Top 10 Completely Mind-Bending Paradoxes — TopTenzNet

Top 10 Completely Mind-Bending Paradoxes

Paradoxes are a fascinating part of reality and there are paradoxes in many different fields like math, physics, logic, psychology, and language. When it comes to trying to understand them, paradoxes can make the brain feel like it’s doing somersaults, but they can also expand your mind and make you look at the world in a whole new way.

10. Hilbert’s Paradox of the Grand Hotel
Imagine if you will, there is a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and each room is booked with an infinite number of guests. If that were the case, then every single room would be booked, right? Because an infinite amount of guests would fill an infinite amount of rooms. But the hotel has a weird paradox where there are always vacancies and they are always booked. This can be seen when a new guest shows up. To find him a room, David Hilbert, who thought of the paradox, suggested that everyone move to the next room. For example, one moves into two, two moves into three and so on.

But what happens if more than one person shows up, say another infinite amount of people? Hilbert says that the people in the rooms could just go to the room number that is double their current number and then there will be room for everyone.

This paradox speaks to the nature of infinity and has fascinated mathematicians for decades. It also probably has given more than a few hotel employees terrible nightmares.

9. The Raven’s Paradox
Logician Carl Gustav Hempel first proposed his “raven paradox” in the 1940s and it questions our belief in confirmation. We make confirmations in both science and everyday life based on observations. For example, let’s say a detective was trying to solve a crime. He would find evidence and the evidence would back up his theory, disprove his theory, or the evidence could be neutral. The evidence could also be strong or weak. What Hempel asks is what does it take for a piece of evidence to confirm the hypothesis, rather than disprove it or be neutral about it?

To demonstrate the paradox, Hempel talked about ravens. He said that after observing a few ravens and noticing they were all black, someone may infer that all ravens everywhere are black. But that is impossible to check, because there have been so many ravens throughout history and there will be more in the future and just one non-black raven would disprove the theory that all ravens are black.

Also, there is the contrapositive, which is another theory that is the opposite of the hypothesis but it is still true. For example, the contrapositive for “all ravens are black” is that “all non-black things are non-ravens.” That means that every single thing that is non-black and non-raven, like a blue shirt or a yellow tennis ball, proves that ravens are black. Of course, there are way too many non-black non-raven things in the universe and so that type of information really does not contribute to the hypothesis that all ravens are black.

The raven paradox is meant to be a warning against generalization and that there needs to be a limited scope if a scientist wants to prove something beyond a doubt.

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Top 10 Mind Bending Theories About the Universe

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Coming up:

10. Hilbert’s Paradox of the Grand Hotel
9. The Raven’s Paradox
8. The Friendship Paradox
7. The Barber Paradox
6. Buridan’s Bridge
5. The Liar’s Paradox
4. The Sorites Paradox and The Ship of Theseus
3. The Birthday Paradox
2. The Bootstrap Paradox
1. Specious Present

[plaguedoctr]

You meet two men at a fork in the road, and they both say "One of us always lies and the other always tells the truth. You must pass our riddle to find the correct way to go."
You ignore them both, because pure logic/reason dictates they're both lying.

[RahmpageChicken]

jokes on you, paradox #7. I have no friends.

[aitchpea]

You missed the most important part of the barber paradox: The statement that "The barber shaves every man who does not shave himself" is what makes it a paradox.
The one about the heap of sand isn't really a paradox, it's just missing a minimum definition for "heap"

[ElZamo]

There is a Bootstrap Paradox in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. When you become an adult, a guy in the village's windmill teaches you the Song of Storms. Then, you travel back in time and teach the Song of Storms to the same guy who taught it to you, thus creating a paradox.

[CaTastrophy]

10: Not a Paradox, just a quirk of Infinity
9: It's just counter-intuitive, not a paradox
8: It's just an example of a semi-common mistake in surveys and such
7: A paradox, yes, but it's just a problem with absolute statements
6: It can be resolved by having a bucket of water and throwing him into it, but not over the bridge, as the statements were, and I quote: "...if he were to lie, plato would throw him over the bridge..." and "you will throw me in the water" which means if he were to be thrown into some water ON the bridge, he would be telling the truth, and would not be thrown over the bridge
5: Misstated it, leaving room for a different statement to be true, thus making that one false. The real one is like number 7.
4: Quirk of vague definitions in english, and one that is not present in some other languages.
3: Statistics, not a paradox, nor even unusual.
2: it is more of a problem with time travel, as is the grandfather paradox, both of which are only problems in some theories of the way time works
1: Planck Time! Also, In some theories, this is irrelevant, as time is just the way we "see" the fourth dimension, so what you are saying is that everything is only 3D, or that we can only see 3 dimensions. (also, time is relative, so... it's different for everyone)

[davidbickham]

It’s a bit of a stretch to call the ship of Theseus thought experiment a paradox in my mind. He thought experiment is basically an example of the question “does and object survive gradual change” and is a very answerable question depending on what you consider is the base of identity. The point of this thought expirament is to make you question your preconceived notions of what defines identity, which is why it’s called a thought experiment more than a paradox. I think the main reason why so many people get confused on what a paradox is is because of its difficulty of truly defining well

[itsmark]

Washington's axe paradox is known as the "trigger's broom paradox" in England.

[qglbjxb]

the paradox of the heap is honestly just a matter of definition and perception. I've written a 15 page essay on this one it's good

[CorkySchillinger]

Just a couple of notes -- The Liar's Paradox was used by Spock to defeat an android in the Original Series episode "I, Mudd", and The Bootstrap Paradox was used in a recent episode of Dr. Who. It could also be suggested that John Lennon used a form of the Bootstrap Paradox in creating "I Am The Walrus", i.e. "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together". I have way too much time on my hands....:) Great video!

[lizc]

Simon went from a 4 to a solid 9 in three years. Legend.

[BrianH]

Wow, I actually had to study many of these Paradoxes in school.  Thanks for reminding me about Simon.

[mikahjohn]

"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present." -Hobbes

[Cloud-wjjb]

People seem to not understand what a 'Paradox' is.

A Paradox is 'a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.'

So yes, these are all paradoxes.

[Rezkeshdadesh]

The birthday paradox doesn't really seem like a paradox, just the way statistics works. The rest seem to fit the idea of paradox better, whereas this one is just let's you know the chance of people sharing a birthday is higher than you might think.

[chrishowes]

The Pinocchio question is not a paradox at all. He said my nose will grow now. In that instantaneous moment, it doesnt grow. Therefore, after that moment, his nose will grow because he lied.

[dylanbrusstar]

You're right! I Love your videos, I watched to the end, lol.
Pls add Zeno's Paradox, to a future video. I think people will get a kick out of it. Thank you.

[tyeboyce]

Best video on YouTube currently and like the majority of your material it is unique! Haha I love delirium and this invoked that.

[atumote]

Hey. I enjoyed the video. Heres an additional mindblow for no.1:
Is there no present...or is there ONLY the present. Time is the illusion.
Time can constantly be broken down, but there will always be a seperation between two "forms of time" (eg.between splitseconds / seconds / minutes).
Therefore the "present" (which cannot be described in words - this is the paradox as talking about the present immediately removes you from it) has never NOT existed. There has only been present. Even if we look back at the past, it is simply "previous presents".
Time has us caught up in this idea that we are living 7 days a week, 365 days a year, etc. etc. but in reality we are just living. Sometimes you go to sleep, you wake up, you go to your job, but you are just living one moment - the present.

[zipkelvin]

My mind was blown most by the fact that Monty Python parodied the bridge paradox in the Holy Grail movie.

[First._.Last.]

You have an impressive dexterity in the realm of digesting and dispensing information. There may be people who think you're a clever didact.... Whatever the case, I appreciate your skill and dedication to share truly interesting things.