Re: The fallacy of strengthened liar's paradox.

Newberry says...

There are plenty of examples in English where a grammatically correct
sequence has more than one possible interpretation. The ambiguity is
usually resolved by context. Are you saying that

This sentence is not true. (1)

and

"This sentence is not true" is not true. (2)

are saying the same thing because they both refer to

"This sentence is not true"?

Yes, that's the essence of the liar paradox, that
a sentence and its negation seem to be paraphrases
of each other.

Look, the ambiguity of reference is *not* the
issue here. Once again, let's try this exercise:
Define a string of symbols to be "truish" if it
is the same string of symbols as some true sentence.

Now, let sentence number 42 be the sentence:

42. Sentence number 42 is not truish.

Is sentence number 42 truish? If the answer is "yes",
that leads to a contradiction. If the answer is "no",
that also leads to a contradiction.

It's the same contradiction as the Liar paradox, except
instead of asking whether the liar sentence is true, we
instead ask whether sentence 42 is truish. So "tokenism"
doesn't save you from the paradox.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The fallacy of strengthened liars paradox.
    ... Sentence number 42 is not truish. ... that also leads to a contradiction. ... help to resolve the liar paradox. ... It proves that your resolution to the liar paradox is not a resolution! ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: The fallacy of strengthened liars paradox.
    ... Yes, that's the essence of the liar paradox, that ... the ambiguity of reference is *not* the ... Sentence number 42 is not truish. ... greelish if it is true and not greelish if it is not false. ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: The fallacy of strengthened liars paradox.
    ... Define a string of symbols to be "truish" if it ... that also leads to a contradiction. ... help to resolve the liar paradox. ... It proves that your resolution to the liar paradox is not a resolution! ...
    (sci.logic)
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