Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Inspiration & Paradox 39: The Liar Paradox

If you love paradoxical statements, take a look at this one -- the Liar Paradox which revolves round a self-referential sentence:

(A) This sentence is false.

The statement in itself is a contradiction. If (A) is true, then (A) is false. On the other hand, assume (A) is false, then (A) is true. Since (A) is true if and only if it is false and (A) is one or the other, then it is both -- true and false, which is not possible!

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