Exploring Paradox

Learning about paradox can be confusing and complicated but also very fascinating once you have a good grasp on how it works. My favorite example when explaining a paradox goes like this, you have a keyboard that won’t connect to your computer and the computer tells you that to reconnect your keyboard to press F1. A key that is on the keyboard that is supposedly disconnected… let that sink in for a moment. It’s a paradox! Even though it could be contradictory it could still potentially be correct or work still.

A paradox by definition from the Oxford dictionary is as follows: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

Common examples of paradox:

Logical and Philosophical:

Zeno’s Paradoxes:
(e.g., Achilles and the Tortoise, Dichotomy): These paradoxes challenge the idea of motion and whether an object can ever reach a destination due to the infinite nature of division.

The Liar Paradox:
“This statement is false.” If it’s true, then it’s false, and if it’s false, then it’s true.

Russell’s Paradox:
A set containing all sets that do not contain themselves. Does this set contain itself?If it does, then it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, then it does.

The Barber Paradox:
A barber in a town shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?

The Sorites Paradox:
(also known as the “Paradox of the Heap”): If you keep removing grains of sand from a pile, at what point does it stop being a pile?

The Fermi Paradox:
Given the vast size of the universe and the high probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere, why haven’t we detected it?

The Grandfather Paradox:
If you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, would you then exist?

The Ship of Theseus:
If all the planks of a ship are replaced over time, is it still the same ship?

Literary and Rhetorical:

“War is Peace”:
A quote from Orwell’s 1984, suggesting that a concept of “war” can also be interpreted as “peace,” which is a paradox.
“Less is more”:
A well-known design principle and idiom that contradicts the common belief that more is always better.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same”:
This aphorism highlights a paradoxical truth about cyclical patterns and the nature of change.
“You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”:
This idiom illustrates a situation where any choice will lead to negative consequences.
“The beginning of the end”:
This phrase suggests a starting point that also marks the conclusion, a paradoxical idea.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”:
This proverb highlights the paradoxical nature of alliances and enemies, where an enemy’s enemy can unexpectedly become a friend.