Paradoxes That No One Can Solve

In this video, we look at the three different categories of paradoxes defined by philosopher W.V. Quine and explore what they reveal about the nature of the human understanding and its limitations.

Pursuit of Wonder books available here:

If you are interested in further supporting the channel,

Special thank you to our very generous Patreon supporters:
Alan Stein
Zinzan
Heather Liu
Siddharth Kothari
Stanley Chan
Dave Portnoy
Jaad Van der Wee
Justin Redenbaugh
Fathy Abdalla
Christian Villanueva
George Leontowicz
Kelly J. Rose
Asael Ramirez
Terry Gilmour

Follow Pursuit of Wonder on:

[trayfr]

if Rick Astley wanted to give you a copy of the movie "Up" if you asked him, he wouldn't be able to because he said he's never gonna give you up. but by doing that, he also lets you down, while he promised not to. this is known as the "Astley Paradox"

[AUKronos]

Watching this at 3am

Real existential hours

[FutureMindset]

Thinking about paradoxes is fun. But what I've noticed is that in a weird way, they're humbling. They reveal the limits of the human brain...

[jackdaniel]

I find comfort in paradoxes, in a way. Our limits of understanding, and our attempts to push those limits, give humans such a massive drive to find out more.

[baselghadban]

"The 'paradox' is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be."
- Richard Feynman

[Naomi_Boyd]

The great thing about paradoxes is that you don't have to solve them. They work themselves out and so don't actually exist. That may be the greatest paradox of all.

[Phorsa]

My favorite paradox is the “fail” paradox. I learned it from a Garfield comic, by Jim Davis. In it Jon says: “ what if I tried to be a failure…. And failed?”. If he failed to be a failure he would be successful, but a failure to be a failure. So he’s not a failure. But he is since he fails to be a failure.

Garfield responded with “we’d be rich!”

[Rage-_-Quit]

As a programmer I often run into customer requirements similar to the Barber Paradox. Glancing over it at first sounds completely logical, but once you break it down into single conditions based on each other you quickly realize there is either important information missing or they didn't really think it through themselves before requesting it.

[micah]

This reminds me of being a kid and thinking “How could space be infinite? But how could it end?” Until my brain software crashed.

[DaveMorris]

I'm probably not the only person to ever notice this but I love putting the brakes on my kids' fun by reminding them that "opposite day" is an antinomy paradox. If it's opposite day, it's clearly the opposite of opposite day.

[sleeplesshollow]

PoW, the Buddhists believe in Four Corners of Truth rather than binary True/False for this reason. Things can be true, both true and false, false, and neither true nor false. All paradoxes do fit within these four corners, and its why I think the universe works this way instead of how we perceive it

[WoeReeVade]

The Barber Paradox also starts with a false premise. In Russell's version, it is implied that if the barber chooses not to shave, then he must shave himself, because he only shaves men that don't shave themselves. But he does not have to shave himself. He can choose to not shave, and also to not shave himself, which would allow him to exist, shaving the rest of the men that choose not to shave themselves.

[abdirizackahmed]

"A barber who shaved all and only men who don't shave themselves." The barber can just be a woman and it would make complete sense, it never says a male barber.

[CLaw-tbgg]

The thing is with paradoxes, they don’t really represent any phenomenon of physical reality.. they’re just psychological chewing gum we create for ourselves. Fun, but frankly it feels like we make them into something more profound than they actually are.

[robinlongstrid]

Barber's paradox is not inescapable.
Get a barber who has alopecia totalis. He will have no hair so no shaving for himself.

[EndlessAmount]

Love the editing style on this video, your channel deserves more recognition still, although this is an old video, your recent videos are just like this if not better please never stop educating and narrating

[nottryingtofitin]

If you were able to solve a paradox, it literally wouldn't be a paradox anymore. Now that's a paradox.

[enchantedplayer]

Honestly, I love paradoxes because they can prove that we will never know everything. Usually, this fact gives people dread, but it's calming to me. If I can never know everything, then I can always learn, and learning is living to me. If we knew everything, then nothing would provide a challenge and we would get bored of life.

[thekillerkreeper]

A paradox I thought of once when I was younger, was the Opposite day paradox as I call it. If someone tells you "Today is opposite day", is it really opposite day? If it is opposite day, then the statement should be reversed saying that it is not opposite day. If it is not opposite day, then the statement says it is. However, if you were to say it is opposite day, oppositely to avoid the paradox, you would instead be saying "Today is not opposite day". If Today is not opposite day, then your statement remains the same. There isn't a non paradoxical way to tell someone if it is opposite day

[Ultimate_Power_]

These are cool and all but the real question is… if women are always right, then if two women are arguing, who’s right and who’s wrong? 🤔