Paradoxes that No One Can Solve

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[@gnorbsl4194]

Whats with the weird skip to a sponsor in mid sentence at 2:26

[@hrma6313]

A GIFT is something you get for FREE, so a FREE GIFT is an.... Free item you get for free. ?

[@AxiomTheory]

If I tell you my previous statement was a lie and I'm telling the truth about it then I'm telling the truth in this statement and was lying in the previous also the "who wrote Beethoven" bit in doctor who, he could of wrote it in the first place but took it too him too early and then it seems as if it wrote itself the paradox. I wonder if everything started because of a paradox the opposite of nothing is everything infinitely no start point .. no end

[@Vaeldarg]

The Grandfather Paradox is pretty easy to solve, actually. It's just that the answer is too boring for Hollywood. The reason the killer exists is because their birth was not prevented. So either the person they killed was not actually their grandfather, or their grandfather was not killed. What makes up the present already takes the past into account, so whatever happened in the past is always what had happened and there is no "changing" the present by altering the past.

[@iamlowkeyedits]

no matter the day, I have a dose of Simon and his deep dive into al these amazing topics. I'm sure my family is tired of my shite. stay safe and awesome evryone, Simon, Writers, viewers! If you got a minute, checkout my links in my bio! xoxo

[@battlesheep2552]

My favorite paradox is how my company has record profits yet doesnt have the budget to give me a raise

[@kirinrias6912]

The solution is simple, you are not a manager

[@joshtaylor9626]

hmm i wonder why

[@ryandowney9383]

Yours too?

[@chezsnailez]

Giving you a raise would eat into the profits but not giving you a raise dis-incentivizes you from being productive enough to boost the company profits...

[@gregorybarnard5593]

Not a paradox, the cost of running the company also goes up every year

[@Matt-jc9kj]

My favorite is the Astley Paradox: If you ask Rick Astley for his copy of the movie Up, he cannot give it to you as he will never give you Up. However, in doing so he lets you down. Thus creating the Astley Paradox.

[@monlei1020]

😂😂😂

[@kyleellis1825]

Naw, he just gives you ones of his extra copies.

[@rickh3714]

🕺🗞

[@aintgotnophd2196]

@@kyleellis1825but then he’s giving you up, which he will never do

[@juskahusk2247]

Up is fiction and therefore a lie. He said he would never tell a lie so he actually he did not let you down. Paradox solved.

[@peterswires8439]

The Bootstrap Paradox reminds me of something I heard about the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The BBC always covered it on the radio, so there'd be a commentator telling the listeners which team was ahead at every stage. However, at one point, the Thames curved in such a way that the commentator couldn't see the boats. However, he knew an ingenious way of telling who was winning at that point: he's heard that a man whose garden was near the river had a flagpole, and he'd hoist the team colour of whichever boat was ahead at that point: dark blue for Oxford and light blue for Cambridge. The commentator could just make out the flagpole with binoculars, so he'd confidently announce who was ahead, never letting on to his audience how he knew. This went on for many years, and finally, one year he decided to visit the man and see this famous flagpole close up. But when he got to it, it noticed something: it was impossible to see the Thames from that location. He pointed this out, and asked the man how he could tell which boat was ahead. "Oh, that's easy", he said, "I have a portable radio beside me, and I listen to the commentary on the BBC".

[@IAmUnderscore]

How would the man raise a flag when he heard it on the radio, and the radio announce it based on the flag? If both are waiting for the other, neither would act.

[@snorgardark1908]

@@IAmUnderscore Because the flag was only for a single point in the race around a bend. There was someone in the lead prior to the bend so basically whoever was in the lead before going out of sight stayed in the lead (on radio at least) until they turned the bend back into sight.

[@fathertimegaming17]

If you think about it, the prisoner will always be executed on the last day, his last day.

[@madmartigan8119]

Donnie Darko

[@1tho3]

If the prisoner is told that One day this week you will be executed but not on the day that would be a surprise he would be expecting to be executed any day. The surprise would be if the execution did not happen. Therefore prisoner can not be executed becous it would be expected.

[@O4FUXACHE]

@@1tho3 Except in countries like Japan, you don't get to know what day you'll be executed until the executioner knocks on your door; yet there isn't a prison full of people who can't be executed . . .

[@djdrack4681]

and yet...there isn't a definition to 'ecuted'...so how do you ex-ecute somebody ;P

[@jasonrublaitus7144]

He will never be executed if he requests an all you can eat buffet and just keeps eating forever 😄

[@TexasTimeLord]

On my waterfront property, 2 boat landing piers washed ashore. We never found the owners. I now have an unsolved pair a docks

[@zfid]

That's terrible😂

[@MrIgottap]

Haha, I see what you did there

[@jesseparrish1993]

Thanks dad.

[@codyeble6764]

That's dumb... I liked it

[@jwalster9412]

Awful.

[@devikwolf]

My favorite paradox is how "working from home has been a great success" and yet "it's time to return to the daily commute"

[@ifIOnlyHadABrian]

That's not a paradox. That's management congratulating themselves on THEIR success managing the disposable fool- errr... employees... while they worked at home, but now, management wants to manage the VALUED EMPLOYEES (remembered to use the polite word that time) at work, because it's more convenient for management.

[@firemarshal2629]

Quit and start your own business. Come and go as you please. Until then get back to work scrub.

[@indinewall6112]

Not at all a paradox. Did you write this three seconds into the video/after hearing of paradoxes? This is a contradiction.

[@devikwolf]

@@indinewall6112 You should learn the language better.

[@indinewall6112]

@@devikwolf I think you mean 'deepen my understanding of the language'. 'Learn the language better' would be in reference to the quality of my learning as I actively learn the language. I'm not learning the language, I mastered it sometime after I read my first novel at 4 y.o. Keep going cobber, you'll get there.

[@markedis5902]

So much of this relies on actually having a Time Machine. The last time I popped down to ‘Dimensional Instabilities r Us’, they were clean out of time machines. The sales assistant suggested that as the future hadn’t happened yet, there were none to be had at any price. He did suggest that when the right bit of future had happened, time machines would then be available now and indeed at any time in the past present or future.

[@RobertRedland]

Talk to Mr. Adams. He's the manager at Dimensional Instabilities 'R' Us. He's the best. Doug has helped me with all kinds of paradoxical issues over the years. And if your into probability drives,, He also makes a mean cup of tea .. extra hot😉

[@garysturgess6757]

Back order it, and it will be instantly available. :)

[@jeffidyle4957]

@@RobertRedland I find that improbable, therefore I'll allow it.

[@casinodelonge]

Surely the lack of evidence that a time traveler hasn't announced themselves to the world must mean time travel is never invented? Well, being able to go back in time at least.

[@HotAFWeatherSystem]

@@casinodelongething is, lots of people have claimed to be time travelers. Just because nobody believes them doesn’t mean they didn’t do as you say

[@Joni_Tarvainen]

I just love Diogenes. That dude was an OG "No you're wrong and I'll explain why"- kinda dude. Zeno claiming that motion doesn't exist and Diogenes disproving it just by walking in circles or when Plato claimed that Human is just a featherless bi-pedal, so Diogenes plucked feathers off from a chicken and just blasted it on the floor claiming how this is Plato's man in front of his students lmao

[@JB-bm1to]

Dude was the OG troll. Hilarious as hell 🤣

[@Skelath]

In other words, proving paradoxes are just social constructs. That reality doesn't care about the sounds we make.

[@JaredBrewerAerospace]

I love that when Alexander the great first met him napping naked next to stoop. He stood over him and explained that he was Alexander the great and sought him out because of his notoriety and wanted to meet him and help him in any way he could. Diogenes replied with, "Could you stand over there? You're blocking my sunlight." STRAIGHT GANGSTER AND HARD AF

[@klondike316]

Stephen King's "November 22, 1963" is quite possibly one of the best books ever written about reverse causation. It's something I've thought about a lot and always agreed with, and Simon mentions it too in this video.

[@SoManyRandomRamblings]

Maybe that's why there is a shooter on the knoll...because of some future time traveler attempted to stop the one shooter, that's why time had to create the 2nd. And when they attempted to stop that guy is why one of the newest theories is that the weird angle is cuz in the panic of the situation one of the secret service guys tripped and accidentally discharged the fatal bullet. 🤔 it's repairing the attempts to stop it. just a quick game of wild suppositions...sorry. lol.

[@klondike316]

I agree. It's something I've thought about a lot. Stephen King did a great job with the concept while writing an awesome book.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:45 - Chapter 1 - Liar paradox 2:25 - Mid roll ads 3:45 - Back to the video 4:40 - Chapter 2 - Bootstrap paradox 7:45 - Chapter 3 - Grandfather paradox 11:00 - Chapter 4 - Zeno's paradoxes 13:40 - Chapter 5 - Unexpected hanging paradox

[@ruthlesace]

Bloody legend. Allegedly.

[@WaddedBliss]

Fry did the nasty in the past-y.

[@harlyrose]

Verily🤣

[@terrancebrown87]

“Did ya ever get the feeling you're only going with girls 'cause you're supposed to?”

[@battlesheep2552]

Verily, and that past nastification is what shields him from the Brain Spawn

[@jaysparrow6631]

Are you talking about Stephen Fry?!

[@THE-X-Force]

_How do you like_ *_THESE_* _cookies_ .. _Sugar?_

[@niftybass]

production feedback: Audio dynamic compression is a great move, but the compression seems to have too fast a release time (inhaled breath comes in loud), and the de-esser needs to aim for a higher frequency.

[@dereks1264]

Thank you for pointing out the watch paradox in "Somewhere In Time". I remember having a rather ...ahh ... heated discussion with my then wife about the impossibility of the watch. She thought I was being too picky and should just "enjoyed the film". This may have been part of the reason we are no longer together.

[@migga86]

The watch surely follows the Bounty paradox. If you had a ship called the Bounty and over the years had to swap out sails, planks, steering wheel and so on, would that still be the ship? How would it be if you took the swapped out parts and built a ship with them. Which ship is the original Bounty? But if your ex-wife differs that much, it would show on other ends, too. Not every marriage is built to last.

[@xzonia1]

If we consider what he said in the video about time refusing to allow a paradox to exist, then it's likely that somewhere along the way the original watch gets swapped out for one like it, so the same watch isn't going through time over and over. Like she gives him the watch, a pickpocket mugs him and swaps the watch with a cheap knock-off without him realizing, he goes back in time and gives it to her, she carries it all those years, gives it to him, he's mugged and it's swapped for a cheap knock-off, etc, so it's always a "new" watch going through time. Time just sprayed some paradox-be-gone on the watch. :)

[@Z_TPI]

One of my favourite paradoxes is the "Paradox of Tolerance", also known as the "Tolerant Society Paradox". The paradox arises from the self-contradictory idea that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance. 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. In other words, a truly tolerant society cannot exist as it would have to allow the intolerant. However, by allowing the intolerant, the society was never truly tolerant to begin with. If the society decides to not allow the intolerant, that means that the "truly tolerant" society is actually truly intolerant, and that intolerance in itself, as well as the originally intolerant people themselves, will destroy their practice of tolerance. I hope that made sense 🤣

[@AeriFyrein]

I don't think this is actually unsolvable. "Society" in this case isn't a singular entity, but a large group of entities. Individual entities within that group can be intolerant, but that doesn't make the group as a whole intolerant. As well, being tolerant of something doesn't mean you have to *agree* with it, or to do as the intolerant people want - at least, not in every single instance. This means that the intolerant wouldn't 'ultimately dominate' everyone else.

[@terrafirma5327]

You did fine explaining it.

[@sonicgoo1121]

Wouldn't the solution be to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good?

[@Z_TPI]

​@@AeriFyrein It's not so much that the intolerant would dominate, it's that intolerance itself would become greater than tolerance, destroying the notion of a tolerant society. I agree too that being tolerant does not mean you have to agree with the intolerant. If a group/society considers itself tolerant, it would have to allow intolerance. Having the existence of intolerance means a society is not truly tolerant. It would be considered (for example) an open and/or inclusive society. If a society claims it is truly tolerant, it would be intolerant of intolerance, as the existence of intolerance destroys the notion of true tolerance. In other words, the tolerant peoples' intolerance of the intolerant would corrupt their supposed notion of true tolerance. The intolerance the so-called tolerant people have of the intolerant, would magnify the intolerance of the intolerant people have for the tolerant. Hence, the festering intolerance of both sides combines, corrupts, and destroys the tolerant society..

[@Z_TPI]

​@@sonicgoo1121 *I may interpreted your reply wrong, but I'll say this anyway ahah* that's the problem lol, perfection is subjective. There will never perfection for all to agree. The hope is that we can find something that we all can "sort of" agree on that involves the minimal amount of sacrifice of one's ideology. That is the basic idea of democracy. We take the best from both sides, and hope we can get along. We have to tolerate some things we may find intolerant, that is the sacrifice. If society pushes too far one way or the other, it becomes radical.

[@PetrSojnek]

Prisoner's paradox as told by Simon is actually funny double paradox. Even if the executioner came on Friday, the judge would still be right. After Thursday night, you would be sure you've won, so Friday knock would be a terrible surprise for you :D

[@jokerman0000]

I just noticed this guy takes loud short sharp breaths inbetween every sentence and now i cant get passed it. My gift to you

[@RarelyReplies]

Those inhalations are strong and sharp. Is he fighting off and talking through an asthma attack?

[@christopherhammond9467]

No it's too take in as much air in a short time to keep his pace. Microphones are a bitch for picking up moving air

[@RarelyReplies]

@@christopherhammond9467 did you just explain breathing to me? 🤣

[@6thwilbury2331]

Yeah, it's actually quite distracting. I wonder if he is coming off some sort of health thing, which also explains why Karl Smallwood took over Biographics.

[@RarelyReplies]

@@6thwilbury2331 that’s a thought. I was thinking it was something he developed or fell into over time and a new mic was picking it up.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@6thwilbury2331 That has absolutely NOTHING to do with why Simon Whistler left Biographics, Geographics, and TopTenz. It was all about personal or business disagreements with the producers (the Harris family) of those 3 channels. If health had anything to do with it, then why did he never stop making videos for almost all of his other many channels?

[@christiancarson7566]

Years ago, at a science fiction convention, I purchased a button that reads, "The statement on this button is false". It is my favorite. It's even more fun when people tell me, "I don't get it". Then I have to explain to people what a paradox is. 🦆🦆

[@IncubiAkster]

How does anyone above the age of 10 not know what a paradox is. Thats amazing.

[@michaelhowell2326]

Then you "got" to explain?

[@levilandes1719]

​@@michaelhowell2326The pleasure of explaining things wears off quickly, then got becomes have to. There's a stage after that called figure it out yourself that op clearly hasn't reached yet. It's not that hard to Google shit.

[@michaelhowell2326]

@@levilandes1719 one doesn't wear something like a big pin unless they want it as conversation piece. If it got to the "have to" point, just take it off. And Google is no replacement for human interaction. People are losing that ability.

[@levilandes1719]

@@michaelhowell2326 It's a shirt, I have a bunch of t shirts with graphics that I barely pay attention to. A shirt is old to me, not to others, and their curiosity is still their problem and still not mine. Not everyone enjoys human interaction, some people are able to meet that need with minimal contact through impersonal means, such as the comment section of a KZbin video. And other people's needs are again, their problem, not mine. I'll feed you if you're hungry, but if you want company keep marching.

[@naughtybeast]

Bootstrap paradox happens quite often in technical analysis. It's a method to predict the future price of a stock by looking at the patterns in the stock price. For example, if it forms a "head and shoulders" pattern or a "cup and handle" pattern, those indicate that it will increase in price. If you buy in as a result of these patterns and the expected increase in price, you disrupt the patterns and change the predicted future of the stock.

[@jpdemer5]

The more people who buy when those patterns appear, the stronger the predictive value - it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[@musiclifelovelive]

The speeding up and cutting is making your breathing in so prominent

[@johnmay6090]

Yes. It gets very distracting.

[@nydarisa]

I though it was just me- it is unusually loud in this one

[@6thwilbury2331]

Is that what's causing it? I was doing P.A. announcing just a few days ago. I had run across the field to get a pronunciation on a name, then ran back to the box about 20 seconds before I had to start talking. Almost certainly sounded just like Simon does in this video.

[@Jvoyles328]

I came to the comments to make sure it wasn't just me! Thank you for the validation.

[@mathiasslim]

Ok, glad I'm not the only one that noticed it.

[@mysticmermaid333]

I love the stories about how sassy Diogenes was, even if some likely never actually happened.

[@amirferdhany3177]

Knowing Diogenes, it most certainly did happen😂

[@LoganMcCarthy]

Simon's new channel: The Whistler Zone

[@picksalot1]

Regarding which came first, "The Chicken or the Egg" paradox/problem of causality, there is a possible resolution. I think this problem/paradox can be solved by substituting the Chicken with a Horse and Donkey, and the Egg with a Mule. By doing this, the direction of causality can be established, and should hold true for other characters or similar scenarios. This is because a Mule is the offspring of a Horse and Donkey, and not the other way around. As far as I can tell, Paradoxes typically have a hidden fallacy masquerading as a truth, thus setting up an unresolvable quandary.

[@BaronVonQuiply]

It's also the egg in the sense that eggs existed millions of years before birds, and the egg that hatched the first chicken was not laid by a chicken (they're a hybrid species of two Indian Junglefowl) very much in the same way that neither parent of the mule was a mule.

[@chezsnailez]

The egg was laid by an evolutionary pre-chicken and it mutated enough to be the final nugget leading to chickendom...

[@picksalot1]

@@chezsnailez Looks like it lead to "chickendoom." 😉

[@blackfox2061]

- "I did not know what I should gift you for your birthday. So, I travelled to the future and had a look." - "Oh cool, a pair of socks... and a paradox!"

[@fathertimegaming17]

Eating an entire pizza is one task, no matter how many slices you cut it into. Running a journey with an end point is one task no matter how many times you want to divide it up.

[@chezsnailez]

Would not that runner's foot and or stride would be the limiting factor in the number of divisions one could make along his path?

[@philwood5288]

The sum of an infinite sequence can be a finite number. Once we proved this mathematically it showed the logical fallacy in Zeno's idea. Zeno assumed that the sum of an infinite sequence must be infinity. See numberphile for surprisingly easy to understand examples.

[@Tony_Regime]

@@philwood5288 the easist example is a joke. an infinite number of mathematicians go into a bar. the 1st order 1 pint, the second orders 1/2 of a pint, the 3rd orders 1/4 of a pint, the 4th orders 1/8 of a pint the barman pours 2 pints and tells them they should know their limit

[@hizaleus]

This is the best explanation that I have seen for visualizing the apparentparadox, though the fundamental error of Zeno's analysis is disregarding that each step becomes shorter in time as it becomes shorter in distance. That is the analysis that gives rise to the mathematical concept of limits.

[@migga86]

The steps or yards the runner walks may be divided down, but at some point, the size of the division becomes so small, that he just steps over it. This is also why animation in computers has traditionally had a 1% breaker. The amount of computing power needed to animate beyond that point far exceeds the visible capabilities, so the end of any animation is always a jump we don't see as one.

[@xjunkxyrdxdog89]

Pinocchio says "my nose will now grow" *the universe implodes*

[@klaatunecktie7906]

It just wouldn’t grow. Pinocchio is not lying with this statement, he’s simply wrong. Being wrong isn’t lying.

[@TheDoomKnight]

I present to you the modern paradox. You need experience to get the job. You need the job to get experience. Tada!

[@markgearing]

All these paradoxes can be solved by understanding just two simple premises: 1. Lies exist 2. Time travel doesn’t

[@ifIOnlyHadABrian]

This is probably the most logical comment here... and thus, is ignored.

[@UnseenUniverse]

Man it's funny I was rambling to my Mom the other day about a version of one of Zeno's paradoxes (the arrow paradox) because it was used to explain asymptotes to me by my honestly amazing Algebra 2 teacher. I had that lesson over a decade ago but it still sticks with me! Took me some time but when my brain finally connected how asymptotes and limits worked together it made infinite limits much easier for me to wrap my head around. There must be some miss information out there because my Algebra 2 teacher said the arrow paradox was debunked by Diogenes firing an arrow and it ya know... hitting the target. Or maybe he was using some creative liberties!

[@LOTR22090able]

Dresden Files had a funny retort to the Grandfather paradox Harry: So if I go back in time to kill my grandfather Vadderung: he beats you senseless I suspect

[@XDeserak]

Less commentary on the paradox and more Vadderung being one of the few who knows who Harry's granddad is, but still :D

[@fone9665]

Bloody well done, Simon ‼️ How you got through all of that without tripping up, is a paradox of its own 😊❤ Why was the cat not being alive or dead, Schrödinger not being my favourite chap, not included?

[@jamesbee3087]

One of my favorite lines from a video game. "History abhors a paradox."

[@TheArtofFugue]

As a mathematical physicist of 8 years, I find none of these that mind blowing. Paradoxes arise from a simple lack in understanding of something somewhere along the line.

[@phrontifugist]

With regard to the Lair's Paradox, it seems the true value of a statement isn't always to be found in it but might rely on the web of statements in which it's found/embedded. Wittgensteinian-like.

[@rodrigodrissen7201]

Wow, when I was 8 years old I couldn't do simple math!!

[@Dragon_Slayer_Ornstein]

Well yes, when intentionally manipulating something like a language or equation to break logic then the only thing that statement is making is that language is not perfect method of defining logical statements. Still useful to know.

[@kyleellis1825]

It was just someone with poor hand writing. It's really "this State Men tis falsetto."@@phrontifugist

[@migga86]

​@@kyleellis1825No, it was just taken out of context. The previous page ended with "So by the aforementioned reasoning I can only come to one conclusion:" and the next page read: "This statement is false." Feels bad, when people assume you're a great philosopher yet all you did was forget to throw the last page of a script into the bin as well.

[@jacktheripper-hp9tx]

who ever thought up these ideas was smoking some crack while thinking about this stuff

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

Yep, most of them involve time travel or just semantics, and are therefore not practical or even possible to test.

[@voshadxgathic]

If they developed the paradox long before crack was invented, then they couldn't have been smoking crack in order to create said paradox. Though you might be able to find a chain of events between the birth of the paradox leading to the creation of crack. Then you could take that crack back in time to have them smoke it in order to develop the paradox that would then lead to the creation of crack and begin the cycle anew. Ironically, creating yet another paradox.

[@zarouliaall5390]

The boot straps/Einstein paradox is the exact premise of bill and Ted's excellent adventure lol

[@claudettes9697]

More of these please?

[@MegaDoomWaffle]

Like how in Beastwars the maximals and predacons were descedants of the autobots and decepticons from the original transformers series. They end up trapped on pre-historic earth were they find the original transformers dormant and the predacons try to kill the original Optimus before he can lead the autobots to victory in the original timeline.

[@prome3us550]

Ah beast wars, a good time in history indeed

[@LuciferAlmighty]

There's an episode of Doctor Who that goes over the boot strap paradox

[@25Leprechaun]

"It's the Boot Strap paradox, google it"

[@pieterboelen2862]

Peter Capaldi doing a good job explaining it. 😁

[@Raz.C]

Xeno's Paradox is based on a mistake in thinking. That mistake is attempting to smuggle the concept of infinity into a definitely finite realm. In any case, you CAN'T keep diving the remaining distance "infinitely." You can do it a mind-numbingly large number of *finite* times, but you can NEVER do it an *infinite* amount of times, since you can always do it once more, which renders the whole exercise rather pointless. So, you're only ever going to diving the remaining distance a *finite* number of times, for a *finite* distance, where the runner/ arrow/ etc, travels a fixed, *finite* distance with each step/ over each arbitrary time period. Since all our variables here are *finite* we can represent them with numbers. However, infinity is NOT a number, it's a concept (it's another mistake in thinking to assume that infinity is a number, or that we can achieve infinity in any way) and so it fails to interact meaningfully with any of the variables. It's like trying to multiple the number 3 by the concept of justice; it produces no meaningful results.

[@danidavis7912]

This is the best episode on any of your channels I have seen so far, Simon.

[@AI.Overlord.X]

My favorite thing about this channel is how everyone acts like they're smart in the comments. And then leaves their Google account settings to public so you can see their history. And see the truth. 😅

[@thejudgmentalcat]

Two minutes in and my smooth brain hurts already

[@WWLinkMasterX]

Not too long ago I learned about "Diagonal Arguments" in category theory. The Grandfather and Bootstrap paradoxes seem remarkably similar to to famous diagonal arguments (some of which listed in this video): The Liar Paradox, Russel's Paradox, Gödel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem, and the word "heterological." The time travel ones just seem to be causal instantiations of the same thing, where time travel plays the same role as self-reference by allowing events to be their own cause.

[@elbiggus]

For more on the liar paradox, Russell's paradox, Zeno's paradox, and Gödel's incompleteness theorem I recommend reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter.

[@AngelicusImmortus]

A favourite of mine: You assert that time travel is real, you boast/brag whatever. Then pick your stooge. Say to them that you can prove Time travel exists and when you do, they have to buy you a drink. Once agreed tell the truth "If time travel doesnt exist, how do we get older?" Then enjoy your drink. The point is, when we talk about Time Travel, people assume going back in time to see/do something or jumping forward in time in order to gwin something, such as see the first manned mission to mars land or see if mankind does move to another planet or whatever. We dont talk about what time it is.

[@mrkshply]

Nice. 😆 We are all traveling through time at 1 second per second.

[@simesaid]

It's not that time travel isn't possible, and indeed we _all_ time travel whenever we change our motion (eg "the faster you move through space the slower you move through time"). Indeed, travelling into the future doesn't create _any_ issues whatsoever (Einsteins "twins paradox" is _not_ a paradox!), it's only travelling into the past that is problematic.

[@xzonia1]

Time doesn't exist, so time travel is meaningless. We have a flawed perception of reality that makes us believe time exists, when in fact there is no such thing as time. Einstein's theory of relativity suggests the universe is a static, four-dimensional block that contains all of space and time simultaneously - with no special “now”. The future to one observer is the past to another. That means time doesn't flow from past to future, as we experience it. Time is an illusion.

[@stoq6tiq]

Regarding the running paradox: at some point, each of the two parts of the divided space will be less than the length of the runner's foot, which automatically means that he has completed the task and moves on to the next one, thus the entire distance is covered.

[@simesaid]

Sigh. Try spreading your arms out wide and then bringing them in by halves as if going to clap your hands together... No overlap there.

[@vulcanfeline]

@@simesaid you're assuming my hands have 0 width

[@ChrisBreederveld]

At school our teacher told us we would have a surprise quiz somewhere next week. I told him it couldn't be on a Friday and explained why, then someone else chimed in that it also couldn't be on Thursday then... when we arrived at the final conclusion the math teacher explained this paradox to us. I love math and logic!

[@Nathan-vt1jz]

For the “lie paradox”, the problem is it has a false premise or altered definition. These type of paradoxes are easy to make if you alter the use/definition of a word explicitly or self referentially.

[@unoriginalname4321]

​@@LT-dn7mtshocking...

[@O4FUXACHE]

@@LT-dn7mt In Russia, the truth is whatever the state tells you . . .

[@simesaid]

No. It's just a completely ordinary _statement!_ There are no falsehoods, no deviant definitions, no semantic shocks, no secretive syntactical signposting's, no normative negotiating, no vernacular ventriloquism... It's _just_ a simple statement that satisfies the definition for a paradox, and so that's what it is.

[@AJ_Sparten1337]

Only pure secularists cannot solve these paradoxes.

[@willowwisp357]

Only a pure theist could say such a thing.

[@davidferrara1105]

Let me guess: JESUS DID IT No thanks, I have a mind

[@bhgtree]

Thanks Simon, Is there any thing no matter how difficult, that this man cannot explain and make perfectly understandable.

[@koretmulder6316]

When I was eight, I asked my babysitter why I couldn't pick myself up. I knew I couldn't, I understood that experientially, I was just trying to work through the logical semantics....

[@she_sings_delightful_things]

This was so fun 😊 I've heard of many of these previously, but the in-depth commentary was fascinating! You have an innate talent for holding the viewers' attention, no matter the subject t matter. REALLY enjoy this channel!

[@Pestsoutwest]

Bootstrap and Grandfather paradox are the same, resolved both with a parallel reality bringing the answer... there is no timetravel... just parallel jumps at different points in time.

[@PH-jv4ik]

Dragin ball Z time travel, I hear seems more logical than beeing on the same timeline

[@artdonovandesign]

A great episode, Simon. Thanks!

[@FozzQuaker]

Thought you might have mentioned the Ship of Theseus paradox, if a ship has every part of it replaced, is it still the same ship... It's also known as Triggers Broom Paradox, where Trigger from Only Fools and Horses said his broom had 17 new heads and 14 new handles, thus leaving the question...is it still the same broom

[@richardeldridge8335]

I consider Somewhere In Time to be a spiritual movie. Richard needs the watch and faith to go back in time. He goes back in time to 1912 and has a relationship with Elise. While Elise has the watch in her possession, his faith is shattered when he pulls the most insignificant coin, a Lincoln penny dated 1979, out of his pocket. This sends him back to his own time. But here is what is amazing about the movie. Lincoln pennies were first minted in 1909. What shattered Richard’s faith was the 7 in 1979. An insignificant bump on an insignificant coin. The movie is based on the novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson. It was filmed in 1979 on Mackinac Island in Michigan. Had they filmed it in any previous year, that scene would not have had the same impact.

[@beatrixdobson4795]

So the time travel stuff, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff?

[@Phoenixash-delfuego]

Too much Dr Who for you young lady.

[@43bigsteve]

Alons-y! Doctor Who is actually where I first learned about the bootstrap paradox

[@Chris-hx3om]

@@43bigstevePeter Capaldi and Mozart?

[@Chris-hx3om]

That sentence got away from you.

[@43bigsteve]

@@Chris-hx3om yep, that’s the one!

[@forbiddenera]

6:24 chegg (chicken/egg which came first?) This often comes up in computer programming stuff where you end up manually initializing the thing out of the loop first, "bootstrapping" it.

[@TheAllanmc64]

The "Einstein . Time Traveler" examples was also used in Season 2 of Loki

[@djdrack4681]

most likely flawed. ATM physicists literally define Time (t) = "What the clock reads". Its just as flawed as assuming gravity IS the solution to General Relativity (IE its just 'a field that arises' out of other phenomenon/forces in space-time. Fermi Paradox is still valid one: bcuz even if we can't 'spot' the alien civilizations around us...why aren't they appearing from the future randomly?

[@TheCheeseman1983]

While time travel is “theoretically” possible in the math of General Relativity, it requires exotic matter, like negative mass, that doesn’t appear to actually exist in reality.

[@jakeblankenship1408]

What timing - I was writing a friend today about a restaurant they recommended named Burger Paradox. Because I'm such a nerd, I wrote "...What's the paradox of the burger? Do you bite into said burger and taste a taco, or something? Does the sheer deliciousness defy logic and reason? Do you show up to eat, then finish AS you arrive?"

[@TheCorek1949]

My favourite paradox is a man with a full beard and moustache is telling you how good Tiege Products are when no face skin can be easily seen.

[@RemyJackson]

"One can not simply grab their bootstraps to lift themselves over the barrier" Simon has obviously never suffered from sciatica

[@hoofhearted4]

Predestination is one of my favorite movies and was a great representation of a Bootstrap Paradox. Recently too Bodies and a more popular show Dark. All utilize the paradox really well.

[@gamechairphilosopher950]

Zeno paradoxes were a pillar of my college metaphysics professor’s proof for the existence of a god. When he presented the paradox I was also taking calculus, and for my paper at the end of the semester I had to take a stance and either support or dispute all of the major topics we had covered. I plotted the distance velocity and time in such a way to show that for a given velocity it was impossible for the runner to take longer than the time dictated by their velocity (infinite addition to a finite sum). He said I wasn’t allowed to do that because math and philosophical arguments are different. Still got an A though so I guess it’s ok.

[@AndreGreeff]

that was a really interesting summary, thanks Simon. :) I've always been a fan of The Grandfather Paradox, but I've also always believed that from your perspective (being the one who traveled back in time), nothing would really change... not because of any crazy correcting force intended to "balance the scales", but simply because by traveling through time, you would disconnect yourself entirely from the timeline that you left. this would create a branch in time at the historic point you arrived at, and you would continue your own progression through that new timeline instead. the timeline that resulted in you being born, is technically still in your own personal past. so, no.. I don't think that going back in time to kill your own grandfather would cause you to suddenly cease to exist.

[@AndreGreeff]

I suppose it might suffice to say: "time is relative to the person experiencing it".

[@simonmeadows7961]

I can't hear Simon's description of the Unexpected Hanging Patadox without thinking of Craig David.

[@08wolfeyes]

With the surprise hanging paradox, I wonder if it's possible that the judge had some knowledge that would mean that if he was to word the hanging in the way he did, the prisoner might come to the conclusion that he did? Meaning that the judge explained things as you mentioned leaving the prisoner to conclude the logic he came up with yet the Judge still clearly picking a day for the hanging and there in lies the surprise. The prisoner thought he had some sound knowledge but the judge makes a somewhat random selection of the day causing the surprise in the prisoner. Just a thought!

[@josephgazitano3445]

The Bootstrap Paradox only exists if we view time as linear. Humans experience time as linear, but that doesn't mean it isn't viewable as non-linear. The movie Arrival did a great job of showing circular time. Pretty cool stuff.

[@galeng73]

As a mathematician, this one amused me. See, math is logicism. That's why we include logic symbols. Unfortunately, nobody learns anything beyond arithmetic. Math is used to evaluate logic. In fact, it's a language used for that purpose. That's where we get concepts that many will recognize like 'proofs'. You're proving the logic of the statement. Also, I fuckin' love Zeno. He had more than one paradox but we only ever talk about the one.

[@shaneeslick]

G'day Simon, One of my favourite shirts says... "I'm Confused, No Wait... Maybe I'm Not" 😁 I love wearing it

[@youfuckinknowit]

I don’t approve this message👍🏾

[@maxmouse3]

The only thing I don’t like about your channel is that it didn’t exist when I was in school hahah great video 💪🏻

[@elroyfudbucker6806]

My favourites are "I lie all the time & that's the truth" & "All narcissists are self-reverential".

[@sylviegauthier2145]

A long time ago when I took a few university classes in philosophy, an acquaintance told me 'philosophy is just mental masturbation'. These paradoxes reminded me of that and boy, was he right!

[@SubFlow22]

Rick and Morty is the best example of the Bootstrap Paradox Theory.

[@RonHarrisMe]

First: “Somewhere in Time” is a GREAT movie. If you have never seen it, grab your wife/girlfriend/significant other and watch it. It's one of those great movies that didn't get much recognition. “Pulling one's self up by their own bootstraps”: for 45 years, I have always thought of this in the same idea of when you fall down, pick yourself up. The explanation here I have never heard of. Zeno's Paradox is more about measurement, during the conclusion of a distance traveled. The motion is really immaterial, it's the measurement of any distance while completing a run of distance, AT any certain point of any distance traveled. Zeno's Paradox is an actual idea that compares apples and oranges.

[@ArchDukeOfFunk692]

"That which is in locomotion arrives at a half way stage before it's goal" I feel like this paradox only works if you keep moving the goal. In the example it says that a mile can be infinitely divided but the goal is still one mile. The goal never was the half mile. The half mile was only half way to the goal. So there's no need to keep dividing it unless you change the goal from 1 mile to a half mile.

[@Whatisright]

Life lesson. If a man says he is lying, you can’t trust him. Same rules as in Scream 4. To quote Sidney, “if you can’t trust him don’t open the door.” If Scream isn’t your franchise then maybe Dune when the Baron killed the Doctor. You can’t trust traitor. Crumbled paper can’t be perfect again so if a man says he’s lying. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not because trust is gone.

[@ianbarnhart7659]

So I actually have hypothetical solutions to most of these paradoxes; I know there's some hubris in that claim, but bear with me. The Liar's Paradox: "This statement is false" and variants. To solve this, I contend that every statement includes an implied assertion of truth; "The sky is blue" is really "It is true that the sky is blue," but applied to all statements. (Technically, it also includes a lot of other assertions of truth; that there is a sky, that the color blue exists, et cetera and so forth.) If we make explicit the assertion of truth in the liar's paradox we're left with "It is true that this statement is false." This is simply self-contradictory, and we can disregard attempting to determine if a self-contradictory statement is true or false. If I tell you "8 is greater than 9, but 9 is greater than 8" then it's pretty easy to find the contradiction in my own statement. It doesn't matter if one half of the statement is correct and the other is incorrect (or if they're both incorrect!), they cannot both be correct. Grandfather/Bootstrap Paradoxes: Both of these are rooted in time travel, and they both have the same resolution. Under all circumstances humans have experienced thus far, we move forward in time, and causality generally makes sense. If I throw a ball, the ball will go forward until air resistance and gravity pull it to the ground, or it hits another object. However, I contend that causality is by nature *only* forward-facing in time; there is no such thing as a cause creating an effect earlier in time than itself. This means that time travel is either impossible or it requires a breach of causality to even occur, and in such breach is the resolution to the paradox. From the time travelers perspective, the cause is "I turned on the time machine" and the effect is "I appeared in the past," but that's only from the traveler's perspective. I say that the appearance of the time traveler in the past actually becomes, from the universe's perspective, an "uncaused effect." It doesn't have a cause for the purposes of causality; it just happens. This means that no matter what is done in the past, it cannot effect the time traveler's arrival, even if the time traveler prevents themselves from creating time travel for any reason. The use of the time machine has already broken causality and the time traveler will appear in the past. (Bonus points: This explains the Big Bang! Time travelers did it, creating an uncaused effect that started the universe. Will time travelers in our future go back and start the Big Bang? It doesn't matter! The effect that caused the Big Bang has become a universal truth.) Zeno's Paradoxes: I think that Zeno actually simply proved that the universe is, on some level, digital/binary rather than truly analog. All of his paradoxes rely on the concept that you can cut a given measurement in half *infinitely*. However, they are defeated by simply postulating a non-analog universe. If there is, on some incredibly tiny level, either a discrete measurement of distance or a discrete measurement of time that cannot be subdivided, then Zeno's paradoxes resolve themselves. Lets call these hypothetical discrete measurements "hypometers" and "hyposeconds." Remember that these are incredibly tiny and any measurement would require several layers of scientific notation to measure, but they mean that, at some point, in order to move two hypometers you need to move one hypometer, and there is no such thing as a half-hypometer. You either move the hypometer or do not. So you move one hypometer, and then you move the second hypometer, on and on and on a nearly-infinite number of times until you move one regular meter. The same goes for hyposeconds; either you are moving during a given hyposecond or you are not. If you are moving, then you will proceed whatever distance during one hyposecond, and there will be a finite and measurable (but truly gargantuan) number of hyposeconds before you reach the destination. These are easy to think about for those of us who use computers; your monitor refreshes only so many times per second, each time with a single discrete frame and if that number is high enough it appears to create fluid motion even though it is indeed a series of still images. So a hyposecond would be one "frame" of the universe itself, and a hypometer would be one pixel. But instead of 60 frames per second on a 1920x1080 monitor, this is googols^googols of frames per second on a googols^googols x googols^googols x googols^googols of three dimensional "pixels." Does this also prove that our universe is a simulation on someone else's bigger binary computer? Eh, maybe.

[@itsapittie]

Science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein loved the bootstrap paradox and used it in several short stories, including "By His Bootstraps" and "All You Morons". The latter is particularly mind-bending. Obviously, he wasn't the only writer to use this trope, but he was probably one of the first.

[@thomasmcnamara5929]

I believe the short story you were referring to is called “All You Zombies.”

[@itsapittie]

@@thomasmcnamara5929 I think you're right. Somehow my mind conflated the title with "The Marching Morons" which is also a good story.

[@emergentform1188]

Tripped out. Regarding the Xeno paradox, I believe the answer is simple: there aren't infinite subdivisions of space to traverse, there's only a finite number of Planck length segments. The paradox statement itself contains a factual error.

[@simesaid]

The Planck length is a _hypothesised_ limit of knowable distance... It doesn't mean that space _isn't_ continuous.

[@emergentform1188]

@@simesaidIndeed, however, my understanding is that the pixelated nature of spacetime is fairly certain at this point, but of course not an absolute certainty as you point out.

[@TheBoogerJames]

@@simesaid Electrical charge, energy, light, angular momentum, and matter are all quantized. Given that distance is just a measurement of the space between 2 things, it kind of follows that distance is also quantized. It would make no sense to talk about the distance between 2 photons that are next to each other as that doesn't exist. You can't be 1/2 a photon away.

[@zachfrancis1337]

I am only on the 1st paradox and i have it paused just staring at the wall. Our dog is 14 and lost his best friend 8 or 9 months ago to cancer.. our MollyBird. Broke my heart.. and he hasn't been the same since.. and he has been diagnosed with Cognitive Dissonance specifically it is Sundowner's for dogs. The Vet put him on some medications recently that have helped him and the "episodes" i guess aren't as severe or frequent and that has made me happy.. so for the most part he is a lot better but sometimes he will just stand there and stare at the wall for 20 mins and i will walk over and ask him what exactly are you pondering there?? I think he ponders the liars paradox. I know that it has broken my brain for the night and it's just the first one.

[@dennisanderson3895]

8:33 cf Robert A. Heinlein. Time progresses. In your personal future, you go back in time; you appear in the earlier time frame and do whatever you do; you [we presume for the happy ending] disappear back to your present/their future but whatever happened *happened* b/c you *were* there when the event(s) happened. No paradox, you just haven't experienced No Paradox yet until you return.

[@iambobthe808]

I like the background effects for the intro. 👌🏿

[@jamiemaguire6988]

Aw i love that logic that if you were to change something in the past, the universe would make up bullshit to correct it so that all events played out how they should.

[@jacobq.2204]

Would be a fun short film watching the universe thwart a time traveler over and over in different ways as they try to kill their grandfather.

[@jamiemaguire6988]

@@jacobq.2204What I was thinking too. Great premise for something

[@KyleRobots]

It reminds me of a UPN Twilight Zone, probably their most classic Serling, where a time traveler comes back as a maid to the H!tler family's house. She knows she has to unalive the baby to save the future, but the nanny's very protective. She has a hard time bringing herself to do it and when she finally gets the chance, jumps off a bridge with the baby in front of the nanny. Panicking, the nanny looks around, sees a beggar that has been a Chekov's Gun the whole episode, and buys the baby. Turns out...Wahwah...

[@AlanWinterboy]

There's something I'm missing in the unexpected hanging paradox. I understand that if the hangman hasn't shown up by noon on Thursday that Friday is certain and therefore cannot be an option. But the hangman could show up at noon on Thursday and say today is the day; just because the hangman didn't show up on Wednesday doesn't mean that Thursday or Friday aren't both options, and therefore neither day can be positively deduced

[@andresanchez9395]

Comic book logic actually seems very logical to me. The universe itself isn’t thinking of ways to prevent the paradox but say if you went back in time to kill your grandfather, then you wouldn’t exist to go back in those to kill your grandfather. So the only universe to exist would be one in which your grandfather never had you as a grandson. Or you died before the act could be committed. Or you just never decide to commit the act. Or any other thing that prevented you from doing it. So any action you took to change the past would be futile because it is self correcting. I think that’s what the Avengers Endgame writers had in mind when they said they had to return the stones to the moment they were taken from. Although they did change the past when they let Loki escape, that changed the past. So I think if we ever invented time travel we would have unlimited historical knowledge but no way to change it.

[@blu12gaming44]

Remember: you can always choose the Wheatley route and just go with 'False'. More in depth though: you could say that the claim that the statement is false is an attribute by using Higher Order Logic or by treating the false value as pertaining to the meta-logic of the statement, rather than the normal logic. This would be the same as saying the statement, whatever its contents are, is invalid.

[@paigelore]

My favorite time travel explanation was put out by Nebula and Banner in Avengers End Game. You can’t change the past because the minute you go in to the past everything that follows your actions becomes your future.

[@robertlivenmore1786]

You must separate reality from language. Language describes reality, not itself. "This statement is false" twists inexperienced human brains to force language into acting on itself, a recipe for confusion. Similar conundrums are, "this egg is not an egg," or, "I don't exist."

[@David_Baxendale]

We could already be in a repeating time loop, we'd never know. As Lister said "as long as we are going around in time, we can never be extinct" 🤣

[@TJTAS]

But the Zeno's paradox is easy to dispel if you consider time to be a factor. If you assume a constant speed for the completion of the distance then the time for a part of this is going to equal the overall time divided by the length of the sub distance. Thus 1/2 the distance = 1/2 the time, 1/4 distance = 1/4 time etc. So although technically you can subdivide the distance into infinity then the time would subdivide the same amount until an infinite subdivision would equal 0 time.

[@dickward1090]

the problem with Zenos paradox as the video stated is the division of distance. a normal person won’t shrink with the each division just like they won’t be able to take a single 1/2 mile step. so while you might be able to fit an absurd amount of delineations into that [30inch] step, the step itself is what should be measured

[@thefloop2813]

For some reason, this reminds me how my parents would have me and my two siblings draw names for secret santa christmas gifts. It wasnt hard even as a little kid to figure out that , for example, if i had my sisters name, my brother couldnt, which meant he had my name, and my sister had hers. They did it for several years like that until one of us finally let em know that have 3 names in a secret santa doesnt work lol. We had all figured it out right away.

[@rbo1823]

Regarding Diogenes, every step we take is a an infinite set of different fractions of distances. So it is possible to complete a set of infinite tasks in a finite amount of time.

[@jay152277]

Ever see a sign behind a bar that reads "FREE BEER TOMORROW"? Always makes me laugh...

[@stevencavanagh7990]

With the Termanator, Skynet sent a Termanator back in time to kill Jon Conner and thus eliminating him from the timeline allowing The Machienes to win the war. however, in time travel you always return to the timeline you left, so as Skynet exists in a time where Connor lead the humans to victory, Skynet could have won 1,000 times and it would be unaware of its victory, so it keeps sending Terminators back thinking they all are failing. as it exists in a timeline where it lost.

[@tobberino]

If he is killed then there won’t be any reason to go back in time in the first place which means that they won’t send the terminator and Conner survives which means they have to send the terminator to win the war. So even if the timeline is linear, it’s impossible for the terminator mission to succeed. Writing this was a headache lol.

[@stevencavanagh7990]

@@tobberino The best part is that the physics is so complex at times that both theories could be True.

[@amandatyler4324]

I like the twilight zones solution to the bootstrap paradox. A woman went back in time to kill hitler, but he was quickly replaced with another stolen baby from the nanny who was supposed to be watching him.

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

11:00 f Zeno's locomotion paradox is a bad example for unsolvable paradoxes: He actually argues that a sum of ▪︎infinitely many and ▪︎each finite timespans could not be finite. By this time he already has split _a finite distance_ into ▪︎infinitely many ▪︎each finite distances, thus _proving himself_ that a sum of infinitely many each finite quantities _can_ be finite.

[@kimhohlmayer7018]

Somewhere in Time is one of my favorite movies! So underrated.