Friday, 23 March 2007

A Few of my Favourite Paradoxes

These are transparently stupid problems, made soluble with a little common sense. They exercise the mind, nonetheless.


Buridan's Ass: The ass is a perfectly rational creature. It is placed at an equal distance from two identical bails of hay. Logicians conjecture that the ass will starve because it is unable to choose its prefered bail of hay.

The Ship of Theseus: Theseus's ship encounters many misfortunes on its travels of the sort that we are all used to: sea monsters, angry gods, jilted women, etc. Every time the ship is damaged, Theseus's crew replace the damaged part. Ultimately, the unhappy ship has so many misadventures that every single part of the ship will have been replaced at least once. Far away on some Afric shores, all the original wreckage of Theseus's ship washes up. The industrious locals set to work at once to piece it all together, until they reconstruct the original ship in its entirety. So...which is the real ship of Theseus: the one still afloat, or the newly-built vessel?

Drinker Paradox: I don't really understand this one, but my ribs squeak with delight at the image of everyone in a pub having to follow the lead of one man on a stool propping up the bar.

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