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How about it?
Sure 72%  72%  [ 18 ]
No way! 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Maybe 12%  12%  [ 3 ]
Huh? 12%  12%  [ 3 ]
My Zen-fu is weak. 4%  4%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 25
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 Post subject: Paradoxes
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:22 am 
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Basically post any paradoxes you know, and if you came up with them yourself, how?

I'll forgo the well known for one of my own. It started with the saying "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." Naturally, this lead me to the train of thought that the saying could apply to anything, guns, horses, whales, you name it. Or so I thought. Inevitably, I came to the word 'law', creating "If you outlaw laws, only outlaws will have laws."

It was at this point that my already shaky (at best) sanity began to slip away, for I realized that for an outlaw to have laws would negate the label of 'outlaw', which would mean that they would also no longer have laws, making them outlaws once more. This infinite loop creates the "outlaw paradox" and is only part of the paradox as a whole.

For you see, there is a second part to this paradox, perhaps more convoluted yet. For in the action of outlawing laws, one also negates the law that outlaws other laws, meaning that once again laws are in place. Much like the "Outlaw Paradox" this means that the law outlawing laws is itself no longer outlawed and this continues in an infinite loop forever, and thus creates the second part of this paradox, the "Null-Law Paradox."

Because of the two infinite loops created by this one paradox, the pair are to be referred to as the "Double-Naught Paradox" and is held to be universal.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:40 am 
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I've got one for you, and I came up with it while reading "The Pardoner's Tale, from Geofrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales". In the pardoner's tale, three men set out to kill death, and...I'll let you find out what happens for yourselves. What I thought was, not so much a paradox as a very bad pair of possible consequences. Either A, people never die, and must suffer the effects of aging for eternity, in everlasting pain, thus making everyone want to condemn the three to eternal torture. Not a paradox, but funny. Option B is, the loss of death makes the universe cease to exist. I can't tell if that's from a paradox or not, but either way, the three drunk partiers are A-holes that deserved what they got in the end.

[Edit]
P.S., anyone who doesn't know who Chaucer is, or what the canterbury tales are, look them up. Do it now.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:01 am 
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Is there a bunneh so snuggleable that even Fuzz can't snuggle?



..............no


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:10 pm 
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Just something from a movie or children's book I remember seeing(or maybe hearing). It basically goes: Dad says "Everything your mother says is true". Mom says "Everything your father says is a lie".


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:29 pm 
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Katsuray wrote:
Just something from a movie or children's book I remember seeing(or maybe hearing). It basically goes: Dad says "Everything your mother says is true". Mom says "Everything your father says is a lie".
Simple solution: Both are lying. Both tell the truth and lie, so neither statement is truthful.

Insomniac wrote:
I've got one for you, and I came up with it while reading "The Pardoner's Tale, from Geofrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales". In the pardoner's tale, three men set out to kill death, and...I'll let you find out what happens for yourselves. What I thought was, not so much a paradox as a very bad pair of possible consequences. Either A, people never die, and must suffer the effects of aging for eternity, in everlasting pain, thus making everyone want to condemn the three to eternal torture. Not a paradox, but funny. Option B is, the loss of death makes the universe cease to exist. I can't tell if that's from a paradox or not, but either way, the three drunk partiers are A-holes that deserved what they got in the end.

What about option C? Where, after the loss of death, the three are forced to 'become' death until some smartass does the same thing to them.

FuzzlePup wrote:
Is there a bunneh so snuggleable that even Fuzz can't snuggle?



..............no

Ah, but if this hypothetical bunneh is so snuggleable, will it want Fuzz to snuggle it? Perhaps it has come full circle and has, in fact, become so snuggleable that it becomes physically impossible to snuggle.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:37 pm 
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If they are both lying, then its still holds potential paradox. To completely alter the situation, isn't really a solution. The idea of a paradox is to be a self-contradicting loop, which the example provided is.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:27 pm 
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Sable Dove wrote:
Katsuray wrote:
Just something from a movie or children's book I remember seeing(or maybe hearing). It basically goes: Dad says "Everything your mother says is true". Mom says "Everything your father says is a lie".
Simple solution: Both are lying. Both tell the truth and lie, so neither statement is truthful.

Insomniac wrote:
I've got one for you, and I came up with it while reading "The Pardoner's Tale, from Geofrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales". In the pardoner's tale, three men set out to kill death, and...I'll let you find out what happens for yourselves. What I thought was, not so much a paradox as a very bad pair of possible consequences. Either A, people never die, and must suffer the effects of aging for eternity, in everlasting pain, thus making everyone want to condemn the three to eternal torture. Not a paradox, but funny. Option B is, the loss of death makes the universe cease to exist. I can't tell if that's from a paradox or not, but either way, the three drunk partiers are A-holes that deserved what they got in the end.

What about option C? Where, after the loss of death, the three are forced to 'become' death until some smartass does the same thing to them.

FuzzlePup wrote:
Is there a bunneh so snuggleable that even Fuzz can't snuggle?



..............no

Ah, but if this hypothetical bunneh is so snuggleable, will it want Fuzz to snuggle it? Perhaps it has come full circle and has, in fact, become so snuggleable that it becomes physically impossible to snuggle.



BLASPHEMOUS SLANDER! For fuzz is the ultimate bunneh snuggler.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:59 pm 
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Can an omnipotent God create a being more powerful than He?
*head asplode*


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:01 pm 
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IT'S A LION! wrote:
Can an omnipotent God create a being more powerful than He?
*head asplode*


Dealing with infinites and thats something humans can't comprehend.

You know a thought I've always had that puzzled me.
If you were to select one item or person out of infinite items or persons, what are the chances you would be selected or would that even be possible? O_o


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:13 pm 
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FuzzlePup wrote:
You know a thought I've always had that puzzled me.
If you were to select one item or person out of infinite items or persons, what are the chances you would be selected or would that even be possible? O_o

Strictly, that's undefined. The probability of any specific item being selected from a set, S, is ( 1 / |S| ), where |S| is the size of the set. If the set is of infinite size, that becomes (1 / infinity), which is undefined. Usually, though, a limit is applied, and lim |S|->infinity (1 / |S|) = 0. So there's effectively no chance that the specific item would be chosen. The probability is considered "statistically insignificant."

On the concept of math, here's one: 1/9 = .1111+ (it's irrational, and continues repeating forever, so that's how I'm going to express that.) Similarly 2/9 = .2+, and so on. But here's where things get funny. The fraction 9/9 = 1. But it also would follow the pattern of the others, generating .9+. So 1 = .9999999+. So much for "one" being something easy to understand.

Sable, I can't get over the phrase, "Zen-fu." Wouldn't that be a Chinese-style martial art where you wield Natani's brother to great advantage? :P


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:32 pm 
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*drool* :shock:


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:53 pm 
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Only children are able to understand infinity and use them flexibly;
for example, as one wise child might say, "infinity plus one."

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:01 pm 
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Narane wrote:
Only children are able to understand infinity and use them flexibly;
for example, as one wise child might say, "infinity plus one."

Only children?! I use such things regularly, as does my father. My favourite happens to be infinity to the power of infinity ( ∞^∞ ) [no, that's the equation, not some lame emoticon], or perhaps infinity divided by zero ( ∞/0 )


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:06 pm 
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Sable Dove wrote:
Only children?!


Or people with childlike minds.

:D

:(


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:32 pm 
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Would ∞/0 = ∞*∞?


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