Your Favorite Paradox | INFJ Forum

Your Favorite Paradox

Odyne

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This was inspired by a discussion between me and [MENTION=2308]DimensionX[/MENTION]; about paradoxes and how the mind perceives them. We were inspired in turn by the movie Inception.

Anyways, post your favorite paradox. Let it be a photo, a text, a concept, etc. Discuss if you wish.

The thread is intended for funs. So Go.
 
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I don't believe in paradoxes. I believe in people creating a narrow context in which two things cannot exist.
 
Here are mine.

* The Four Paradoxes of Zeno that attempt to prove that motion is impossible.

Also the infamous Infinite Staircase. :D

infinite_staircase.jpg
 
DAMNIT you beat me to Zeno!

The arrow one is my favorite of his:

The arrow paradox
“ If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless. ”

—Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5

In the arrow paradox (also known as the fletcher's paradox), Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one instant of time, for the arrow to be moving it must either move to where it is, or it must move to where it is not. However, it cannot move to where it is not, because this is a single instant, and it cannot move to where it is because it is already there. In other words, in any instant of time there is no motion occurring, because an instant is a snapshot. Therefore, if it cannot move in a single instant it cannot move in any instant, making any motion impossible.

Whereas the first two paradoxes presented divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time—and not into segments, but into points.[11]


That staircase was developed by Roger Penrose and his Father Lionel Penrose. Escher used it in one of his paintings. I love it.

From wikipedia:

The Penrose stairs is an impossible object created by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose. It can be seen as a variation on the Penrose triangle. It is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three dimensions; the two-dimensional figure achieves this paradox by distorting perspective.
 
The existence of sentient life with a limited time constraint is one of my favorite paradoxes.
 
"The only thing I know is that I know nothing."-Socrates

My sentiments exactly.
 
If i think therefore i am, but if i don't think, which means i'm still making a choice not to think, even if it is to not exist, how can i think not, and not exist, and think i am, and exist?
 
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The grandfather paradox. I love the complexites and contradictions involved with the concept of time travel.
 
Tao Te Ching, and a bunch of alternative psychology/psychiatry books


"He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak" - Tao Te Ching

"The DSM-IV is a great book of fiction" - Thomas Szasz
 
The fact that there's even a thread with this title makes me want to give all of you a big :m032:
 
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The infinite sum of alternating integers 1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + . . . equals 1/4, which is not an integer

and


If asking oneself "Am I dreaming?" in a dream proves that one is, what does it prove in waking life?


and


Sherman's Paradox which is an bizarre pattern of inheritance in the X syndrome.
 
If asking oneself "Am I dreaming?" in a dream proves that one is, what does it prove in waking life?

It doesn't prove that you are dreaming, I have asked it before in my dreams and failed to acknowledge that I was dreaming, there are further tests to verify you are dreaming.

Same with waking, I do a quick test to verify I am awake, but as you get better at testing and recognizing, it becomes less of an issue.
 
It doesn't prove that you are dreaming, I have asked it before in my dreams and failed to acknowledge that I was dreaming, there are further tests to verify you are dreaming.

Same with waking, I do a quick test to verify I am awake, but as you get better at testing and recognizing, it becomes less of an issue.


Do you think this is applicable to schizophrenics?
 
Do you think this is applicable to schizophrenics?

I don't know anything about schizophrenia, although it would be a VERY interesting topic to study. :D
 
I don't know anything about schizophrenia, although it would be a VERY interesting topic to study. :D


Yeah, it is interesting to look into.
 
If asking oneself "Am I dreaming?" in a dream proves that one is, what does it prove in waking life?

This is interesting. If you ask yourself in waking life, whether you're dreaming, and you're are, it's still waking life, and you are still dreaming. Why? Because dreaming has to do with our unconscious/conscious mind. Being conscious does not exclude our unconscious. They exist side by side. One doesn't cancel out the other. So, you can be awake in a dream, and not be awake, just as you can be dreaming while awake and still be awake. Hence the existence of a "waking" dream, right?

So, you can be dreaming and awake all at once.
 
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The fact that there's even a thread with this title makes me want to give all of you a big :m032:

Paradoxes are awesome.

Here are some I just found on the internet and kinda interesting to think about:

Let's say there is a bullet which can shoot through any barrier. Let's also say there is an absolutely bullet-proof armor which no object can penetrate. What will happen if such a bullet hits such an armor?

Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?

What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn the headlights on?
 
Schrodinger's cat. - as long as we don't open the box, that cat is theoretically alive and dead all at once.
 
Let's say there is a bullet which can shoot through any barrier. Let's also say there is an absolutely bullet-proof armor which no object can penetrate. What will happen if such a bullet hits such an armor?

Both sides would independently require the laws of physics to stop working. So what happens when the laws of physics stop working. :D

Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?

This one I really like.

What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn the headlights on?

I am MUCH more interested to know what would happen to the body if one were to travel at the speed of light.
 
Odyne said:
Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?

Yes.

Just because a fountain is called the fountain of eternal life it doesn't mean it can grant it, thus, a man can drown in the fountain of eternal life. :p

and yes, I'm an ass.
 
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