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Interesting Paradox

Started by Sidoh, April 13, 2007, 01:45:38 PM

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Sidoh

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. :|

iago

Heh, I remember learning about an internal contradiction in set theory one time. That may have been it :)

Joe

Quote from: Camel on June 09, 2009, 04:12:23 PMI'd personally do as Joe suggests

Quote from: AntiVirus on October 19, 2010, 02:36:52 PM
You might be right about that, Joe.


Ender