What has /lit/ done for the field of philosophy lately? Reddit just solved one of the major problems in the field!
>>7461909
>that image
lel
>>7461909
Regardless of the prisoner's *expectations*, he still doesn't know for sure when he will be executed. Even if he were killed on Friday, he'd still be "surprised" on Thursday when he came to the realization that the day of his death must be Friday.
I think the paradox is amusing and certainly resembles in form other valid paradoxes, however, I don't believe in this case it constitute an actual paradox, maybe instead some ambiguity of terms.
>>7462397
Nice job. You left out most of the content of the actual paradox and solved it. Thanks for sucking up air to fart that one out, champ.
how the fuck is this even a paradox
i don't understand the problem
>>7462435
If you just invert the prisoner's process it will become clear. The prisoner expects to get hung on Monday. Having survived Monday, he will expect to get hung Tuesday. etc. As you can see, the train of logic travels from Monday to Friday instead of from Friday to Monday. He's sure he can't be killed Monday because he survived it.
When the jailor finally comes to take the prisoner, the prisoner can veritably say, "Well this is no surprise to me, I was expecting to get hung on this very day since morning."
In the end, there's still a surprise for him. It's not a surprise in that he "is getting hung today", but a surprise of on which day he was right.
Even if, by his logical deductions, he assumes that he can escape punishment, the very realization that he may escape death reevaluates Friday as a "surprise day". That alone would delegitimize his whole thought process. It's just a flawed line of reasoning. Flawed reasoning is expected to lead to flawed results as we see here.
>>7462537
The only thing flawed here is your inability to get your tiny head out of your fart-cave and stop sniffing the fumes for just one second to realize you've said absolutely nothing twice now and will continue to write me paragraphs and paragraphs turning it around over and over in that miniscule nasal cavity you call a head providing no insight whatsoever. Stop your worthless blathering for one second and take a moment to use what little your genetically impoverished family line calls an inheritance. Surprise is defined in the scenario you pathetic waste. You don't get to make this up however you want, you uneducated, philosophically illiterate infant.
The solution to the paradox is that you can't guess both heads and tails on a coin at once then claim you're right when it lands on either.
>>7462825
Here is the situation I'm going off of:
>A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day.
>Having reflected on his sentence, the prisoner draws the conclusion that he will escape from the hanging. His reasoning is in several parts. He begins by concluding that the "surprise hanging" can't be on Friday, as if he hasn't been hanged by Thursday, there is only one day left - and so it won't be a surprise if he's hanged on Friday. Since the judge's sentence stipulated that the hanging would be a surprise to him, he concludes it cannot occur on Friday.
>He then reasons that the surprise hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because Friday has already been eliminated and if he hasn't been hanged by Wednesday night, the hanging must occur on Thursday, making a Thursday hanging not a surprise either. By similar reasoning he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday. Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all.
>The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner's door at noon on Wednesday — which, despite all the above, was an utter surprise to him. Everything the judge said came true.
So I will change my argument in regard to this scenario. To me it seems that Friday is still a surprise day. By his logic, he is not destined to be hanged because it would be no surprise if he was to be hung on the last eligible day for hanging, which eliminates through several applications of the same methodology Friday, then Thursday, then Wednesday, then Tuesday, then Monday. However, this result he has obtained through deduction implies that he won't be hanged at all. If that's the case, then the possibility of no hanging provides us our sixth possibility. So, even on Friday, he can still wonder whether he will get hung or not get hung.
This is a reductio ad absurdum, a nested argument. The claim he negates is that "I cannot be hung on the last eligible day for my hanging because it would be too predictable." Whether he was hung on Wednesday, or Friday, the surprise is still the same to him. By his line of logic, he proves that he can be hung on Friday.
This isn't because of a paradox, at least strictly so, it's because he didn't follow through with his thought process. It's more ironic than paradoxical.
here's a paradox for you faggots: how can a thread that's more reddit than any page on reddit be posted on 4chan?
>>7462904
The solution to your problem is in the name Reddit and 4Chan. Although they appear to denote different web pages the user base is the same. Basically, it's semantics!
>>7461909
Why don't you go back to reddit and stay there forever then?
>>7462825
loving these fart insults senpai
>>7462904
>Attempting to reason is considered reddit-tier
why am I not surprised
