The monotheistic all powerful one.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    132
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    8 months ago

    The Astley paradox.

    If you ask Rick Astley for his copy of Disney Pixar’s Up, he can’t give it to you, because he’ll never give you Up. But by not doing so, you’d be let down, and he’ll never let you down.

    Testing this scenario is ofc incredibly risky to the state of our reality, so the Astley paradox must remain a thought experiment.

  • Rei@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 months ago

    I guess I would say the paradox of tolerance. I’m sorry but I’m just gonna yoink the definition from Wikipedia because I’m not great at explaining things:

    The paradox of tolerance states that if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

    Bonus least favorite paradox: You need experience to get a job and you need a job to get experience.

      • shrugal@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        It doesn’t though. Pure unlimited tolerance would include tolerating someone’s breach of contract, logically speaking. Also, this is a dangerous road to go down, because you can rephrase pretty much anything as a contract and justify your actions or beliefs with people breaking it.

        • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          The reason these discussions often break down right about here is because the participants have in mind completely different working definitions of “tolerance.”

          For example, the social contract comment above assumes an active definition like recognizing others’ personal sovereignty, i.e. their right to act and not be acted upon. To aid understanding, we can represent mutual tolerance between people as a multinational peace treaty between nations. Intolerance is equivalent to one of these nations violating the treaty by attacking another.

          Defense or sanction by neighboring states against the aggressor doesn’t violate the treaty further, of course, since it is precisely these deterrents which undergird every treaty. Likewise, condemning and punishing intolerance which threatens the personal sovereignty of others is baseline maintenance for mutual tolerance, because there’s always a jackass who WILL fuck around if you don’t GUARANTEE he will find out.

          Conversely, another popular notion of tolerance — the one you may have in mind, as I once did — is a passive definition that amounts to tacit approval of others’ value systems, i.e. relativistic truth, permissive morality, etc.

          This kumbaya definition is a strawman originally used by talking heads because, I suspect, it quickly invokes well-worn mid-century tropes, especially for those who grew up in the era, of namby-pamby suckers and morally compromised weaklings which still trigger strong feelings, like disgust and contempt, that reliably drive ratings and engagement. These days the only regular mention of this term is this manufactured paradox using the bad-faith definition, so the original idea is commonly misunderstood.

        • boatswain@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          8 months ago

          Pure unlimited tolerance would include tolerating someone’s breach of contract, logically speaking.

          That “pure, unlimited tolerance” is what they mean by tolerance as a moral standard. Tolerance as a contract is “we have each entered into an agreement to be tolerant of each other. If you are not tolerant of me, you have broken the terms of our agreement, so I will not be tolerant of you.”

          I don’t see a slippery slope here; I’d be interested to hear more about why this is a dangerous road to go down.

          • shrugal@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            A contract just codifies an existing power dynamic, because its terms depend on the negociating powers of the people agreeing to it. It doesn’t say anything about the morality of the terms or the context in which it was signed. Very extreme and on-the-nose example: “We have agreed to only allow white people, you have breached that contract …”. This works just fine if your moral system is based on contracts, but it’s obvously immoral. There’s also the conundrum of people never explicitly agreeing to the social contract they are born into, and even if they did, it’s not like they have much of a choice.

            Imo pure tolerance is a real paradox, because you cannot tolerate intolerance, and that makes you intolerant yourself. You can’t achieve it, but you probably should not want to in the first place. There are certain things we will and certain things we won’t tolerate in a modern society, and that is completely fine. The important thing is that we recognize this and make good decisions about which is which.

      • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        Wait, what is a catch-22 but a paradox? I’ve never thought about this before, but Yossarian is stuck in a paradoxical situation so these are synonymous terms right?

        • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          I don’t think so. I interpret paradoxes as being either philosophical impasses (ie, 2 conceptually true statements conflict each other in a way that makes you question where one statement’s truth ends and the other statement’s truth begins) or a situation in which a solution is unintuitive.

          A Catch-22 is more of a physical and intentional impasse, where obstacles are intentionally set up in such a way that people are unable to make a choice. For instance, in the original example of a Catch-22, there is no philosophical argument saying that only insane people are allowed to not fly - it is an arbitrary rule that some higher-up established. And likewise, it is entirely arbitrary to define insane as being willing to fly.

          I guess to simplify my stance, it’s a paradox if it makes you think “the universe has made this unsolvable” and it’s a Catch-22 if it makes you think “some asshole made this unsolvable”

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      I’ve always hated the intolerance paradox, because it is the same logic used to justify atrocities of all sorts. Trying to make society safe for a preferred group, and targeting anyone who takes offense to that idea.

    • MxM111@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      8 months ago

      I do not see any paradox there. Paradox is something contradictory. All your statements are true and do not contradict to each other.

      • Bizarroland@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        8 months ago

        The phrase, “You have to be intolerant to be tolerant” doesn’t sound like a contradiction to you?

        • MxM111@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          11
          ·
          8 months ago

          Sounds like contradiction, yes, but it is just incorrect phrase. You do not have to be intolerant to be tolerant.

          The society have to be intolerant to intolerance to be stable, not to be tolerant or intolerant.

          • Bizarroland@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            I think you’re missing the point. The question is about a tolerant society.

            Regardless of if the society itself is stable, for the society to be tolerant it must be intolerant of the intolerant, and therefore a tolerant society must be intolerant.

            • Timwi@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              8 months ago

              By treating tolerance as a binary (it’s either completely present or completely absent) you’ve removed your argument very far from reality. The goal in reality is to be as tolerant as possible, and the most tolerant stable state simply has some (limited) amount of (very specific) intolerance in it.

  • Susaga@ttrpg.network
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    ·
    8 months ago

    The Unexpected Hanging Paradox: A man is sentenced to death, but the judge decides to have a little fun with it. The man will be killed at noon on a day of the judge’s choosing in the next week, from Monday to Friday. The only stipulation is that the man will not expect it when he’s called to be killed.

    The man does some quick logic in his head. If Friday is the last day he could be killed, then if he makes it to Friday without dying, he knows he must die on that day. And since that wouldn’t be a surprise, he cannot be killed on Friday.

    He then extends the logic. Since he can’t be killed on Friday, the last day he can be killed is on Thursday. Thus, all the prior logic regarding Friday applies, and he cannot be killed on Thursday either. This then extends to Wednesday, then Tuesday, and then Monday. At the end, he grins with the knowledge that, through logic, he knows he cannot be killed on any of the days, and will therefore not be killed.

    Therefore, the man is astonished when he’s called to be killed on Wednesday.

    • z00s@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      8 months ago

      How does the judge determine whether the condemned man is “expecting it”?

      Regardless of when he’s called, he could simply state that he was expecting to be called, and therefore the hanging would be called off.

      Its a bad paradox because it pivots on something that cannot be properly defined.

      • Susaga@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Cannot be properly defined? “Expecting it” means “regarding it likely to happen”, according to the dictionary. He regarded it as impossible to happen, so he was not expecting it. His own logic disproving the event (him being surprised) allowed the event to happen (he was surprised).

        Why does the paradox suffer if he lies about the solution? The paradox has already played out, and anything after that is just set dressing.

        Just off the top of my head, maybe the judge has a camera set to gauge his reaction to the knock on the door? Or maybe he goes into denial and tries to explain his logic, thus proving the paradox? Or maybe the judge doesn’t actually care as much as he said, but trusts the logic to hold out and make for a funny story?

        • z00s@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          You provide three flawed ways of measuring expectation; that’s the issue in a nutshell.

          Its not a true paradox as the whole gambit rests on a changeable emotion, not logic.

          The prisoner could wake up each morning and simply say “I expect to die today”. How would the judge determine the truth? It would be impossible.

          If someone punches you in the face after saying “knock knock”, it doesn’t make it a knock knock joke, and nor is this a paradox.

          • Susaga@ttrpg.network
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            My dude. The paradox doesn’t change based on whether or not the judge knows the truth, or even if the man dies.

            The truth is the man was made not to expect a thing by his own logic proving he would always expect a thing. The paradox is based on his own prediction being wrong because of his prediction. In this instance, his prediction was what his emotions would be.

            A horse walks into a bar, and the barman says “why the long face?” I haven’t said how they remove the horse from the bar, so does that mean I didn’t tell a joke? Or does horse removal not actually matter to the joke?

            • z00s@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              8 months ago

              No. A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion.

              In this case, there is no true premesis.

              That’s the core of the problem. Your incorrect interpretation of the joke metaphor demonstrates that you don’t understand this.

              • Susaga@ttrpg.network
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                I find it funny that you directly quoted wikipedia to write that (exact wording from the paradox article, I checked), but ignored the sentence immediately before it (…or a statement that runs contrary to one’s expectation). Also, the linked articles at the bottom include the unexpected hanging page. Maybe read the entire wiki page before citing it?

                Also, in case wikipedia suddenly isn’t enough, here’s an article on wolfram to back me up: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/UnexpectedHangingParadox.html

                • z00s@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  It doesn’t “back you up” at all, it simply restates the paradox. Maybe learn how to argue?

                  When you get to the point where you’re nitpicking sources, you’re admitting that you have no substantive argument available.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      This is how I proposed to my wife. I said I’d propose at some point in the next year, and that according the the unexpected hanging paradox, we’re doomed to break up at the end of the year. Then I proposed on a random day in the year and she was totally surprised.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    Mine is similar to yours in that it’s about the power of God. It’s called the Epicurean Trilemma:

    1. If a god is omniscient and omnipotent, then they have knowledge of all evil and have the power to put an end to it. But if they do not end it, they are not omnibenevolent.
    2. If a god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then they have the power to extinguish evil and want to extinguish it. But if they do not do it, their knowledge of evil is limited, so they are not omniscient.
    3. If a god is omniscient and omnibenevolent, then they know of all the evil that exists and wants to change it. But if they do not, which must be because they are not capable of changing it, so they are not omnipotent.

    This proves fairly simply that God as commonly interpreted by modern Christians cannot exist. Early Christians and Jews had no problem here, because their god was simply not meant to be omnibenevolent. Go even further back in time and he was not omnipotent, and possibly not omniscient, either. “Thou shalt have no gods before me” comes from a time when proto-Jews were henotheists, people who believed in the existence of multiple deities while only worshipping a single one.

    • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      A simple way I’ve been touching on this for a while is what I call “The problem of existence”: why would god create a non-divine existence such as our selves?

      Put aside evil. If God is all three omnis, why make something that is lesser? I figure that the answer is they themselves must also be lesser than the three omnis.

    • KISSmyOS@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      The Christian explanation for this is that god doesn’t do evil, people do.
      And god created people with free will to do evil. If he made people stop doing evil deeds, they would be his puppets, not free-willed humans. So he has the power to end all evil but chooses not to.

      Now as for why god allows natural disasters, diseases and other tragedies to befall his creation – again, that’s just the consequence of our actions, cause a woman gave an apple to her man in the past.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        And god created people with free will

        Frankly, I don’t buy this as an explanation even for human-created evil. It is still evidence that god cannot be tri-omni. Because it is still a situation in which god is able to remove evil and is aware of the evil, and yet he chooses to permit evil. Even evil done by one human against another, when the other is entirely innocent. And that cannot be omnibenevolent.

        From how you phrased it I suspect you agree with me here, but the natural disasters argument is even more ludicrous. It doesn’t even come close to working as a refutation of the Epicurian Trilemma.

      • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 months ago

        If your options are “do as I say” or “suffer for all eternity” you aren’t really capable of exercising free will.

        • Zagorath@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          It’s worse than that. It’s “believe that you must do as I say, despite my complete refusal to create worthwhile evidence of my existence, and then do what I say” or “suffer for all eternity”.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 months ago

        The Christian explanation for this is that god doesn’t do evil, people do.
        And god created people with free will to do evil. If he made people stop doing evil deeds, they would be his puppets, not free-willed humans.

        I never understood this argument. If he’s all-powerful, he would have the ability to eliminate all evil without affecting free will.

      • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 months ago

        The Christian god created every aspect of the universe and how it works. He therefore could have created a universe in which there was no such thing as evil or suffering, and given people in that universe free will. So even that doesn’t hold up.

        • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          I think that’s their point; they’re saying that’s what God did. He “created a universe in which there was no such thing as evil or suffering and [gave] people in that universe free will.”

          And humans screwed it up.

          I’m not saying that, mind you. I’m saying I think you just agreed with the person you’re debating as a proof that they were wrong.

          • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            It doesn’t matter what you tack on, it doesn’t change my point — the only way humans could “screw it up” is if God made all the negative and horrible shit part of the universe. All you are saying is that God made a universe where there was no evil or suffering actively happening, but the concepts existed and were possible — because they ultimately happened and only possible things happen. And God chose to make them possible things as omnipotent creator of everything that exists.

            • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              Wait, so this God gives me true free will, and then places me in a world where I can’t change anything? Everything is fixed, immovable? Or where I only have “good” choices available? Is that what you think God should have done? Like, how does your version even work?

              Or does God give us fake free will, and keep our minds from thinking “bad” thoughts?

              If I’m free, I can screw up. Otherwise, I’m not free.

              • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                No. You aren’t getting it. The Christian god created every aspect of the universe. Light and dark. Up and down. You are still thinking about our universe, in which these negative things are possible, and how you would have to be restricted in what you do in our universe in order to prevent you from doing certain things. But god could have set all the parameters of the universe differently such that they just didn’t exist at all. You wouldn’t miss them or be prevented from doing them. It would be like if there were a fifth cardinal direction in an alternate universe, and someone in that universe thought “if god prevented me from going in that direction, I wouldn’t have free will anymore”. But here we are, with only four cardinal directions, and free will. We aren’t being stopped from doing anything, it just isn’t part of our universe and doesn’t even make sense in it.

                • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  I think I get what you’re saying but it is a little bit beyond me.

                  I still wonder if the problem doesn’t come down to Free Will itself. Regardless of what universe one is living in, if you have only two people in it and they each have free will at some point the free will of one is going to intrude on the free will of the other, and they’re going to require some kind of negotiation or polite accommodation. Some kind of social interaction.

                  And if one doesn’t take this action but instead proceeds with one’s free will regardless of the other’s free will there is a problem that is inevitably going to exist no matter what universe exists.

        • KISSmyOS@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          If Christians could agree with each other about what’s in the bible, history would be a lot more boring.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    My favorite paradox is the “Stay signed in” option Microsoft gives you when signing in. Because despite keeping you signed in on every other site in existence, Microsoft, who is usually hooked into your OS, does not. Thus, stay signed in runs contradictory to one’s expectations.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      They aren’t offering to do it, just asking if it’s what you want.

      Gotta check and be sure you’re being annoyed as much as possible.

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    8 months ago

    Alanis morissette’s song ironic contains no solid cases of irony, mostly bad luck or poor timing, and is therefore ironic.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      I read an interview with her once that was kind of funny and humanizing. She wrote and recorded that song before she was famous and had no idea that it would ever be heard. Then it blew up and people have been giving her shit about it for decades now.

      Could you imagine if you wrote a shitty Lemmy comment that became extremely viral and people were like, “you fucking moron, how could you have written something so dumb?!”

  • Extras@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Not sure if its what you’re talking about but I really like the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, if an object is the same object after having had all of its original components replaced. Always makes me think of if an exact clone of you is created (same thoughts, memories, etc…) should that be considered you?

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      In 80 to 100 days, 30 trillion [cells] will have replenished—the equivalent of a new you.

      Source

      In essence, we are our own Ship of Theseus.

      And I would venture that the answer to your question is yes, but no. The moment your exact clone experiences something you don’t, you two are no longer exactly the same. And I would wager that moment would happen very fast.

      • Extras@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        With that in mind, it really just comes down to if the original gets destroyed, for a lack of better words, before that moment even happens in order for it not to be considered just a copy.

        Edit: this honestly kinda helped me understand the problem more I really appreciate it.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          The moment of divergence is instantaneous between the clone and original. The only way it could not be instantaneous, is if both were just a brain connected to the exact same simulation, experiencing the exact same inputs. If they didn’t respond the same, then they aren’t an exact clone. Even then, the brains would be sustained with different blood, made up of trillions of slightly different atoms — although similar, not 100% identical due to quantum mechanics — with a slightly different fluid dynamics. Actually the only way they could be identical is if they weren’t brains but identical code, running in an identical simulation, with the exact same boundaries, and no possibility of probability, chaos or divergence from that code… Oh no I’ve gone cross eyed.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      8 months ago

      The controversial thought experiment about Star Trek transporters.

      Where an individual is dematerialized in one location, transmitted as a signal somewhere else and rematerialized somewhere else.

      Were they killed when they were dematerialized, cloned and a newly born entity that is an exact clone rematerialized at the other end?

      Are they just killing people and recreating copies everytime they transport people?

    • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      If and when we figure out human cloning, it’s sure going to bring up a near infinite number of legal issues. Is the clone a new person? Is their birthday yours or the day they were cloned? Are they the same age as you? Or is a clone a new born?

      If they are a copy of you, are they beholden to any legal agreements you’ve made? Are they liable for crimes you commit?

      These are the things I think about when stoned…

      • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        I read a good sci-fi book called “Six Wakes” by Mur Lafferty that touches on this topic, you might enjoy it.

        In the distant future cloning has become commonplace, but is used as a continuation of a person’s life. Ie a person is born, lives there life, and at the end they are cloned and their memories transferred over to the new body, and life goes on. Also, a person would make “backups” of their consciousness in case they were killed/died accidentally, and would be “reinstalled” in a clone.

        • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          Sounds great! I’ll have to check that out!

          Honestly though, that sounds like the only way to do cloning without completely redoing every single law in every single country, city, state, Providence, county, parish, etc. The implications of cloning fascinates me way more than the cloning itself

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Ship of Theseus applies to every human, because all our cells get replaced over and over until we die. At a cellular level, you’re wholly different from yourself 10 years ago. Are you still you?

      • BallsandBayonets@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        One thought is that “You” is just an unbroken string of consciousness. Which means you cease to be every time you sleep, and the person that wakes up just has the memories of being you.

        • DrRatso@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          A different perspective,seen in buddhism and similar worldviews, is that the only “you” that exists is the consciousness experiencing reality at any given moment.

      • deranger@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        You’re not wholly different as some cells are still the same. Neurons don’t undergo the same rapid cycling as skin cells, for example.

    • Bizarroland@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      All of the “is infinite power so powerful that it could overpower its own power” type questions just annoy me.

      Is infinite power so powerful it can do something that it can’t do?

      Yes it can. And then it can do that anyway. Otherwise it wouldn’t be infinite.

    • HonkyTonkWoman@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      Only if he broke into a radio station & doused that burrito with hot sauce from a battery powered toy gun!

      Also, I’m gonna need a football helmet full of cottage cheese & any naked pics of Bea Arthur you happen to have lying around.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      I think that’s how he created our universe 5,000 years ago … he’s just waiting for us to cool off so can eventually take a bite.

      If he bites too soon, we might end up on the floor though :(

  • Remy Rose@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    Zeno’s Paradox, even though it’s pretty much resolved. If you fire an arrow at an apple, before it can get all the way there, it must get halfway there. But before it can get halfway there, it’s gotta get a quarter of the way there. But before it can get a fourth of the way, it’s gotta get an eighth… etc, etc. The arrow never runs out of new subdivisions it must cross. Therefore motion is actually impossible QED lol.

    Obviously motion is possible, but it’s neat to see what ways people intuitively try to counter this, because it’s not super obvious. The tortoise race one is better but seemed more tedious to try and get across.

      • Jayjader@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        If I remember my series analysis math classes correctly: technically, summing a decreasing trend up to infinity will give you a finite value if and only if the trend decreases faster than the function/curve x -> 1/x.

        • mitrosus@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          Great. Can you give me example of decreasing trend slower than that function curve?, where summation doesn’t give finite value? A simple example please, I am not math scholar.

          • Jayjader@jlai.lu
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            So, for starters, any exponentiation “greater than 1” is a valid candidate, in the sense that 1/(n^2), 1/(n^3), etc will all give a finite sum over infinite values of n.

            From that, inverting the exponentiation “rule” gives us the “simple” examples you are looking for: 1/√n, 1/√(√n), etc.

            Knowing that √n = n^(1/2), and so that 1/√n can be written as 1/(n^(1/2)), might help make these examples more obvious.

              • Jayjader@jlai.lu
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                From 1/√3 to 1/√4 is less of a decrease than from 1/3 to 1/4, just as from 1/3 to 1/4 is less of a decrease than from 1/(3²) to 1/(4²).

                The curve here is not mapping 1/4 -> 1/√4, but rather 4 -> 1/√4 (and 3 -> 1/√3, and so on).

    • Beemo Dinosaurierfuß@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      I had success talking about the tortoise one with imaginary time stamps.

      I think it gets more understandable that this pseudo paradox just uses smaller and smaller steps for no real reason.
      If you just go one second at a time you can clearly see exactly when the tortoise gets overtaken.

      • balderdash@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        Wait, isn’t space and time infinitely divisible? (I’m assuming you’re referencing quantum mechanics, which I don’t understand, and so I’m genuinely asking.)

        • Jayjader@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          Disclaimer: not a physicist, and I never went beyond the equivalent to a BA in physics in my formal education (after that I “fell” into comp sci, which funnily enough I find was a great pepper for wrapping my head around quantum mechanics).

          So space and time per se might be continuous, but the energy levels of the various fields that inhabit spacetime are not.

          And since, to the best of our current understanding, everything “inside” the universe is made up of those different fields, including our eyes and any instrument we might use to measure, there is a limit below which we just can’t “see” more detail - be it in terms of size, mass, energy, spin, electrical potential, etc.

          This limit varies depending on the physical quantity you are considering, and are collectively called Planck units.

          Note that this is a hand wavy explanation I’m giving that attempts to give you a feeling for what the implications of quantum mechanics are like. The wikipédia article I linked in the previous paragraph gives a more precise definition, notably that the Planck “scale” for a physical quantity (mass, length, charge, etc) is the scale at which you cannot reasonably ignore the effects of quantum gravity. Sadly (for the purpose of providing you with a good explanation) we still don’t know exactly how to take quantum gravity into account. So the Planck scale is effectively the “minimum size limit” beyond which you kinda have to throw your existing understanding of physics out of the window.

          This is why I began this comment with “space and time might be continuous per se”; we just don’t conclusively know yet what “really” goes on as you keep on considering smaller and smaller subdivisions.

      • HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        The paradox holds in an infinitely dividable setting. Take the series of numbers where the next number equals the previous one divided by 2: {1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16…}. If you take the sum of this infinite series (there is always a larger factor of two to divide by) you are going to get a finite result (namely 2, in this instance). So for the real life example, while there is always another ‘half’ of the distance to be travelled, the time it takes to do so is also halved with every iteration.

    • this_is_router@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Zeno’s Paradox, even though it’s pretty much resolved

      Lol. It pretty much just decreases the time span you look at so that you never get to the point in time the arrow reaches the apple. Nothing there to be “solved” IMHO

  • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 months ago

    I like George Carlin’s version: “If God is all powerful, can he make a rock so big that he himself can’t lift it?”

    • BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      8 months ago

      Weird attribution, man :) That one, and a lot of others like it, come all the way from the 12th Century and thereabouts. Carlin’s influence is awesome and deserved, but I don’t think it stretches that far :)

        • 🖖USS-Ethernet@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          "All of the “is infinite power so powerful that it could overpower its own power” type questions just annoy me.

          Is infinite power so powerful it can do something that it can’t do?

          Yes it can. And then it can do that anyway. Otherwise it wouldn’t be infinite."

    • sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      I don’t see why that’s a paradox. It’s like asking if infinity is bigger than infinity, where both infinities are aleph 0.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Python’s got you covered.

      In [5]: [x for x in [...] if x not in [...]]
      Out[5]: []
      
  • Rottcodd@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    8 months ago

    There are two kinds of people in the world - those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who know better.

    • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      8 months ago

      There are 10 kinds of people in the world — those who understand binary and those who don’t.

      • Rottcodd@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Right, but it’s not a paradox - it’s a conundrum. It’s not just that the person saying it is part of the first group, but that they necessarily are.

        Since people want to believe that they “know better,” there’s a strong urge to count oneself among the second group, which immediately places one in the first.

  • esc27@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    If there exists a place outside time, then the only way to travel there is to already be there, and if you are there, you can never leave.

    • dbug13@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      8 months ago

      The measurement of time, the measurement of the constant of change, is very different than our experience of time. For example, you never experienced a past, you experienced Now measured as the Present, just as you are currently experiencing Now measured as the Present, and will not experience the future, it will be Now measured as the Present. All you have ever experienced is a perpetual fixed Now. This is true for all of us. All measurements of time occur within a fixed Now, so we can say all time is Now.

      Depending on certain spiritual views, what we call the Now is also called the “I Am”, or consciousness, or awareness, etc. This “I Am” is intangible and exists outside of time, therefore, depending on your spiritual beliefs, you are the object, existing in a place outside of time, and are already there, and have never left.

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 months ago

        This just broke my brain. I might need to read about this for hours now. Good bye.

        Jokes aside! Thank you very much. This was most interesting!

      • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        This could be assuming there’s only one timeline we’re currently inhabiting. There could be nested meta times or spacetimes encompassing the universe, leaving us in a series of overlapping Nows. Or maybe the forward passage of time and causality end up only being true locally, and in other places in the cosmos time can run in loops or backwards or not at all. In that case Now could mean different things to different observers depending where and when you are.

        • dbug13@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          If Now exists outside of time, then the measurement of time weather it’s measured as a loop, forward, backward, in a spiral, etc. would have no effect on the Now. From the Now’s perspective all of time has already occurred, is occurring, and has yet to occur all at once. If Now’s position is fixed, then it would appear in multiple timelines at once, and in multiple locations at once.

          Time is simply a measurement of the constant of change, which is itself a paradox, something false that continuously proves itself to be false, or something in motion that continuously keeps itself in motion. So we can say something that is false is something that is mutable and movable. Then an object that is not false, outside of the constant of change, would be immutable, in-movable, and fixed, like the Now. Time would move around it, while it remains stationary and unaffected.

      • Bizarroland@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 months ago

        Jokes aside, I have baked my bacon and it works really well for preparing an awful lot of bacon very quickly.

        Once you do that, you have bacon that you can quickly microwave and slap on a sandwich, plus you can easily collect all of the grease for making gravies or general cooking purposes if you so desire.

        • HoustonHenry@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I’d go so far as to say baking is superior- it never reaches temp to make the oil pop and makes a mess inside the oven, and you’re only limited on how much bacon you can cook by how many cookie sheets you own (and maybe how much bacon you have stored away in the freezer 😁). Great point on the grease, easy to collect afterwards! Makes great rice!

    • snooggums@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      8 months ago

      A driveway is named because it was originally a circle that you could use to drive right up to the house. Think old mansions in movies.

      Parkways had separated lanes with shrubberies and plants on between and around, basically parks with a road through them.

      A driveway that is straight and ends in a garage isn’t really a driveway. Separated lanes with no plants or parks isn’t really a parkway. But the names both stuck around.

    • Dagamant@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      I like the version of it from John Dies At The End. Same thought experiment just with an axe