So you think you can think?
10: You will throw me into the water
Socrates is out walking and admiring the countryside, thinking of groundbreaking philosophy when he reaches a bridge which is guarded by Plato. Plato says: “In the first proposition you utter, you speak the truth – I will let you pass. But surely, if you speak falsely I shall throw you into the water!” To which Socrates replies: “You will throw me into the water.”
Will Plato throw Socrates into the water?
9: Where’s your god now?
Can an omnipotent being create an object that is so heavy that he cannot lift it?
If yes, then he is not omnipotent – if no, he is not omnipotent. So, how can he be omnipotent?
8: You spin me right round…
Preposition A: Cats always land on their feet. Preposition B: Buttered toast always land buttered side down.
So duct tape a buttered toast on the back of a cat and watch it spin midair!
7: Dude, where’s my car?
You buy a car and name it Lucy – and throughout the years you swap out piece by piece so that eventually you will have swapped out all of Lucy’s parts. Now, someone else uses all the exact parts you swapped out and builds a car. Which one is Lucy?
6: Beam me up Scotty!
In an alternate universe there exist only two objects that have different spatial positions. These two objects have the exact same matter. Are there two different objects with the exact same matter or one object existing at two different places at the same time?
5: The turtle always win.
To reach point B you must always get half-way from point A. And half-way of half-way to point B from point A. And half-way of half-way of half-way and so on – resulting an infinite number of half-ways. Can
you reach paradox no. 1? You are halfway there..
4: Inception or inception or inception..
Are you awake or are you currently dreaming in a coma? Wake up Neo..
3: In the hands of the mad scientist!
So you might have concluded that you are not in a coma. Now, how do you know that you are not a brain in a vat which receives all of its impulses and input from a mad scientist?
2: Come with me if you want to live!
If you go back in time to change the past, the prerequisite conditions which made you go back in the first place are not set in motion, and thus you will not go back in the first place. But if you do not go back in time, history will unfold as it did before and you will go back in time!
1: The chain of events
Congratulations, you have reached the end goal with the list. How did you do it? Was it an unavoidable consequence of predetermined causal events which made you read through all the paradoxes? Where is your free will now?
Did you solve them all? Well, is it not your reason that tells you that you are reasonable?
Text: Daniel Brandt
