Muddled Mustafic Melancholic Masculine Majestic Mathematical Monkey

Friday, July 25, 2008

Paradox Part 5

Read the next statement very carefully.

"This sentence is a lie"

Note that the statement has no clear indication whether it is true or false in the first place.

Suppose the statement is true.
So we conclude that the sentence is a lie.
Wait a minute.
The statement is true. True to the fact that the sentence is a lie.
How can I reconcile a truth and lie?

Suppose the statement is false.
Ok. So the sentence is a not a lie.
But if right is to left as is lie is to truth,
so the sentence is true.
Congrats. I just told you something that is false is true.

Confused? Hence the distinction between predicate and truth logic. In laymen terms, you can't combine the sentence per se to be in reference to actual statement itself.

Or basically, you don't want to define a group of objects to contain that very group itself. Very clumsy.

Anyway, you might be surprised if I told you that all the above is Maths.