Your Favorite Paradox
- Thread starter Odyne
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The way the macro-cosmos resembles the micro-cosmos. Also, how our mind interprets gigantic objects which are far away from us just as small object which are very close to us. No human is able to fully comprehend the size of the sun, while staring at the sun. It looks just like a ball. We internally measure things not by real size, but by viewing angle, which depends on distance. It's very simple, but I find it very fascinating that the "milky" way is indeed no different to us than some milk poured on the ground. The milk also consists of billions of stellar-looking objects invisible to us. Why do we tend to value the stars more than the atoms? Because they are, um, "bigger"? If big and small only depend on this relativity then why do we differentiate with such adoration? I suspect it is a remainder from violent times when the bigger animal would be usually more dangerous and feared.
Isn't the value just undetermined? Ranging from minus infinity to plus infinity depending on grouping? That's why the usage of "..." in math is considered very dangerous, if not defined strictly.
I was using the ellipses as a form of et cetera. I thought others would pick up on the pattern.
What do you mean? Its existence can be explained through Physics and Optics. What about its existence exactly that is paradoxical?
Just a simple paradox. Can you touch the sky? Can you feel it? Although it's blue, when a rocket travels through the "sky" towards space, do they see "blue" or a cloud of gas/smoke?
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.
and yes, I'm an ass.
Depends on your interpretation of the concept. I suppose you have to rely on the original details of the conception, assuming they are still around and are detailed enough. Otherwise I suppose we could just make stuff up and argue about that.
Oh the pattern is clear, but that's not what I meant.
1 + (-2+3) + (-4+5) + ... = 1+1+1+... = +infinity
(1-2) + (3-4) + ... = -1 + (-1) + ... = -infinity
In other words, the additive term is not clearly defined in this series. If the term is n.(-1)^(n+1), then the series does not converge and is undefined.
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Mary's Room.
Not really a paradox, but a thought experiment about mind/body duality. Mary's a scientist who lives in a black and white room with a black and white TV and monochrome computer. She's able to learn everything about how color works--how it's transmitted to the brain, how the light is absorbed and reflected to different degrees, etc--except for one thing: what it is like to see color.
Put yourself in Mary's shoes by trying to imagine a color you've never seen before, maybe ultraviolet or infrared. You can know everything about it, but you'll never know what it is like to actually see it.
Which is why I'm a dualist, not a physicalist.
Not really a paradox, but a thought experiment about mind/body duality. Mary's a scientist who lives in a black and white room with a black and white TV and monochrome computer. She's able to learn everything about how color works--how it's transmitted to the brain, how the light is absorbed and reflected to different degrees, etc--except for one thing: what it is like to see color.
Put yourself in Mary's shoes by trying to imagine a color you've never seen before, maybe ultraviolet or infrared. You can know everything about it, but you'll never know what it is like to actually see it.
Which is why I'm a dualist, not a physicalist.
Godel's Incompleteness theorems.
From what I understand it uses mathematical logic to prove that mathematical logic cannot prove certain mathematical statements (?)
From what I understand it uses mathematical logic to prove that mathematical logic cannot prove certain mathematical statements (?)
My response to that is another paradox:
"The child is father of the man." - William Wordsworth
Which is my intro to another paradox: the Catholic Trinity. One divine being in three persons - each one with free will, with intentionality. In a sense, God is capable of going beyond himself -a personal being in a constant, dynamic ecstasy of being, because divine being is essentially the relationality of three basic intentionalities disposed to self-giving love. Yet they are all one, because they unite their wills according to love, which defines and perpetuates their relationality, in an infinite cycle of self-giving. All of them, in a sense, as they give themselves, die to themselves, and yet live on in the other, giving the same self to the other in an endless cycle of self-giving, life-giving, self-perpetuating love. Intentionality, free personal will, is the key to solving the riddle, for it is inherent to the divine nature, because Being is inherently self-giving - self-manifesting, lending being (itself) to all other existents. Free will is like the key that starts the engine, and keeps it running. And Love, which is their name, is the third person, the Holy Spirit - the love between Parent (Father) and Child (Son). And all persons are essential to the nature of the divine (which is Love) for without another person, who shall the first person give itself to? Also, if it is relationality which primarily defines divinity, we encounter another paradox - without the child, there is no parent. The only thing that distinguishes the Parent from Child is who gives himself first, and who receives first, but both must exist from the very beginning.
But John the Apostle, understood this perfectly when he wrote, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the child (Son), the love of the parent (Father) is made manifest.
Can God love so much that he could contain all that love? Only if God (theoretically) is a trinity of persons in eternal ecstasy of self-giving being can the riddle be solved.
There, DC, you just made my mind explode again.
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It's that ancient immovable-object-versus-unstoppable-force paradox!
Both the bullet and the armor have to be of the same material - that way, when the bullet hits the armor, both become one and the same object at melting point. Another thought is the infinite expansion of both objects - and the consequent slowing down of time - so that the bullet continues to expand toward the armor but the armor is infinitely regressing, and relative to both infinities the distance between the two becomes virtually nil.
Oh dear, seems I took that riddle literally. But it was fun to think about, anyway!