3Logical Paradoxes!

Crocodile Paradox
Moore's Paradox
Ship of Theseus

The crocodile paradox, also known as crocodile sophism, is a paradox in logic. It is stated as, a crocodile that has stolen a child, promises his parents that their child will be returned if and only if, they correctly predict what the crocodile will do next.

The statement and the course of action is logically smooth and simple if the parents guess that the child will be returned, but a dilemma arises for the crocodile if the parents guess that the child will not be returned.

Let’s try to understand this by the following two cases:

Suppose that the parents guess that their child will not be returned.

Case1: Now, if the crocodile decides not to return the child and keep him with it then, he violates his terms: the parent's prediction has been validated, and the child should be returned.

Case 2:  But, in the case that the crocodile decides to give back the child, he still violates his terms, even if this decision is based on the previous result: the parent's prediction has been falsified. So, as the parents have guessed wrong, the crocodile should not return the child.

Therefore, the question of what the crocodile should do is paradoxical, and there is no proper justifiable solution.

Moore’s Paradox

Another such paradox is the Moore’s paradox which questions about how the situation or acceptance of statements changes as we hear the listen the same topic from other person’s point of view. It is stated as,

Suppose you are sitting in a windowless room. It begins to rain outside. You have not heard a weather report, so you don’t know that it’s raining. So you don’t believe that it’s raining. Thus your friend McGillicuddy, who knows your situation, can say truly of you, “It’s raining, but MacIntosh doesn’t believe it is.” But if you, MacIntosh, were to say exactly the same thing to McGillicuddy—“It’s raining, but I don’t believe it is”—your friend would rightly think you’d lost your mind. Why, then, is the second sentence absurd? As G.E. Moore put it, “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?”

This problem helped to stimulate a new branch of philosophy called as pragmatics.

Ship of Theseus

Ship of Theseus or the “Theseus paradox” is a thought experiment which raises a question that, whether a ship or any standing object remains the same object with all of its parts replaced eventually in the course of time.

 First, suppose that the famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus in a great battle has been kept in a harbour as a museum piece. As the years go by some of the wooden parts begin to rot and are replaced by new ones. After a century or so, all of the parts have been replaced. Is the "restored" ship still the same object as the original?

Second, suppose that each of the removed pieces were stored in a warehouse, and after the century, technology develops to cure their rotting and enable them to be put back together to make a ship. Is this "reconstructed" ship the original ship? And if so, is the restored ship in the harbour still the original ship too?

It is an interesting paradox which gave rise to other similar paradoxes. One of which is the grandfather’s axe. It is stated as; a grandfather gives his grandson an axe to cut wood as a gift. After some years, the wooden handle gets damaged and is replaced by a new one. Again, after some time, the iron of axe gets corroded and the grandson replaces it with a new one. So, the question arises, is the current axe is still his grandfather’s axe? 



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