Paradoxes: temporal, logical and otherwise.

[Darkmaster127]

Zeno's Paradox

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

I cry bullshit. This is silly. You can quite clearly tell it is bullshit: by panel 5, Achilles is seemingly beside the Tortoise. He can therefore just step over it, BAM, silly paradox destroyed. However far ahead the tortoise starts, this will always be the case. Unless you split silly hairs by saying that the person would get tired eventually yadda yadda yadda.

This is one of my personal favourites, but still- The point is that despite being [partially] beside the tortoise, he is not completely next to it. Therefore he still needs to reach were the tortoise is now before he can pass it. By the time he's reached were the tortoise is now, it will have moved forward some more. This just goes on.

You were close with the reason this doesn't work though. Eventually the gap between them becomes so small (You can get down to individual atoms if you like XD) that moving slightly further forward does indeed take the lead.

Another one I like; A restaurant owner is told he will receive a surprise inspection sometime next month. Next month is a 30-day month therefore if he has not received the inspection by the 29th, it must come on the 30th, which would mean it isn't a surprise. If it can't come on the 30th, and hasn't come by the 28th, then it must be on the 29th instead, which means it also wouldn't be a surprise. They can use this logic all the way down to the 1st and conclude they will not be receiving an inspection at all. Yet, as was told the inspection did come the next month, and it was a surprise because they were no longer expecting it.

 

[Kjakings]

Traveling backwards in time is my favorite.

Asuming that time is linear (and that time travel is possible), traveling back in time is a bit of a mind fuck. Because if you go back in time to do something, there won't be a reason for you to go back in time when you did because there is you already did what you did. So whatever you have done will not happen because it happened. Kinda. Confusing stuff.

time LINE? *sigh* time does not go in lines. it goes in circles. that is why clocks are ROUND

What about digital clocks? Those aren't round.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Does the set of all sets which do not contain themselves contain itself?

 

[C95J]

All can add is catch-22, which is essentially the same thing.

catch 22 is lame.
i must be insane to want to fly up there but if i'm insane, i cant fly up there. therefore i'm not insane and can fly up there, etc, etc
missing the obvious: you could fly up there and not want to, making you both fly and not insane.


On topic, i would say the chicken and the egg (HAH)

Edit: if anybody mentions the chicken and the egg, I'll be forced to kill you: evolution provides us with the answer: the creature we consider 'chicken' was obviously hatched out of an egg by its evolutionary ancestor divergant enough to NOT be considered 'chicken.' Therefore, the egg was first.

but the divergant ancestor was not a chicken, therefore it was not a chicken egg. the first chicken egg came from a chicken.

It is not specified that the egg is a chickens egg

 

[Mikester1290]

Go on then.....

 

[Kjakings]

If the human mind were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we could not.

 

[C95J]

Traveling backwards in time is my favorite.

Asuming that time is linear (and that time travel is possible), traveling back in time is a bit of a mind fuck. Because if you go back in time to do something, there won't be a reason for you to go back in time when you did because there is you already did what you did. So whatever you have done will not happen because it happened. Kinda. Confusing stuff.

time LINE? *sigh* time does not go in lines. it goes in circles. that is why clocks are ROUND

Digital clock??

*MWAHAHAHAHA!*

 

[C95J]

http://faculty.uml.edu/jpropp/srat-Q.txt

Attempt to answer this without forming a paradox. Go on. I DARE you.

THAT has confused me immensly, and I didn't even get past question 4!

 

[The Procrastinated End]

What would happen if an unstoppable force hit an immovable object?

The unstoppable force goes through the immovable object.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Zeno's Paradox
*Snip*

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

Not really a paradox. Just look at where their locations converge. 0.9 recurring is exactly one and all that.

 

[C95J]

Zeno's Paradox

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

I cry bullshit. This is silly. You can quite clearly tell it is bullshit: by panel 5, Achilles is seemingly beside the Tortoise. He can therefore just step over it, BAM, silly paradox destroyed. However far ahead the tortoise starts, this will always be the case. Unless you split silly hairs by saying that the person would get tired eventually yadda yadda yadda.

This is one of my personal favourites, but still- The point is that despite being [partially] beside the tortoise, he is not completely next to it. Therefore he still needs to reach were the tortoise is now before he can pass it. By the time he's reached were the tortoise is now, it will have moved forward some more. This just goes on.

You were close with the reason this doesn't work though. Eventually the gap between them becomes so small (You can get down to individual atoms if you like XD) that moving slightly further forward does indeed take the lead.

Another one I like; A restaurant owner is told he will receive a surprise inspection sometime next month. Next month is a 30-day month therefore if he has not received the inspection by the 29th, it must come on the 30th, which would mean it isn't a surprise. If it can't come on the 30th, and hasn't come by the 28th, then it must be on the 29th instead, which means it also wouldn't be a surprise. They can use this logic all the way down to the 1st and conclude they will not be receiving an inspection at all. Yet, as was told the inspection did come the next month, and it was a surprise because they were no longer expecting it.

that one is good, I like that one (the surprise inspection one)

 

[Czargent Sane]

Traveling backwards in time is my favorite.

Asuming that time is linear (and that time travel is possible), traveling back in time is a bit of a mind fuck. Because if you go back in time to do something, there won't be a reason for you to go back in time when you did because there is you already did what you did. So whatever you have done will not happen because it happened. Kinda. Confusing stuff.

time LINE? *sigh* time does not go in lines. it goes in circles. that is why clocks are ROUND

What about digital clocks? Those aren't round.

they're not cool enough to understand time travel. because they're SQUARES.

 

[Ampersand]

Zeno's Paradox

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

I cry bullshit. This is silly. You can quite clearly tell it is bullshit: by panel 5, Achilles is seemingly beside the Tortoise. He can therefore just step over it, BAM, silly paradox destroyed. However far ahead the tortoise starts, this will always be the case. Unless you split silly hairs by saying that the person would get tired eventually yadda yadda yadda.

I feel like you're missing the point, Most paradox don't exist in the real world but on paper they are unassailable.
For example to take this one a bit further, one could argue that it is impossible for an object to move in space. Why? Because within the smallest unit of space imaginable, there is contained an infinit amount of space. Nothing can ever cross an infinit amount of space, hence movement is imposible. I challenge anyone to find a flaw in that logic, and yet we move around without any difficulty at all...........And that's a paradox.
I think so anyway, correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[AngryMongoose]

What would happen if an unstoppable force hit an immovable object?

The unstoppable force goes through the immovable object.

The unstoppable force would hit the immovable object and stop. The magnitude of the force on the moving object would be equal and in an opposite direction to the normal contact force acting on it from the immovable object. If the unstoppable force was low enough you could probably move the object away. The force is unstoppable, not infinite.

What happens when a particle with an unstoppable momentum collides with an immovable object?

 

[Kjakings]

Traveling backwards in time is my favorite.

Asuming that time is linear (and that time travel is possible), traveling back in time is a bit of a mind fuck. Because if you go back in time to do something, there won't be a reason for you to go back in time when you did because there is you already did what you did. So whatever you have done will not happen because it happened. Kinda. Confusing stuff.

time LINE? *sigh* time does not go in lines. it goes in circles. that is why clocks are ROUND

What about digital clocks? Those aren't round.

they're not cool enough to understand time travel. because they're SQUARES.

You are no longer allowed to talk to me. I don't care if I laughed.

 

[HK_01]

All can add is catch-22, which is essentially the same thing.

catch 22 is lame.
i must be insane to want to fly up there but if i'm insane, i cant fly up there. therefore i'm not insane and can fly up there, etc, etc
missing the obvious: you could fly up there and not want to, making you both fly and not insane.


On topic, i would say the chicken and the egg (HAH)

Edit: if anybody mentions the chicken and the egg, I'll be forced to kill you: evolution provides us with the answer: the creature we consider 'chicken' was obviously hatched out of an egg by its evolutionary ancestor divergant enough to NOT be considered 'chicken.' Therefore, the egg was first.

but the divergant ancestor was not a chicken, therefore it was not a chicken egg. the first chicken egg came from a chicken.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

*5 minutes of calming down later*

Alright, let's get this straight: At no point will the parents and its offspring be of different species. There is no definite point along the evolutionary development at which a species changes into another species. It is a gradual development and parents and offspring will always be of the same species. At some point the species will have evolved so far from its far ancestors that that generation would not be able to interbreed with the generation from, let's say, 500 generations back. But there is no point at which there was a transition from one species to the next.

I hope this makes sense...

If the human mind were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we could not.

Ha, I really like this one!

 

[Czargent Sane]

Zeno's Paradox

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

why does he keep stopping? he isnt trying to catch the turtle, he is trying to reach the end of the race before it. this paradox makes no sense. why is he stopping at the turtle's "starting points" why not run to, say, the finnish line?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Zeno's Paradox
*Snip*

Beautifully concise and seemingly impenetrable.

Not really a paradox. Just look at where their locations converge. 0.9 recurring is exactly one and all that.

It isn't though, is it? It just seems to be. If you increase the level at which you measure it, you could go on infinitely.

 

[AugustFall]

I cry bullshit. This is silly. You can quite clearly tell it is bullshit: by panel 5, Achilles is seemingly beside the Tortoise. He can therefore just step over it, BAM, silly paradox destroyed. However far ahead the tortoise starts, this will always be the case. Unless you split silly hairs by saying that the person would get tired eventually yadda yadda yadda.

I hate that example, it takes an easy concept and fucks it in the face. All it's saying is that there is always a smaller unit of measure; in an incredibly convoluted way. Achilles is like an asymptote getting closer and closer but will never get there.

 

[HK_01]

What happens if I open "Desktop" on the desktop, in a window, and then drop the recycle bin from that window into the recycle bin on the desktop? Will a paradoxical loop start making the universe implode, or will it be ok? (I'm not gunna do it, just in case)

You delete the Recycle Bin icon. That is all. Kudos for coming up with it though!