f-ZsJ::http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/29/the_more_you_know2.jpg

reggie_love
2008-08-30, 20:47
http://www.winnipesaukeewaterfrontmanagement.com/images/crib_dock.jpg

+


http://fotomaya.com/images/high2_Panajacel_dock.jpg

I unleashed a hearty chuckle upon seeing that. Unfortunately it just made me look like a moron in front of the people around me at the time, so, despite your aptitude for puns, fuck you, sir.

akiratheoni
2008-09-18, 04:30
wow..... thats relevant........

It IS relevant, granted that you kill your grandfather before he met your grandmother.

If you killed your grandfather, that would mean that your father/mother wouldn't have born, and then of course without your father/mother being born, that means that you couldn't have been born and that you don't exist. Then since you don't exist, you couldn't have gone back in time to kill your grandfather. But then that would mean that he didn't die, and then therefore your father/mother would be born, and that you exist, then you would go back in time and kill your grandfather and blah blah blah blah. Since each possibility negates itself, it is a logical paradox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox

arquin
2008-10-04, 11:20
I always used to think about this:

God is immortal and all powerful. If he can't kill him self, he's not all powerful. If he can, he's not immortal.

Is this a paradox?