Author Topic: Interesting Paradox  (Read 3489 times)

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Offline Sidoh

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Interesting Paradox
« on: April 13, 2007, 01:45:38 pm »
Gottlob Frege said (in essence) that any set either:
  a) Contains itself
  b) Doesn't contain itself

Makes sense, right?

Later on, Bertrand Russell pointed out this interesting paradox:

Let A be a set containing all sets that don't contain themself.  Now, as yourself, should A be a member of itself?  It doesn't contain itself, so it should, right?  Now, it does contain itself, so it can't be in there.  That's the paradox!

Incidentally, I guess after Russell pointed this out to Frege, he came close to committing suicide.  It goes to show: inventing axioms is serious business. :|

Offline iago

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Re: Interesting Paradox
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2007, 07:53:51 pm »
Heh, I remember learning about an internal contradiction in set theory one time. That may have been it :)

Offline Joe

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Re: Interesting Paradox
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2007, 02:07:33 am »
Cool.. :)
I'd personally do as Joe suggests

You might be right about that, Joe.


Offline Ender

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Re: Interesting Paradox
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2007, 05:01:29 pm »
Haha, that's so awesome.