paradoxes

[JaBlue]

When I went to take a crap today I took Paradoxes by R M Sainsbury with me. It has some cool stuff in it.

My plan is to relay the paradoxes in the book and have the forum talk about and respond to them. If you are familiar with the paradox in question, please don't respond. Let others think about it for themselves. Similarly, don't look up information about how to respond to the paradox. Just don't be an ass. Lets see what we can come up with.

We'll do one at a time and discuss them until we are at a reasonable stopping point. If nobody can produce anything on their own that is valuable, which may very well be the case for a lot of these, I'll introduce a response from the book.

Note that the wording of the paradox is going to be directly plagiarized from the book so I don't muddle it up for everyone.
So here goes:

The first:

Barber Paradox
In a certain remote Sicilian village, approached by a long ascent up a precipitous mountain road, the barber shaves all and only those villagers who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber? If he himself does, the he does not (since he shaves only those who do not shave themselves); if he does not, then he indeed does (since he shaves all those who do not shave themselves).

[Howard Treesong]

After reading this, I am no longer sure that I know precisely what a paradox is. I thought it was two plausible statements that appear to be consistent but are not. Am I close on the definition?

[Golden_Rhino]

Are we supposed to solve it like a riddle, or just discuss the paradox? I could be wrong, but isn't the whole point of a paradox that there isn't a solution?

[Bork]

Goat Paradox
On top of a mountain there lives a goat who is fatter than himself.

[milliondollaz]

Is responding to a Paradox "solving" it?

Are you going to post true paradoxes (like women, wave/particle) riddle paradoxes (like the town chief only tells the truth to people he shaves, you can ask him one question....) or previously baffling, but answered paradoxes (like the Twin Paradox about effects of time dilation in the theory of relativity)? Which one is the Barber Paradox? I guessed it was a riddle.

[econophile]

JaBlue,

I too am a little confused by the OP. Maybe you should describe what you had in mind a little more.

[Golden_Rhino]

This thread reminds me of the Star Trek episode where Kirk made the android's head blow up by telling him:

Everything I tell you from this point forward is a lie; I am lying.

[.Alex.]

The barber does not live in the village?

[Potvaliant]

Maybe I'm misreading it - kind of awkward sentence structure in the first sentence - but why does anyone have to shave the barber?

[gamblore99]

You have a whole book of paradoxes and THIS was your choice?