Favorite Paradoxes
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What are your favorite paradoxes, /sci/?
Mathematical expressions of the paradoxes and possible solutions to the paradoxes are obviously welcome.
I'll start with a basic one:
>"Everything I say is a lie. I am lying."
Am I a liar or not?
>>8002021
Any paradox that relies on self referencing is baby tier.
>>8002027
Excellent contribution.
Here's another:
>Try to construct this 3 x 3 table filled with the numbers +1 and −1 so that each row has an even number of negative entries and each column an odd number of negative entries
>>8002061
That's not a paradox, it's just not a possible construction
The first condition implies that the number of negatives must be even, while the second condition implies that it must be odd.
>>8002021
>Absolute loss of information isn't allowed by quantum physics yet Hawking demonstrated, in 1974-1975, that black holes surrounded by quantum fields actually will radiate particles (“Hawking radiation”) and shrink in size, eventually evaporating completely. Where did the information go? If it disappeared along with the black hole, that violates quantum theory.
Fermi Paradox
If there are trillions or even quadrillions of planets that are billions of years olde than earth and if intelligent life has a probability above 0 to spawn and even with our current technology it would be possible to colonize the entire galaxy in a couple of million of years.... Where is everyone? Why isn't the galaxy full off Dyson sphere and Neumann probes and radio wave transmissions that prove intelligent life exists?
Same extrapolated to the entire universe
>>8002179
The paradox instantly disappears when you realize just how small a distance our signals have traveled in the grand scheme of the Milky Way, let alone the universe.
>>8002161
"ripping holes in you bigger than your black hohle therory was" MC2 Einstein
hacking addmit that he was wrong with his information gets lost evetually.
now they talking like muh parrellel universes and stuff
>>8002179
>it would be possible to colonize the entire galaxy in a couple of million of years.
When will this meme die?
When the first Amerindians crossed the Beringia land bridge, it was POSSIBLE for them to walk to South America in a few years.
But it actually took them THOUSANDS of years to get there.
Let's not forget also, the Earth may be inhospitable to whatever race rules the galaxy (or this part of it).
Comedians used to joke about all the aliens on Star Trek speaking English.
What about the notion that they could all live in the same atmosphere, in the same gravity with the same ambient light, etc.?
>>8002027
>Any paradox that relies on self referencing is baby tier.
What about this one:
"I have a huge credibility problem, people just tend to disbelieve whatever I say."
The more you believe my statement, the less true it is.
The less you believe it, the more true it is.
>>8002238
>The more you believe my statement, the less true it is.
>The less you believe it, the more true it is.
no
>>8002243
>no
What?
Apparently you don't believe me, thus making my credibility issue greater.
>>8002246
your paradox doesn't make any sense. your statement was made based on your problem at the time you made it
>>8002256
>your statement was made based on your problem at the time you made it
And yet my problem persists.
I can talk about the size of my dick, but that doesn't mean I no longer have a dick.
The less you believe my credibility problem exists, the larger it becomes.
Sometimes I wish the captcha was more like "solve the monty hall problem to post on /sci/".
>>8002266
>oh why doesn't anyone understand my genius
you are really dumb. your "paradox" doesn't make sense.
i'd tell you to write it down and check that it isn't a contradiction, but you're too stupid to know logic
>>8002208
Why? It doesn't affect the millions of intelligent alien races that fill the galaxy or the universe that should fight over territory at all
>>8002230
Doesn't change that humanity colonized the entire globe within a couple thousand years which is a laughably small time frame for a billion year old planet.
Now imagine what a (or millions of) civilization(s) can do that is several billion years older than humanity
>>8002286
>i'd tell you to write it down and check that it isn't a contradiction, but you're too stupid to know logic
How does your disbelief NOT increase the amount by which people disbelieve me?
Is it the analog (non-digital) nature of the issue that's throwing you?
>>8002307
>humanity colonized the entire globe within a couple thousand years which is a laughably small time frame for a billion year old planet
If you count "humans" as going back only 200,000 years, that means the American continents were unreached for 90% of our existence.
>>8002345
It's the analog incoherent (not-coherent) conclusions you're drawing from it. Write it down and prove a contradiction or accept it's shit.
>>8002361
p.s., if you still consider the Fermi paradox an actual mystery, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_explanations_for_the_paradox
The only real mystery is which/how many of the many explanations is the reasons you haven't met E.T. yet.
>>8002365
>Write it down
I already have, but let's try again.
"I have a huge credibility problem, people just tend to disbelieve whatever I say."
Now if you believe me, you're adding to the pool of people who DO believe what I say, thus reducing the actual problem, and reducing the accuracy of my claim..
But if you don't believe me, then that's exactly what I was talking about to begin with.
>>8002366
None of these explanations are even remotely satisfying
>>8002375
>write it down
>posts more empty words
as logic propositions, you jackass. what you're saying doesn't make sense. prove it does.
>>8002376
>None of these explanations are even remotely satisfying
Satisfying or not, they're all more or less plausible.
And if they're all wrong, then where ARE the aliens?
>>8002378
>what you're saying doesn't make sense. prove it does.
I'm pretty sure I have.
In what way DOESN'T your skepticism prove that I have a credibility problem?
The more you object, the greater my credibility problem becomes.
If you could convince everyone that I'm wrong, then my credibility problem becomes immense.
The less you believe me, the more accurate my statement becomes.
>>8002407
as long as you're throwing around empty words, it's not that I believe you or I don't. you might as well be saying "potato" and then
>you dislike potato so I'm right
>>8002417
>as long as you're throwing around empty words, it's not that I believe you or I don't. you might as well be saying "potato" and then
>>you dislike potato so I'm right
Are you just fucking with me, or are you actually just not trying?
Anybody else here not get it?
>>8002430
I'm telling it to you how it is. You can't write it down formally, because you don't know any logic, and I'm telling you it isn't a paradox like you think.
![SPACE_Our_Radio_Wave_Broadcast[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/FIw5Leo.jpg "SPACE Our Radio Wave Broadcast[1]")
>>8002366
Actually this is a pretty huge range we have for radiowaves and you can fit a billion lifeforms in there. But still it's empty as shit.
Even if there are actually other civilizations out there I think they aren't too many of them. Like maybe 3-4
If you choose an answer (A, B, C or D) to this question at random, what is the probability of being correct?
A) 50 %
B) 25 %
C) 0 %
D) 25 %
>>8002441
>You can't write it down formally, because you don't know any logic, and I'm telling you it isn't a paradox like you think.
No, retard, it's not a paradox like YOU think, it's analog, not Boolean.
>>8002443
>Actually this is a pretty huge range we have for radiowaves and you can fit a billion lifeforms in there. But still it's empty as shit.
There's only about 500 stars in that range, and only 15 known exoplanets on Wikipedia's list of potentially habitable exoplanets.
And we have no way of knowing how many have aliens on them listening to our radio broadcasts.
And you apparently didn't read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Humans_are_not_listening_properly
>SETI estimates, for instance, that with a radio telescope as sensitive as the Arecibo Observatory, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detectable at distances up to 0.3 light-years, less than 1/10 the distance to the nearest star.
>>8002397
That is precisely the question
The tumblr paradox:
>gender is a social construct
>trans people are born that way
>>8002266
How long it takes to realize that someone is trolling you?
Just ignore it, your paradox it's ok
And by the way if solve the monty hall problem is what you consider "hard enought to post here" you shouldnt be posting here
>>8003810
Topkek
>>8002027
Surely you joke. Yeah it might look all innocent and easy to conjure, it was enough to devastate all formal mathematical systems.
Paradoxes aren't "real".
They "work" by first proposing a presupposition, then negate the presupposition by changing the rules.
Only idiots oblivious of logical fallacies can fall for paradoxes.
>>8003882
Was Godel an idiot too? He used the diagonal lemma (which is widely considered to be a paradox) to prove his famous incompleteness theorems.
>>8002179
About the Fermi Paradox, consider this:
Why would a civilization, which has very high technology (allowing them, for example, travelling very fast in space), want to explore the universe, meet other civilizations? It might sound philosophical, but I think there's no point in looking for other beings, exploring space: people (and any other beings) would rather go "inside" themselves (by virtual machines, isolating, living in their own, better world; consider "virtual consciousness", where you can live anyhow you want) than "outside" (in space, to explore, to meet, to live a real life). As Epicurus would say: even if gods exist (civilizations with very, very high technology), they wouldn't care about us, or "doing" anything in general: they would just live hapily, isolated.
Sorry for my bad english.
>>8003943
>(which is widely considered to be a paradox)
This means nothing to me
>>8003951
The diagonal lemma (aka the fixed point theorem) LEADS to a paradox.
If this means nothing to you, then stop arguing, since you clearly don't know anything about logic beyond popsci-tier shit.
>>8003944
Because we would. Even if 99.9999% of all intelligent civilizations decided that exploring the universe is stupid for whatever reason there'd still be thousands of intelligent civilizations that would try to explore everything.
Or are you implying we would be literally the first species in existence to explore the universe?
>>8004195
I'm saying that:
we're trying to explore the space, gain knowledge because that seems like fun to us, something worth the time etc. It's our decision to learn math and build spaceships instead of, for example, playing video games all the time. I'm implying that after achieving very high technology level we would find perfect and happy life in virtual reality, we would have all our needs satisfied. What's the point of exploring space then, seeking for civilizations?
I think that there won't be any colonizing, deep space exploration and so on. It sounds like a future to us, thing to do, progression of our race. But we might realize soon that we don't need it at all, it's just pointless as we can have everything here, living without needs and pain. Think about your mind "living" virtually, in some kind of matrix: you can do whatever you want, you have all emotions you want to have, life is brighter. Soon you'll forget about grey, boring real world.
I think that every civilization would do that, isolate completely in their own world, gaining happiness (which is always the highest goal). There's no point in exploring then.
>>8004224
As long as there are people who are not satisfied by a fake life and search for the meaning of life or God or the answer to everything or whatever, there will always be humans expanding ro the outermost corners of the galaxy. Nothing will stop us. Not even logic. We're an irrational species and that's good.
>>8004240
Maybe... or maybe all we want is peaceful, happy life without problems. There's no obvious answer.
>>8002473
Go back to 9gag faggot
>>8002021
Not really a paradox, but I've always thought this was kinda cool.
>>8002208
>The paradox instantly disappears when you realize just how small a distance our signals have traveled in the grand scheme of the Milky Way, let alone the universe.
The paradox does NOT relate to distance of our signals traveled. Rather a civilization would have covered the entire galaxy in probes before we appeared. Think of the Star Wars search probes of you wish.
>>8002021
if he says ''carrot'' is that a lie?
>>8004224
Your NEET lifestyle is not the endgame for civilization, and your mom's basement isn't nirvana.
>>8006745
>Rather a civilization would have covered the entire galaxy in probes before we appeared.
Given that the more civilized parts of the world have shrinking populations, I'd have to say that "advanced" civilizations probably don't fill all available space and consume all available resources.
But even if they DID, there's no guarantee our galactic overlords would be comfortable living on Earth.
The gravity, light, magnetosphere or whatever might make Earth an unpleasant place for them to live.
An by your logic, there are nearly 200 nations on Earth, and there's been thousands of years of history.
Surely ONE of these countries should have conquered the entire world by now.
>would have covered the entire galaxy in probes before we appeared.
What about the new inter-stellar nanochip idea?
What makes you think your Star Wars search probes are any bigger than the gram-weight probes some people want to send to Alpha Centauri?
Nah the Fermi "paradox" rests entirely on people (like you) forming inflexible opinions about a subject that's completely unknown to us.
The brainlet paradox:
>"intelligence means nothing"
>"if you disagree with me, you are dumb"
the pop sci cancer paradox
>overpopulation is an important issue that needs to be addressed
>where is muh biological immortality?
the mars colony twat paradox:
>there'll be war/disease/nukes that will make earth inhospitable
>solution: move to somewhere even less hospitable
>>8002161
Can someone enlighten me about the meaning of information in this context, and what is meant by it disappearing?
Only a stupid man never changes his mind
That's what I've always thaught
there are more galaxies than there are stars in the universe
![GabrielHorn[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/STwzQdc.png "GabrielHorn[1]"){kind=small}
