Impossible Questions
For a while now, I've been collecting if you will, ideas and questions that at face value seem sound, but after further inspection they collapse under their own weight. The reasons why I'm fascinated by them, is because some of the more popular ones, fly under the radar of most people beautifully.
Before I continue, I should mention that these problems are nothing new, and that philosophers and thinkers have been trying to come up with reasonable explanations for their existence. I tend to think of them as human shortcomings, because some of these ideas co-exist inside our brains in complete contradiction, as if someone decided to leave that part of our mental infrastructure in ruins.
All powerful
This paradox is probably my favorite one, because it's one that the majority of people believe to be reasonable. As a matter of fact, we have tons of fictional characters in comics and movies with the attribute, and you would never heard anyone complain about the way Thanos, for example, has been written.
To be all powerful is paradoxical because in order for power to be measured and exist, it must be contained by limitations. If that is still confusing, consider the following question:
You see, the idea of all powerful collapses under the need for a defining limitation. It's either that the stone cannot be created, or that it can. But, the two conditions cannot be met because they stand in direct opposition of the initial preposition of all powerful.
Unstoppable Force, Unmovable Object
Also one of my favorite paradoxes, and one that has been labeled the hardest question in the world. Now, the first paradox, at least if you followed this post so far, should allow you to see the problem here quite easily.
The question itself assumes the existence of both, but if we think about it, there lies the big mistake. You see, one concept is the limiting factor of the other, and in order for one to exist, the other must not.
In other words, an unstoppable force can only exist, if there's no such thing as an unmovable object. And the unmovable object can only exist if there's no such thing as an unstoppable force.
Free will or Destiny?
This paradox is held by the vast majority of us sapiens, and I will confess I held it myself as a core concept in my head for years. But, they stand in direct opposition, and like my other two examples cannot co-exist.
If there is such thing as destiny, then it means that choice was just an illusion. No matter what you or I did, the path was set for us, and every single step we took was towards our destiny. That means that free will, the thing we love to talk about so much, does not exist at all.
On the other hand, if we are truly free to make choices, to make mistakes, to fail or to succeed, then destiny had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
An interesting review @meno and my favorite paradox is that sometimes I don’t want to solve a problem and it is solved by itself!
What of a "square circle"? The statement, "don't hold your breath, until you turn blue" is also a non-logical phrase. The classic barber of Seville or Creten liar provides limits to logic and reason. Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise is also another example of the limits of logic. The so-called "paradoxes" exist because logic and reason, as wonderful a tool for approximating reality as they are, fall short of modeling the infinite universe. Logical paradoxes are akin to "division by zero" in mathematics; such errors display the limits of finite tools in modeling the infinite. The map is not the territory, and conceptualising the universe only in terms of logic and reason only binds men to blindness such tools bring.
Hahahha yes...
I love that one....
This meme inspired me to write this today, and it also made me laugh.
This post has been selected for curation by @msp-curation by @clayboyn and has been upvoted and will be featured in the weekly philosophy curation post. It will also be considered for the official @minnowsupport curation post and if selected will be resteemed from the main account. Feel free to join us on Discord!
Great post, @meno, as always :-)
Favorite paradox has to bee the free will vs. determinism one... There's mounting and aver stronger evidence coming from the neurosciences that free will simply does not exist; all experiments conclude that seconds before we are conscious of the choice we have made, the electrical signals for that choice are already sent by the subconscious brain. We only become aware of the choice our brains already made... Add to that the knowledge that 95% of our behavior is caused subconsciously, for 95% of the time we are on auto-pilot; it's as if there's a whole other person inside us, pulling 95% of our strings...
But... Free will HAS to exist. That's why, as I believe at least, free will is one of the strongest illusions our brains present us with. We've evolved as social creatures, most or all of our accomplishments, and the reason why we're on top of all food-chains, is because we communicate, plan and organize, necessitating the tools we need to function in a group, to form a functioning society of sentient beings. Therefore we need to separate ourselves from that group, to be able to perform our tasks within that group. We therefore need a strong illusion of a conscious self, even if it's just 5% of the time ;-) To perform tasks we need a sense of agency, so we need to feel, to KNOW even, that we make our own choices. How else would we ever be able to apportion blame or praise? We need these illusions, so for for all practical purposes it's best to ignore that they are illusions ;-)
My two cents, and thanks so much for agitating the grey cells once again my friend :-P
Oh, btw... the simplest paradox of them all: "This statement is false." ;-)