Mind bogglers.

[newuseforvintage]

So I was listening to a Cat Empire song and one of the lyrics is "Have you ever tasted nothing". Now the more I thought about this the more it played with my mind.
It's not unlike that famous, self cancelling sentence; 'All irishmen are liars' said Pat the Irishman.
If it's true he's lying, if he's lying it must be true and so on and so forth.
Do you know any good mind boggles? And please, feel free to try and answer mine.

ps:For anybody interested the song was 'Miserere'.

 

[Fr331anc3r]

My personal favourite is the Heap:

10,000 grains suitably arranged make a heap. But, at no point can you convert a collection of grains that is a heap into one that is not, simply by removing a single grain. So it follows that a single grain is a heap. For if we keep removing grains over and over again, say 9,999 times, at no point does it cease to be a heap. Yet we obviously know that a single grain is not a heap.

Hooray for the little by little arguement

 

[johnzaku]

What I'm about to say is true, what I just said is false

You want to send a valuable object to a friend securely. You have a box which can be fitted with multiple locks, and you have several locks and their corresponding keys. However, your friend does not have any keys to your locks, and if you send a key in an unlocked box, the key could be copied en route. How can you send the object securely?

Spoiler

Put the valuable object into the box, secure it with one of your locks, and send the box to your friend. Your friend should then attach one of his own locks and return it. When you receive it again, remove your lock and send it back. Now your friend can unlock his own lock and retrieve the object

 

[Da_Vane]

A heap is, by definition, a minimum of four - simply because a heap also describes the form (similar to pile).

In this case that form is stuff on top of other stuff, and the smallest such instance of this form is a pyramid with a base of three grains in a triangular formation, and one on top in the intersection. Removing one more ceases to cause it to be a heap, because it no longer matches this description, as if you remove one of the bottom grains, the base collapses, and the remaining grains are no longer on top of each other in any "heaped" form.

Your arguement is only applicable by ignoring the form definition of a heap, in which case it would remain ignored for the single grain, and thus the single grain would indeed remain a heap.

 

[Skeleon]

'All irishmen are liars' said Pat the Irishman.
If it's true he's lying, if he's lying it must be true and so on and so forth.
Do you know any good mind boggles? And please, feel free to try and answer mine.

I always wondered about that one.
Pat could simply lie of his own accord.
Why is that supposed to be a paradox?

 

[Da_Vane]

It's a paradox because of the simple explanation of logic:

Pat is saying ALL Irishmen are liars, not that all the Irishmen he knows are liars, or that some Irishmen are liars. This means he is logically quantifying Lying as an objective quality inate to Irishmen, putting it alongside the quality of being Irish. (An Irishman must be Irish, otherwise they are not an Irishman)

Thus, you could easily replace the term Irishman with Liar and the phrase should still make sense, but it would then become "Pat the Liar says all Liars are Liars". This is clearly a true statement, not a lie, therefore pat cannot be Liar even though he is objectively qualified as a liar. Hence the paradox.

Lying of his own accord, or replacing the objective quality of ALL with SOME, changes the form into a subjective quality, which allows for exceptions. This makes the phrase parse as "Pat the SOMETIMES Liar says all Liars are Liars." This statement is true, so this is obviously a time when Pat is not Lying, and thus no paradox exists.

Outside of raw logic, the term "all" is usually taken as subjective rather than objective, thus it is common to see people to describe all of a group as something, which is the fallacy of over-generalisation.

 

[newuseforvintage]

'All irishmen are liars' said Pat the Irishman.
If it's true he's lying, if he's lying it must be true and so on and so forth.
Do you know any good mind boggles? And please, feel free to try and answer mine.

I always wondered about that one.
Pat could simply lie of his own accord.
Why is that supposed to be a paradox?

Actually, you make a good point. Let me revise :
"All irishmen always lie" said Pat the Irish man.

 

[QuirkyTambourine]

The following sentence is true:
The previous statement is false.

That one's been messing with me for years.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

Reminds me of an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh. The one with the twins...

Ugh, I can't remember the riddle, unless someone beats me to it, i'll be back.

 

[crudus]

Is the word "Hertological", hetrological or autological?

Reminds me of an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh. The one with the twins...

Ugh, I can't remember the riddle, unless someone beats me to it, i'll be back.

One of them Lies, one of them tells the truth. Figure out which is which. i mean uhhhh...I dont watch Yu-Gi-oh

>.>

<.<

 

[Skeleon]

Pat is saying ALL Irishmen are liars, not that all the Irishmen he knows are liars, or that some Irishmen are liars.

Right, but only he says that. He could be lying.
Just because he uses "all Irishmen" doesn't mean that it's objective.
It's still a person making a statement that we can't verify.

The simpler answer is still that Pat is lying in this situation.
Just because "not all Irishmen are liars" (if we say Pat's statement is wrong) doesn't mean that "no Irishmen are liars" (allowing for Pat to be both an Irishman and a liar without any correlation or causality between liar and Irishman).

 

[Dirty Apple]

I like to try and imagine what Ultra-violet and Infra-red look like.

 

[NimbleJack3]

You are tried and found guilty. You are sentenced to death.
You may make a last statement, to choose your method of execution.
If it is false, you are hanged. If it is true, you will be drowned.
What do you say?

 

[gentleben]

The following sentence is true:
The previous statement is false.

That one's been messing with me for years.

A colon doesn't end a sentence, therefore that just means "the following sentence is true", is false, therefore the sentence that came after that one was false, and it hasn't been messing with you for years.

Also, I don't really understand the point of that mind boggler, there is no concrete statement made in it, so there is no part of it that is actually contradictory. It is circular, yes, but as it doesn't actualy make any definite claim I don't see anything about it that could have it "messing with [you] for years".

 

[Motti]

Is no the answer to the question?
yes

 

[gentleben]

Is no the answer to the question?
yes

Once again, this is one that isn't really a mind boggler. "No" could equally be the answer to the question, as could "sandwich", "butterfly" or "Pitt the Elder". This just sounds like someone clarifying the answer to a question.

 

[Motti]

Is no the answer to the question?
yes

Once again, this is one that isn't really a mind boggler. "No" could equally be the answer to the question, as could "sandwich", "butterfly" or "Pitt the Elder". This just sounds like someone clarifying the answer to a question.

It is when you take the yes into account, when you don't you are absolutely correct.

 

[AvsJoe]

The only question that boggles my mind is: Who shot Nice Guy Eddie?

Spoiler: Reservoir Dogs

In the Mexican standoff finale of Reservoir Dogs, when the guns finally go off, no one actually shoots him. He just fires his gun and falls over dead. Double check if you don't believe me. I'll wait.

One of them Lies, one of them tells the truth. Figure out which is which. i mean uhhhh...I dont watch Yu-Gi-oh

>.>

<.<

Don't worry, I believe you.

 

[MrTweetums]

This statement is a lie.

Clean and simple.

 

[MrGFunk]

You are tried and found guilty. You are sentenced to death.
You may make a last statement, to choose your method of execution.
If it is false, you are hanged. If it is true, you will be drowned.
What do you say?

Is it...

Spoiler

I will be hanged