The Ancient Paradox We Still Can't Solve

[@BlackthorneSoundandCinema]

My perspective is that a paradox like this one simply highlights the fact that language can be used to create an empty image that is devoid of meaning. There are many combinations of words that also have no value, this one is just easier to recognize. It may be wise to think about that rather than spending time thinking about this specific specimen. Its only meaning is a warning.

[@YouknowMimisParplaveOr]

9:08 he was really killing us here.

[@shafeequllahsatari2094]

Since the issue remains unsolved, we will leave it at that as well. Thank you for the insightful content and the generous free guide.

[@ryancain6012]

My sincerest thanks for providing a reading guide.

[@Naizo-e5x]

You have no idea how much I loved this video and how happy I am that you're on this platform. Thank you for sharing philosophy here!

[@whitb62]

Love this. Please keep making the analytical side of philosophy videos. They're excellent.

[@grgarciaxiv]

Jared, I'm pausing this at 8:24 at I'm tearing up. Your work is so beautiful--I love the Liar's Paradox, and many things about it, including Turing's relation to it (Leavitt, 2006). Thank you for your excellent thoughts, and moreso, words Cheers, Giovanni

[@HaecSublimisVeritas]

The second way is correct if you go full Aristotle. The liar's paradox cannot be true or false, because it is not a proposition. By reductio ad absurdem: Suppose that "This sentence is false." is a proposition. What is the predicate? "False". What is the subject? "This sentence". What does the subject supposit for? "This sentence is false". So now we have the subject "This sentence is false" and the same predicate "false". Now the subject supposits for a proposition, and we have to evaluate its truth by going back to step 1. This process repeats infinite times and is in principle impossible of terminating.

[@SurenEnfiajyan]

I also think the problem is a particular type of self referencing (or any other infinite cycle), the self referencing / infinite cycling on the truthfulness. "This sentence is true" is that problematic case because it's not evaluable. But "This sentence contains 38 letters or numbers" is not because we can evaluate it's truthiness despite it's a self referencing sentence.

[@psifiguy]

@@SurenEnfiajyan Can you evaluate that sentence as it is?? I can evaluate it as True given you unstated premise that spaces and "numbers" are evaluated as a 3 and a 8. I could evaluate it as false given that it also contains spaces or as having a single number "38" that I count as 1 number. To properly evaluate we need the premise.

[@SurenEnfiajyan]

@@psifiguy I'm not sure what you are saying, if the problem is the number of spaces, then spaces are not letters, they are just characters. Even if I put full stop mark at the end of the sentence the answer will not change because full stop isn't a letter either. My point is that if evaluation becomes an infinite cycle then it's not possible to evaluate. The same with statements that can be both true and false. The logic should be hierarchical (the author mentioned this) otherwise it will be a problem. IMHO human languages are messy, they have not been very rigorous, this is why I think we have such problems.

[@BeekuBird]

@@SurenEnfiajyan If you build it as a physical circuit then it's an oscillator. Paradoxes such as this are introduced by the introduction of self reference, as you've correctly stated. This is in the same category of paradox as Russell's Paradox.

[@alexappreciationsociety3421]

A kid who I teach (9) who doesn't known much about this said something funny - lets make the sentence this sentence is and put a full stop as that's a full clause and then false after with an exclamation mark so the sentence exists basically then false after - not relevant but just made me chuckle.

[@seraphir4662]

this was so extremely interesting beyond what I expected

[@atavax311]

what about the argument that a statement implicitly states that it is true so "this statement is false" is basically saying "this statement is true and this statement is false"?

[@modernoverman]

The first half of my undergrad was studying math/physics, while the second half was studying philosophy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt: I think this highlight the limits of our imperfect language, which is subjected to evolutionary pressures. We ought to take a pragmatic approach and maybe just keep paradoxes like this at our side. Like science, we can push anomalies to the edge as long as the rest of the world remains consistent until more anomalies reveal a pattern in our language.

[@ElusiveEel]

No, it isn't. It's present also in mathematics (Russel's paradox). The resolution was just to remove the context from which the paradox occurred.

[@CasaBonita1018]

Gödel lurking behind every corner of our conscious experience and looming over our ability to make sense of

[@TedMattos]

Thank you for the video, Dr. Henderson. I appreciate your approach. The video had me thinking about something that has been around society for some time - "Truth is subjective." We hear people say, "Celebrate YOUR truth!" and "Your truth may be different than my truth." I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this.

[@BanAaron]

In Buddhism we have something called a Tetralemma which solves for cases like this IMO. Things can be affirmation, negation, both, or neither. A lying statement can be both true and false at the same time under this logic.

[@abdullahimusa9761]

Can you cover the different types of logics and how they relate to Aristotelian logic

[@BrianBell7]

I loved this video. You had me at explosion. But seriously, I really appreciate all of your videos and learn something new with each release. Thank you!

[@GreatBooksProf]

Really enjoyed this, Jared. Thanks for making it!

[@padmeasmr]

I love paradoxes, thank you for this. I wrote my MA thesis on the paradox of the actor, connecting Diderot and Sartre (quite paradoxical itself lol). Next year I would like to create a channel mainly about philosophy. I wish English was my mothertongue though.

[@MrTylerhenry8]

The interesting think about what Tarski devised is that there needs to be another level of philosphophy to talk about his philosophy and so on... infinite progress is just as bad as infinite regress in this situation. It never really gets resolved.

[@SurenEnfiajyan]

The problem I think is a particular type of self referencing (or any other infinite cycle), the self referencing / infinite cycling on the truthiness. "This sentence is true" is that problematic case because it's not evaluable. But "This sentence contains 38 letters or numbers" is not problematic because we can evaluate its truthiness despite it's a self referencing sentence. In programming there is a thing called infinite recursion when a function calls another function(s) and it calls other function(s), etc, without termination. This is a similar situation.

[@jameso2290]

Right. This was my thought too, because the statement "This sentence is false" doesn't actually mean anything. It's an empty statement. Like saying "this empty is full" - what does that even mean? It's nonsensical. Or as you said, not able to be evaluated. There is no actual logic to evaluate there, it's just logic words in an English sentence. In the same sense that the word "dog" is not an actual dog, it's just the word "dog" - the word "false" isn't the same as the concept of false, it's just the English word "false" in a sentence. Like saying "This false is true true false" doesn't actually mean anything, it's just using logic words in a meaningless way.

[@johnmalik7284]

Words are a pointer, not an independent existence.

[@HiShark8]

Yes

[@Zippy1940]

Natural language and formal language describe different worlds that contain different entities.

[@trinp.6334]

I love your vdos. In the Buddhist traditions, we have similar structures is applied for cultivation of Mindfulness. The mind of a person that knows that the “mind with delusion” as “the mind is with delusion” is no longer deluded. I found this pattern interesting; even in the Christian traditions in the act of confessing one’s evil deeds. One is redeemed as the act of confessing itself is being truthful, grateful towards God. I think I read something of this reversal patterns in someone’s reading of the Master/Slave dialectics too. Though I think applying it to the true/false logic is very difficult. Will check your reading guide and tries to see patterns.

[@asurrealistworld4412]

This video outlines the Buddhist logical structure of the Catuskoti without him even realizing it, the four ways a proposition can be stated - it is so, it is not so, it is both so and not so, it is neither so nor not so.

[@francispontifex6156]

Ok, right, so this is how you actually deal with paradoxes (there are multiple types), but let's talk about self reference. What most people don't get, most logicians included, is that there is a difference between description versus actualization. Infinite regress arises from ASSUMING that what is being described as a self reference with negation (this sentence is not a sentence, A is not A) is also being ACTUALIZED. Description requires some sort of domain that contains that which is described (a mind, a computer, reality, etc...) This containment domain is almost always ignored by the people that have these "paradoxes", but it really can't be. Let's go back to a common example: "This statement is false." Normally this means, it is, but it isn't, but it is, but it isn't, etc., EXCEPT, this forgets that there is a HIERARCHY of rules. Recognition is key, meaning, if you can distinguish something as existing in a domain (for example, see the symbols, understand them as letters, understand what sounds the letters make, combine the letters into words, words which referred to descriptions of "things", etc.), then that has priority. So, first, the statement get "recognized" as existing in the domain. The statement is then processed/understood in what it states (including self reference), then some sort of actualization function is or is not applied. If the statement of self reference states negation AND actualizes that it is actually not a statement, it would mean that it would not exist/be recognized in said domain, meaning the domain would not have known it was ever there to begin with. So, if you are indeed "seeing" a self negating statement, it is there in the domain (aka exists, aka is true), but not ACTUALIZED. THAT'S the difference, there are HARD stops, so you don't tower of turtles yourself. Just remember, there is a difference between saying "I lift my hand" and actually lifting your hand... Or to use a more common real world example, think of the difference between writing a computer program and running a computer program. And, just as a computer program, can too be written on paper, or a stone, that doesn't mean those mediums can process said program... AND, on another note, IS means EQUAL TO X, meaning, it is referencing something else. TRUE is just an IDENTITY function to make sure a reference to SOMETHING ELSE is the SAME. IT is not JUST a declarative statement. For example. My cat is orange. My cat (it is really referencing the color of said cat), to the color orange. Orange is equal to orange, since both sides of the equation are identical, the statement is "true". If it were not, then it would be "not true aka false". So, back to the main point "This sentence is false" really means, "this sentence is not what it is, aka a sentence", but, since it is RECOGNIZED as a sentence, then what it STATES, is actually NOT TRUE. DEAD STOP, no more infinite regress. How hard was that...? There are stratifications and parallelisms of rules to apply, it is not an even playing ground out there, make sure you know what rules apply in which domain, that's what logic is. Logic is just following the rules of a certain system, from a given starting point, to "allowed" conclusions, given those system rules. Call this metalogic, if you want to put it higher than traditional logic/s on the hierarchy. Where is my cookie, lol?

[@mgrycz]

Thank you for the video 😊

[@gromajor]

I was talking about that sentence a second ago, and I see appearing on my youtube feed. life and its coincidences..... 🙂 but that sentence (when not a lie...) is a logical wonder.

[@iMystic418]

"Produces a falsehood when preceded by itself" produces a falsehood when preceded by itself. My favorite paradox (theliarspdx 👁)! I believe it may be related to the hairy ball theorem. 🤘

[@NicJ27]

Very interesting. Reminds me of quantum mechanics or schrodingers cat, but that the sentence’s truth value is determinable once its been judged by us, rather than the observed state of particles. “This sentence is true” and “This sentence is false” both have the same states of truth valuation then, even if we can differentiate them as making different claims. Reminds me of reading Frege, in that its obvious these sentences have different meanings even if logic dictates that the same paradox is born from evaluating there truth values. “Peter Parker is Spiderman” is to “This sentence is true” as to “Spiderman is Peter Parker” is “This sentence is false” only once observed with context (Spiderman could be Miles vs Spiderman could be Peter Parker etc) Both “this sentence is true” and “peter parker is spiderman” could be true or false, but theres something missing for the valuation to be accurate in the same way there’s something missing for the paradox to be solved * im sure i might have missed something or misunderstood before i get grilled. Just thinking aloud

[@phazecat]

I can't help but notice that the cons column of the dialtheia approach is the only section that steps away from not being able to answer the paradox in question specifically

[@atavax311]

I wish you went briefly over how Tarski's solution avoids the contradiction.

[@jaimehatchet]

I know this is probably too in the weeds for a video like this, but what do you think about Kripke semantics as a potential solution to this? Unless I'm mistaken, Kripke's system allows for propositions like this to have an "undefined" truth value.

[@_jared]

I link to Kripke in the guide. I’m afraid to say much without reading it again, as I’d probably make a fool of myself!

[@jaimehatchet]

@@_jared I should've checked the guide, my apologies. Was really cool to see glut theory/dialetheism pop up in one of your videos, by the way! I've been doing some research (I'm a formal languages and model theory researcher) into this lately.

[@LockheedMartinEnjoyer]

​@@_jared maybe a future video idea? 👀

[@vishwastanwar4764]

Language is a social construct. It doesn't by itself adhere to the logic of reality, but our closest estimation of it. We can just as well say "This sentence is a paradox" or "This sentence is x" where x means neither true nor false. Bending a language doesn't imply bending the logic itself. Further, logic itself is culturally informed, and thus a near estimation of reality at best. So if it's a little shabby here and there, it shouldn't raise any alarms. There. Solved. What was needed was just a little bit of continental philosophy.

[@SusloNick]

5:40 "this sentence is not sentence'" its like division by zero so yeah self reference is an issue, just like it is with definitions that loop into self-reference

[@prestonrasmussen4083]

My preferred solution to the Liar's Paradox is Arthur Prior's solution. It basically states that all sentences in English implicitly assert their own truth. That is the sentences "2 + 2 = 4" holds the same information as "It is true that 2 + 2 = 4". Once that is pointed out, it is pretty intuitive. If a sentence didn't implicitly assert its own truth, how would we be able to assign it a truth value? Using this assumption the liars paradox then becomes "It is true that this sentence is false". This is logically equivalent to claiming r and not r, which is false by the law of excluded middle. Hence, there is no paradox and no need to amend any of the logical framework.

[@Megsuoa]

hi, can you make a video of how to focus on your reading.

[@Justjustinp]

This paradox only proves that logic and reason aren’t the only things to life. Reason is just a system by which we can try to understand life. But life is often unreasonable and reason isn’t the only truth. We should employ a variety of methods to understand life: reason, scientific observation, emotions and feelings, and even spirituality and faith. None of these is sufficient to understand all of reality, but using multiple methods can help us come to at least understand ourselves and what’s around us. And it’s okay to not know everything, and to even disagree on things. The journey is in the learning.

[@KaElSah]

🎉🎉

[@justanothernick3984]

The world is best described as postmodern. Is that statement true? It doesn't have to be. I like your comment because it comports with my understanding of reality. Is it the right interpretation? I don't really care because I can't even prove it to myself, not to mention anyone else. But it puts my mind at ease and gives me options to change it if necessary.

[@MrPuff1026]

This sentence walked so Goedel could run

[@kilekillion3680]

A statement of of self value is always false. The statement is implied as 'always.' "I am a liar (I am always a liar)" This self assessment, like all self assessments, is (always) false with the implied 'always,'

[@momokiene9973]

Didn't Gödel proof that there are things that are true, but can not be proven? As the incompleteness theorems imply mabye there is something missing in our logical models. Mabye some things are just outside our 4 D thinking patterns and can not be solved intuitivly.

[@TheDrExaviouse]

The act of attempting to solve the paradox in good faith is a practice in good philosophy

[@_jared]

I certainly learned quite a lot about logic, philosophy of language, and so on when I was giving it an earnest effort.

[@TrinityLHearts]

I wonder, with This sentence is false. Has anyone focused on the "is" part?

[@JasonBlair]

Queue up the Magritte painting of a pipe with the caption "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"

[@ValdVincent]

If we use math, measuring truth from 1 to 0, you'd get 1/0 It's undefined.

[@Tabu11211]

Uncertain, it evaluates to uncertain. Or {}.

[@drarsen33]

Ok. Before watching, let me give it a shot. I would say that sentence is not making true or false statement, it is just making illusion of doing so. For something to be true or false, if has to have more than one element. We have to have some claim about an element or multiple elements. "Chair" cannot be true nor false, chair is blue can be. So basically something being true of false is second order statement describing veracity of some lower order information which has to have more than one element. In this case we have only one element "This sentence" which by it self is not enough to be real true of false statement.

[@drarsen33]

Hm. It works for "this sentence is not true" as well. We again end up with only one element. "this sentence" it is not in relation with anything else, hence it is not true "true/false" statement

[@veresmarton1836]

statement from the vioeo: Self reference isn't the problem with the Liar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Self-reference is just a "zero hop long" circular reference. Without circular reference you can't reproduce the Liar. The problem is then I believe is with circular reference. Of course we know that with natural or formal languages we can produce 'tense semantic structures' which is impossible to satisfy or even assign a meaning to and this is perfectly fine in the sense that it is an observable characteristic. For formal systems I think it is a hard or maybe impossible challenege to avoid these sort of scenarios for e.g. Russel's set paradox is a tricky adaptation of the Liar in my eyes.

[@Jot78]

I'm by no means a philosopher, and I'm intentionally typing this before watching the video to see if my mind has changed afterward. Basically, it feels like we're asking if Pi is even or odd. The question itself doesn't make sense since Pi is irrational and thus does not fit into the category, even or odd. Similarly, the statement asserts itself as being false, but provides no grounds for us to evaluate if it is true or false. Since evaluation fails and asserting the truthfulness or falsity of the statement leads to nonsense results, it can only mean the statement is in a different category, undiscernable. I would love to hear other, more studied, thoughts on this matter. Please point out any errors I have made, as I am, admittedly, below an amateur.

[@duder6387]

Great video! I’d love to see you discuss Agrippa’s trilemma and the problem of the criterion, since those are the problems I constantly think about. Also, I have a question: How can propositions be true? If we are using the correspondence theory of truth, then that would mean the words need to correspond to some fact in the world. But words don’t have any metaphysical connection to the objects they represent (for instance, the word “tree” has no resemblance to a tree in the world). Wouldn’t this mean that no proposition can be true, since words do not correspond to some fact in objective reality? Also, I’ve seen that only propositions can have truth values. Does this mean that anything that isn’t expressed in language cannot count as knowledge? Would this mean then that animals cannot have knowledge since they do not have language? That seems like a strange claim to make, since animals do seem to know certain things.

[@KennethConnally-np9it]

I don't see how a correspondence theory of truth would require words to resemble their referents. The words' *meanings* just need to correspond to the state of the world. So if I say "there are three chairs in my bedroom," that's true just in case three of the things we call "chairs" in English are in my bedroom. If whoever invented English had decided to use the word "chairs" for elephants instead of chairs, then the same sentence wouldn't be true, but that seems like a perfectly reasonable and intuitive result to me.

[@duder6387]

@@KennethConnally-np9it Thank you for the reply. I have a problem though with your solution. What exactly is the meaning or referent of a word? Is it the definition? In that case, we would be using words to describe other words. If I’m understanding you correctly, words function as labels. My issue with this is that words can only label our subjective experiences not objects in the world; for example, when I see a tree and label it a tree, I am labeling my subjective experience of the tree not the tree itself; we are still disconnected from objective reality.

[@KennethConnally-np9it]

@duder6387 Why do you think you can only use "tree" as a label for your subjective experience of a tree? Why can't you use "tree" as a label for the tree itself?

[@duder6387]

I always thought the process of naming objects involved us perceiving an object, assigning a word for that perception, and then if any object is close enough to that perception we just refer to it by the same word. After all, “tree” is a broad word since every tree is different; it just seems impossible to create a designator for every single one since they are also constantly changing. Also, we can only experience the world from our subjective perspective so it just seems impossible to use a word to refer to a mind-independent fact.

[@KennethConnally-np9it]

@duder6387 I don't think that's how it works, for precisely the reason you mention: if words named our *perceptions* of objects, they wouldn't be useful for communication since other people, and even ourselves at different times, won't share those perceptions. Words instead name objects; in the case of universals like "tree" they can refer to any object that we consider to be in a certain class. It's true that we all only experience the world from our own first-person perspective, but I think it's pretty clear that isn't all we're capable of thinking about. We'd be in a pretty sorry state if it were. Even my dog seems to know that a ball I throw into another room still exists though she can no longer see it because she goes looking for it. She too apparently supposes something exists beyond her immediate perceptions... you can even teach her that it's called "ball"!

[@classicalliberalarts]

At the time of the writing of the sentence, when the subject is named, there is no sentence to be referred to by the pronoun "this". This is a paradox caused by artificially separating written words from spoken words and, consequently, from the intellect.

[@styckykeys2200]

That example you gave is still self-referential though. If you substitute in what Agnes said it is literally the same sentence as the self-referential one.

[@willofman]

It seems obvious that the reason the paradox is created is because the goalpost is moved on how logic works. "True" or "false" are not themselves statements, but evaluations of other statements that can be true or false. They are supposed to be "outside" the statement, or at least an underlying statement is supposed to exist. And now the one making the paradox moves the evaluation into the statement. Therefore the one who is meant to answer is supposed to evaluate an evaluation, but there is no underlying statement that can be evaluated. To give you an analogy on why this is basically a syntax error: Jenny is writing a math test. However Jenny didn't study at all, so she leaves the test empty and writes this to her teacher: "I should get an A". The teacher is left to evaluate her evaluation of herself. But there is no underlying solutions in the test to get any scores, no to mention A. Therefore the teacher gives Jenny an "F" - worst score. Of course, when looking the the analogy, one might say: "Oh but one could say "This is a true sentence" and that would be intelligible". Sure, Jenny as well could have written "I should get and F" - and she would have been correct. If we are forced to give an answer to the paradox, we would have to say it's false, because it's not true. In short it would look something like this: true(false) = false. Truth basically has more stringent criteria than false statements. But again, in fact the liars paradox is a syntax error, and doesn't really prove anything other than that you can't evaluate an evaluation without an underlying statement.

[@thedude882]

The restriction that staments on the truth values of others can't be made is a big one. We often say to another person: "what you said is false". How is it a syntax mistake? If it isn't, then the statement: "what I'm saying is false" isn't a syntax mistake.

[@edwardv54]

Truth is determined by evidence, if there is no evidence or if the evidence is insufficient then it's truth is irrelevant.

[@chrisd561]

Just found out about Zeno's movement paradox. It's been a week and now I can't make it to the car to buy groceries. Fridge is almost empty, please send help.

[@ManEaterBrainBug]

Really not that complicated. "This sentence is false". Well, what is false about the sentence? It could only be true or false if it made a statement, like "Raspberries are blue", which would be false. "This sentence is false" makes no statement and has no inherent meaning that could be declared as either true or false. Trying so hard to declare it as either true or false is just a sign of narrow-mindedness and a lack of understanding of semantics.

[@aforabe1197]

*Dad approaches a board* Board: "This Sentence is False" *Dad observes, his mind whirring* *He readies Himself* Dad: Hello... False. I. AM. D A D. *Universe immediately splits open as The Father (now a transcendent being) ascends, merging with the space in between space in a great flash of light. As He does so, the Board warps and bends, shrinking as it folds over itself, INTO itself, until nothing remains...* Please, do your part, share the TRUE response to this paradox 🙏

[@JulianaAndersson]

Isn’t this the problem with western philosophical conceptual landscape of only 2 possibilities? As opposed to Asian philosophy that allows 4 possibilities?

[@danny_mtnz]

so you want a create a new category? like "falsely true" or something like that 😂

[@aidan4530]

What are the four possibilities

[@JulianaAndersson]

@@aidan4530 yes no Not yes and not no.. Asian philosophy is fascinating…

[@adamkimara6919]

@@JulianaAnderssonI have never heard this before. Which school/strand of Asian philosophy might you be referencing?

[@tuckerbugeater]

@@danny_mtnz A: A statement is true. Not A: The statement is false. Both A and Not A: The statement is both true and false. Neither A nor Not A: The statement is neither true nor false.

[@ahmettrajan]

Why nobody talk about the solution of arthur prior ?

[@joanalosm]

Debating "This sentence is false" is usless. It just doesn"t make sense in the real world. It's like saying "Unicorns don't reproduce", as an explainaton why there are not many unicorns around.

[@Tomismyusername]

You didn't put a full stop at the end, so it's not even a sentence.

[@milesthomas8515]

I can. The statement that “this statement is false” has no truth value because it is self-referential. In a sense, it is meaningless.

[@georgesmiljanascimben6542]

I think I have solved the problem of this sentence. Before I give the answer I have a sentence about philosophy. "There is no idea so absurd that you can't find a philosopher arguing for it". The answer to the so called liar paradox is - the sentence is utter nonsense.

[@justinbyrge8997]

Easy. "This sentence is false." isn't a paradox. A sentence can't be true or false. A sentence is only a sequence of words - we give the sentence meaning or definition. And because of that it's our meaning of that sentence that matters. In other words, that sentence is equal to this sentence: "snoggle for thumb right up blue cooking." That's right, it's nonsense. It's just like if I told you in spoken language, " I'm lying to you in this instant." And that brings me to the second reason the original sentence isn't a paradox - and that's because it's incomplete without proper context and can therefore be disregarded as an error statement, rather than a truth claim with either yes or no. It's a false dichotomy, not a paradox.

[@ElusiveEel]

lol skirting away from the word "proposition", if this is what is to be an english major I don't want to be on

[@Dismythed]

I solved this years ago. It’s a temporal issue. People always forget about Time. It is simply incorrect (not false) for a sentence to assign a value to itself before it is written.

[@jerrypritchett283]

The sentence has no value without a implied reference to the subject of the statement. This voids any perception of the statement being a paradox. To me, this means it is neither true nor false, thus no paradox. Bear in mind, I am a simple soul and all apparent paradoxes have a simple way to view them.

[@catalystcomet]

How can something be neither true nor false? Sorry I'm not a philosophy major, I was looking at a sew-in tutorial a few minutes ago but you've piqued my interest.

[@yanuzz3000]

I just read about this in Fritz B. Simon's book "My Psychosis, My Bicycle, and I: The Self-Organization of Madness". There he proposes that nothing is really static but everything is constantly changing. However, our language conceives of many things as static. This is in a way a simplification we need in order to be able to process the world at all. But it is not the actual reality. So if we take the sentence "This sentence is false." we can solve it (albeit maybe in an unsatisfactory way) by adding an imaginary element: time. This is a little bit like in mathematics where, in order to solve the square root of 4 we need imaginary numbers, and we get not one but two answers: 2 and -2. But going back to our sentence, we add the imaginary element time and we see that the answer oscillates - one moment it's true, the next it is false. Just like you described your feeling about it in the beginning. It is also a little bit similar to those ambigious images (e.g. rabbit-duck illusion), where your perception oscillates between different conceptions.

[@pmgn8444]

Sounds like there is a superposition of solutions. Probably... 🙃

[@CVM174]

Isn't that a mere pretense, so it's neither true nor false which makes the proposition invalid.

[@pichirisu]

Ngl this is the reason I'm glad I switched over to math and peaked in philosophy. I can literally state true-false things to prove a point, while people are stopping halfway with linguistic barriers that legitimately don't exist unless you restrain yourself to some-world/set. Ultimately it's poor philosophy to state that there isn't a solution or that it's "complicated".

[@whitb62]

As Schrödinger wrote in his chapter on Philosophical Wonder (My View of the World), there are two types of people in this world: those who have it and those who do not. Some people are satisfied continuing on with several unanswered assumptions, while others are not.

[@JCTelenio]

The sentence is false because it's a true sentence.

[@Corredephd]

This sentence comes up on the first course of logic we take in any Mathematics Bachelors. The goal in Mathematical context is to illustrate something that was proven by Gödel, which is that not all Theorems in math can be proven to be true, or false. We have lots of open problems in math and it is believed that some of them can’t be proven, some are worth 1 million dollar if you’re able to prove it. Anyways, the liars paradox is not the most accurate example of the incompleteness of math but it’s fun.

[@mrcool982]

That made me super angry lol I'll have to come back to it

[@jrk1666]

By naming it a paradox it is solved

[@louisalexandercrocco3530]

The sentence doesn’t actually exist. Would this be a valid answer?

[@christopher-si9kv]

It's not a paradox, it's an absurd statement.

[@Osmiculture]

I am a totally unqualified to say this as someone with a life-science degree, but as it's 2024 I am free to speaketh mine own nonsense. Perhaps all these insoluble things because philosophers are misusing the tool (or solvent) they are given. The very existence of our cognitive capacity to determine relationships between distinct elements of knowledge had evolved towards determining (and understanding) actual environmental relationships by referencing and building upon prior established certainties. It was not set up to ignore the environment, turn inwards on itself and have play days with the elements of knowledge and language. Maybe some people just figured out that they'd get their many free lunches by tying their hosts minds in knots and selling clothes to emperors.

[@psifiguy]

"This sentence is False". Interesting problem. Now what are the premises for this statement? Premise: "This sentence" is a reference to the sentence "This sentence is False" (self reference) What if the that is the part that is false where it is actually referencing a totally incorrect sentence? Becomes "That sentence is False" Premise: "is" is a definitive hard/rigid that A is B. _This Sentence_ IS _False_ -> "This Sentence" = "False" _FALSE_ Is _FALSE_ or _THIS SENTENCE_ IS _THIS SENTENCE_ Of course this isn't very good math -- seems flawed given there is only 1 equation but 2 variables It's been about 30+ years since I took any Philosophy and only then took an intro and of 3rd and 4th year courses. I liked the logic courses and the one on time and space although I seemed to have broken the brains of the other students/prof when discussing time travel and multiverse vs single universe - they kept arguing conclusions instead of the premises of each possibility. I do enjoy watching your videos.

[@SurenEnfiajyan]

'THIS SENTENCE IS THIS SENTENCE' seems fine to me because it is itself by definition. 'THIS SENTENCE IS THIS SENTENCE' is true and 'THIS SENTENCE IS NOT THIS SENTENCE' is false. The truthiness is evaluable in these cases. "This sentence is TRUE" or "This sentence is FALSE" are not evaluable because this creates infinite recursion.

[@psifiguy]

@@SurenEnfiajyan Thanks for the reply. In practice I find self referencing definitions useless. I ask, how does the definition "Red is Red" or "To Fooble is To Fooble" help? I don't think those other sentences are cases of infinite recursion but missing essential information such as what makes "This Sentence" false or true. The problem is in the original statement: "This Sentence is False" -- This is the conclusion. We do not have the premises that lead to that conclusion. Given the information I could evaluate it as NULL.

[@reallifemotivationonnegati916]

when i join the vidior count was 666 so the liare was lokie

[@DanBanan69]

I don't understand this. Saying "this sentence is false" is nonsensical. It's like saying "I will have this sentence for breakfast". A sentence cannot in itself be true or false, and it's not food, so I don't get it.

[@michaelsilveradventure5712]

Strange that there’s no discussion of Goedel’s Incompleteness theory. “For any system to be logically consistent it will have statements which cannot be proven true or false.” It’s not a matter of time or computational power, it’s a matter of “just can’t do it,” and you will never know if that statement is one of the unprovables. It could be true and intuition will say “yeah that makes sense” but you won’t be able to prove it. The liar paradox falls into that category. For those interested KZbin has many good videos on this subject. Keep in mind that popular explanations can’t really give you that “a ha” moment. You need to actually follow the proofs, and that is not easy.

[@hypnaudiostream3574]

The language lies, here, with an incomplete thought masquerading as a paradox. It begs the question with a declaration lacking basis. This sentence is incomplete.

[@morefiction3264]

It's a contradiction, a fallacy.

[@danny_mtnz]

where? it does not contradict itself in its content.

[@morefiction3264]

@@danny_mtnz The statement, "This sentence is false", is a Truth statement i.e. A is True just like, "The sky is blue" is a Truth statement. But, the statement itself says it is false, i.e. A is False. So the statement is saying that A is both True and False at the same time; a violation of the Law of Contradiction.

[@BerishaFatian]

Everything I say is a lie.

[@Mike77328]

This sentence contains no information about anything at all. So it can’t be true or false and there is no paradox here imho. It’s just an amusing sentence, like a word play. Or at best it shows that sentence doesn’t have to have meaning, doesn’t have to be true or false. It can be empty set of words. (haven’t watched the video, it started with equations and imho it makes no sense for the topic)

[@cat_pb]

Am I the only one that things the liars paradox makes complete sense and it's not a contradiction at all? I go about it this way: it's the same thing when you have an event happening and two people will have opposite reactions, feelings, perspectives, etc of what went down. Both of these are true and both of these are false, at the same time. And this is mostly because we are dividing it into 1 or 0. However, if we extend it to other forms of measurements, you will have infinite possibilities and perspectives of people witnessing, or experiencing the same event. The answer is that the sentence is both true and false, and that answer should be acceptable.

[@wesleygordonbrown]

All sentences are false. The word tree is not a tree. This paradox only alludes to the inherent capacity of language to mislead. I’m not anti-language in any sense, but it clearly has its limits/defects.

[@JulianaAndersson]

“There are no true contradictions”… isn’t this a fallacious statement? The no true scotsman fallacy? Does this deepen the liar paradox?

[@geishasha]

This comment has no likes

[@ArgentavisMagnificens]

True so far

[@sayanmondal8698]

you are lying

[@nathanhartwick25]

Hi Jared great stuff quick question ever hear of the company Morefire advertising company

[@jzaneedwards4344]

Genuinely laughed out loud

[@MarcoFlores-um7cj]

Math

[@DMasterChifu]

loved the "delete me" short film.

[@DungNguyen-wj2gz]

All wrong. Where are full stops?

[@Xxrd123]

The advantage of dialetheism is that it allows you the logical system to make sense of reality. (Dialectical materialism aka Marxism) Marxism has the added advantage of not rejecting logic that is based on the law of non-contradiction (formal logic) but incorporates it into dialectical logic as “lower mathematics is related to higher mathematics. For example algebra to something like calculus. For different problems different logical premises are required

[@Pengalen]

Language can produce nonsense. Solved.

[@jeffmagic32]

Pointless

[@brynbstn]

It’s not unsolved. I solved it. Probably others have too. It has to do with grammar, reference, the difference between language and logic. Can you see how it might be solved. It was solved by Bertrand Russell around 1900 in a different but related context

[@raymond_sycamore]

never heard of this, I think you're lying.

[@pamherman6363]

😀😀

[@wanderinggamer5079]

I’m just going to be Alexander the Great and cut this knot. I’m calling it. This is just some jerk trying to think of a way to bully nerds and they massively outdid themselves.

[@GrahamGodden-cf7dn]

What a waste of time and life to focus on a man made sentence, made up of man made language, and mull over it. What do we gain from causing our own problems. This is where philosophy hits a self-indulgent wall and loses its point.