20 November 2007

Liar Paradox

Consider this paradoxical statement:

"This statement is false."

This statement is paradoxical because there is no way to assign it a consistent truth value. Consider that if "This statement is false" is true, then what it says is the case. But what it says now is that it is false, hence it is false. On the other hand, if it is false, then what it says is not the case; thus, since it says that it is false, it must be true.

A variation of the above statement is this:

"The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true.”

Now try figuring that out! COOL!

Source: wikipedia.org
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