Paradox

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A pair o' ducks

“Procrastination isn’t the problem, it’s the solution. So procrastinate now – don’t put it off.”

~ Ellen DeGeneres

“They contradict!”

~ Captain Obvious on paradoxes

This article is not about a paradox, this is a list of paradoxes!

Infinity paradoxes

• Zeno's Paradox: If you want to win a race, have a head start.
• Channel one paradox: There are no numbers.
• 1=2: There is only one number ... and it isn't Numberwang.
• Toilet Paper Paradox: You will never finish a roll of toilet paper.
• Soda Paradox: If you start to drink, you will never stop.
• Hot Paradox: The hotter someone is, the uglier they are, and vice versa to infinity.
• More Infinite than the other Paradox: If there are infinite numbers and there are also infinite prime numbers how can one be infinite if there are more of one than the other?
• The Aquafresh Paradox: "With Mummy's help, I can brush my teeth all by myself!" also commonly known as the rarely-used statement "I can brush my teeth all by myself with help from a grown up!"
• The Skinny Hippo Paradox: <insert mother joke here>

Artificially re-paradoxificated paradoxification, a.k.a. WTF?

• The following statement is true. The previous statement is false.
• Your mission is to not accept the mission. Do you accept?
• If this isn't true the world will end in five days.
• This sentence is false.
• Everything I say is a lie.
• The sentence below this one is true.
• The sentence above this one is false.
• You sarcastically say, "I was being sarcastic." When the listener responds, "Oh, sorry," then you honestly reply, "I was being sarcastic." They, now excited, ask "Really?"

Don't go back in time and kill yourself, because you would therefore not exist, and therefore you would not exist in order to have killed yourself, therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself, and because you would therefore not exist, you therefore would not exist in order to have killed yourself, so therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself, because you would therefore not exist, and therefore you would not exist in order to have killed yourself, so therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself, and because you would therefore not exist, you therefore you would not exist in order to have killed yourself, and therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself, and then, because you would therefore not exist, you would not exist in order to have killed yourself, therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself, because you would therefore not exist, so therefore you would not exist in order to have killed yourself, and so therefore you would inevitably go back in time and kill yourself. Aight?

"Yeah Dude, I get you. Wait. Who are you?"

I'm you, telling you to not waste your time writing this. Seriously. You ten minutes in the future, to wit me, now has your back. He's totally bored, while you have waaay too much work to do. I guess you might as well not do it, though. Because in ten minutes you'll give up and start writing this.

I still don't get it.

Philosophical paradoxes

• Pointless Paradox paradoxically pointless.
• Russell's paradox: If a barber doesn't cut his own beard, what does he cut?
• Shallowness paradox: if you dump somebody for being shallow, that makes you shallow.
• Toothpaste tube paradox: The more you brush your teeth, the sooner Chairman Mao will die.
• Liar paradox: This sentence is false. Is it true?
• Miss Teen America paradox: Americans are the only people on Earth.
• Omnipotence paradox: Could Allah create a rock so heavy that he himself could not lift it?
• Infinite Wisdom Paradox: A man who has infinite wisdom realises that having infinite wisdom is impossible, how then did he come to this conclusion?
• California paradox: Is it faster to California or by train?
• Hotel California's paradox: If you've checked out, why haven't you still left?
• I'm Feeling Lucky Paradox: "Google 'google'?"
• Unrequited-Gay-Love Paradox: Say a gay guy is in love with a straight guy, and all he wants is a straight answer.
• Grelling-Nelson paradox: A heterosexual who is hetrological wants the homosexual to be like him.
• Work experience paradox: You can't get work without experience, but you can't get experience without work.
• Vietnamese Village paradox: We had to destroy the village in order to save it. See also Iraqi Occupation Paradox.
• Your Favorite Undiscovered Band Paradox: The band is good so people should listen to them. But once people start listening, they'll start to sell out and they won't be worth listening to.
• Rolling Stones Paradox: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.
• spm paradox: you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
• Infernal Hydraulic Engineering Paradox: if you agree to build a dam for the Devil, then dammed if you do, damned if you don't.
• A Most Ingenious Paradox: you are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February; and so, by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover that though you've lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you're only five and a little bit over.
• Brick In Wall Paradox: If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
• The Self-Fulfilling Paradox: This is not a paradox at all, but rather, a linear, straightforward statement.
  • Therein, says Kierkegaard, lay the paradox.
• Illicit Behavior Paradox: How can something so wrong feel so right?
• Leprechaun Paradox: If two leprechauns find each other, which one would get the pot of gold?
• Wrong List Paradox: The following paradox is not a philosophical paradox, and is in the wrong list, but if you put it in the right list it wouldn't be a paradox anymore.
• Right List Paradox: this one is a paradox in itself, as it is in the right list how exactly is it a paradox?
• Raven Paradox: "Green apples are not black" is conclusive proof that ravens are not green.
• Quine's paradox: "yields a falsehood when appended to its own quotation" yields a falsehood when appended to its own quotation.
• A sign reads "no signs, please". The sign next to it says "no 'no signs, please' signs, please". ad infinitum.
• French Paradox: France breaks out into a civil war, both sides surrender.
• Pinocchio Paradox: If Pinocchio said his nose would grow, would it?

Physical paradoxes

• EPR Paradox: Ravioli defies one of the major laws of thermodynamics – that pasta can never be destroyed.
• Time paradox: If you marry your cousin, you and your brother would live in Vermont.
• Ultimate paradox: Complex system of affiliated religious matter.
• Infinite Paradox Theory: If you go back in time, does Mr. T pity you?
• Russian Infinite Paradox Theory: If you pity Mr. T in soviet Russia, time machine go back in you.
• Temporal paradox: If Mr. T goes back in time to stop Mr. T from inventing the time machine, which Mr. T pities the fool who invented the time machine?
• Human Paradox: Mr. C. is an SAE engineer, yet is obsessed with hotel toilets.
• The s k i n paradox: Two streakers, one from Vietnam (uncircumcised), one from the Phillipines (circumcised) – which is showing more skin?
• Paradox of Choice: If I asked you for £1,000,000, would you give me it?
• Dock Paradox: A dock next to another dock.
• Grandfather Paradox: If you go back in time and you are raped by your grandfather, is that a prosecutable offense in the state of Tennessee?
• Predestination Paradox: You go back in time and become your own grandfather and then you rape yourself. Seriously, what the $&*% is wrong with you?
• Paradox Paradox: Can a universe exist without paradoxes?
• Forest Paradox: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around, would the other trees laugh?
• Paradox (Arizona): A place where conspiracy theorists believe there is an alien base, but it doesn't exist. This proves that conspiracy theorists are idiots. Like you. Or me.
• Glasses paradox: You can't find your glasses in the morning, because you need glasses in order to see them.
• Dirty Paradox: You are the victim of food poisoning, and you find yourself in need of a receptacle to shit in at the same time as you need one to vomit in. Thus your "paradox" become dirty, "paradox" meaning "pair of Doc Martens".
• Schrodinger's Cat Paradox: You place a cat in a box with a radioactive substance and a container of poisonous gas. If the radioactive material does not decay, the cat continues to live; if the radioactive material does decay, the poisonous gas is released and the cat is killed. You are an awful, awful person for doing something so cruel to another of nature's creatures. How do you sleep at night? (This of course is justified if you are in fact a professional kitten huffer.)
• Schrodinger's Cat Pairabox: If you place a live cat into two boxes, and one contains a radioactive substance and the other does not, neither box will contain a live cat.
• Wet Shirt Paradox: You cannot dry a wet shirt, as after it is dried it is now a dry shirt not a wet one.
• Friend Paradox: A man kills his best friend. What kind of bastard kills his best friend?
• Recycle Bin Paradox: Where do you put your recycle bin when it is time for it to be recycled?
• Paradox Paradox: A duo of physicians.
• Link Paradox: You can't possibly have too many links on one page. jsao;ifvnjedhnfv;anmckjnadfgrkjnsfgvkjdvgbkandc k.fagfdk.jsgfkzdv.zsfb .szdsglfdkh klxg.hsdg;ldfskjnbljdknb .
• Gossip Paradox: If your talking about someone behind their back, doesn't that mean you're right in front of them?
• Cheap Fantasy Novel Exposition Paradox: Something happened before the dawn of time, but "before" implies a linear time stream, so whatever happened couldn't have happened before linear time started.
• Non-existence Paradox: Good world contributions of Sudan.
• Pair-o-Docs paradox: One hospital can't possibly have two surgeons.
• Cat's Feet Paradox: A cat always lands on its feet, and bread (or toast) that is buttered or jellied always lands on its butter/jelly side. A face-up piece of buttered/jellied bread is superglued (or some how comically adhered otherwise) to the back of said cat, which is then thrown with rules of gravity in effect. Take that, physics!
• The paradox of the pair of ducks: Suppose you have two ducks, each taller than the other.
• The abridged paradox of the pair of ducks: Suppose you have two ducks.
• The paradox of the pair of Doc ducks: Suppose each duck goes to college and obtains a high degree, and that now each duck is smarter than the other.
• The paradox of the pair of Doc duke ducks: Suppose each duck is a member of English royalty, and each is more regal than the other.
• The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses: Suppose each duke duck also acquires a wife, each of which is more beautiful than the other.
• The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake: Suppose this is getting absurd and that you'll have to use your own ingenuity to formulate this situation.
• The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake which is reading the words "The paradox of the pair of duke ducks' dutchesses' mandrake marmalade milkshake whi........................................................

BEEP...PARADOX INFINITE LOOP ERROR...BEEP...BEEP ERRRRRRRRRRRRCHKCHCKHCKHKCCKCKCHCKCHCKCKCKCKCKCKKCKKCKCC...This article asplode.

Nonsense paradoxes

Vandalism of Uncyclopedia. Makes total sense.

If you make a box containing the whole universe, and you destroy it, have you destroyed the whole universe? And if so, then there was no universe to destroy, so therefore the universe must come back, but then you will destroy it, causing an infinite loop and a system error on God's computer, causing Him to blaspheme, thus sending Himself to Hell, which means God is Satan and Satan is God so therefore worshipping God is evil and performing Satanic rites is good, so by being good you go to Hell, and by being bad, you go to Heaven, so therefore you can do whatever the hell you like because Satan (now God) wants you to be bad and God (now Satan) wants you to be evil ... but if Satan = God, God = Satan so therefore this paradox has healed itself and God switched from Norton anti-paradox to something decent, like McAfee Paradox Prevention. So therefore, reading this served no purpose. Much like Project Solomon.

Paradox of conspiracies

Further information: List of the most important conspiranoias#Conspiracy of the conspiranoids

As the bootlickeranoids have well established, there are no conspiracies. But there are conspiranoids who say there are conspiracies and that they get together to spread conspiracy theories.

But then there are at least one or several conspiracies to spread the theory that there are conspiracies. And if there is a conspiracy to fool people into believing that conspiracies exist ... there is at least one conspiracy! And then it would be true that conspiracies exist and ...

The Spice Girls Paradox

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends ... but wouldn't you be their lover then? Assuming that they prescribe to the same rule (a given, considering that the Spice Girls have a hive mind and would all follow this rule). The Spice Girls also have no friends besides each other. This leads to an endless cycle of not-quite-fucking, and you will never, ever get laid. Not that that's a new thing.

The Soda Paradox

Less-commonly known as the "Soda–Time Conflict". This occurs when a drink which contains ice is ordered at a restaurant. The paradox occurs as the diner would like to drink the soda before the ice melts and leaves the drink tasteless. However, when the diner does drink the soda, s/he is brought another drink from the waiter. S/he then must drink this new drink before the ice melts, but as soon as s/he does the waiter brings another drink.

The paradox ends when the diner's bladder asplodes.

While there is proof that this paradox occurs daily, it is yet to be documented how the chain can be broken without bladder asplosion. It is possible that throwing the ice at the waiter would help.

The Paradox of the Gaze Ban

Suppose people are forbidden from staring at other people. Netflix put in the five-second limit, but the paradox arises just as well if another limit is put in place, or even if no limit is specified at all, but left undefined. I personally prefer that no one looks at me even for a tenth of a second, because I am very ugly and I don't want anyone to know it.

How can such a ban be enforced? Because it turns out that in order to know that someone is staring at someone else, one has to stare at him in turn too... and that other stare is supposed to be forbidden too. And so... Monty Python are very glad about the number of sketches they are going to do about this paradox.

Monty Python's Graham Chapman thinking about the number of sketches he is writing about that deal with the paradox of the gaze

Another question is what will happen if a person stares at the same person for many seconds in total, but in many small intervals, less than five seconds, but added together to a large number. Will a "staring session" lasting several seconds be treated differently if it is done all at once or if it is done discontinuously?

As for the things I write on Uncyclopedia, I set the following rules: 1. It is allowed to stare at an article I have edited on Uncyclopedia for 86,000 seconds if it is to realize that my contributions are great and to praise them. 2. It is allowed to stare at the article for only one second if it is to realize that it is worthless. 3. It is allowed to stare at the article for only one thousandth of a second if you are an administrator of Uncyclopedia and you decide to delete or revert it.

Paradox of the really-oh-so-good governments

The governments are all very-good-oh-so-good and they never conspire or lie nor make a mistake. This is something evident to any person in their right mind. Distrust of a government is a mental illness called "conspiranoia".

So what happens if a government of one country distrusts the government of another country? If it turns out that a government, which is very good, says that another government, which is also very good, is very bad, what happens? Will it be something like "Schrödinger's Government"? A government that is both good and bad?

The same paradox occurs if a government distrusts a previous government, of another political party, in the same country.

The Barney Paradox

Barney the dinosaur has knowingly tampered with time and space. He has been known to edit wikipedia articles just for the fun of it. He has also put Playboy magazines in Pandora's Box. If Barney succeeds, all people shall turn into gaylord dinosaurs just like Barney. Srsly! His brother is also affiliated in this ghastly affair. Note:this link leads to nothing inapropiate in any way. Srsly!

Admin paradoxical paradoximia

If an Admin were to huff this sentence would the sentence have been knowingly huffed without the consent of the writer, or was it willingly removed through the writer's consent?

SNAKE! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!

The future will be changed! You'll create a time paradox!

Everything is a paradox

Take the following theory: "There is a time and a place for everything." That is, there is at least one case in which any given fact is true.

Since this is a theory, it constitutes a fact in Kansas.

Therefore, by being true in at least one case, the statement has proven itself, and can be considered fact. Now, consider the following unrelated postulates:

• Liberalism asserts that everything is always right.
• Positivism asserts that the world as we perceive it is true.
• Shroomerism asserts that the world as we perceive it is false.

According to the above theory/fact ("there is a time and a place for everything") each one of these statements is true in at least one case. If we apply this to the first statement, we find that, in at least one case, everything is always right; that is, everything is right at the same time.

Now, we apply this to the next two statements, "the world as we perceive it is true", and "the world as we perceive it is false". In at least one case, both of these statements are true, such that the world as we perceive it is at once both true and false. Therefore, everything about the world (and, by extension, the universe) is inherently contradictory. All of reality is a paradox.

The Customer Paradox

The customer is always right. So if each of a pair of customers say the other is wrong, both are right and therefore both are wrong that they are both right that they are both wrong that they are both right that they are both wrong. Right.

The Chuck Norris Parodox

(One testicle is always higher or lower or larger then the other.) Each of Chuck Norris's testicles is bigger then the one that precedes it.

The Solid Snake Parodox

Snake!? SNAKE! SNNNNNNAAAAAAAKKKKKE!

See also

• HowTo:Create a paradox that will probably end the universe as we know it
• Two people, each more famous than the other
• Paradox Interactive
• Ethics
• Optical illusion
• Fallacy
• Jigsaw puzzle
• Pointless Paradox
• Quantum Paradox
• Shit A Shitter Paradox
• Solid Snake