Sunday, October 2, 2011

Does this mean we don't need to go to class anymore?

Over the Summer, I finally got to read a book that has long been on my reading list: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. It was a delightful read and the nonsensicalness of it I truly enjoyed. However, at the end of that story was another little story called What the Tortoise Said to Achilles (You can find the story here.). Lewis Carrol was not only an author, but a mathematician and a logician. This story was about a dialogue between the great hero Achilles and a tortoise who were in a race (This is a reference to Zeno's Paradox, found here if interested.). After Achilles won that race, The tortoise then proved to Achilles that the process of using logic actually involved an infinite number of assumptions that would make logic absolutely impossible. It gave me quite a headache when I read it. According to the internet, it also confounded many other philosophers as well. Throughout this logic course, I have often thought back to this story. What do my classmates make of it?

1 comment:

  1. Read the story. I thought it was cute with all the logic terms and futuristic comments (like high school and such).
    But back to your point. It IS a headache and a half! Took me a couple times to read it to figure out why they kept on adding premises, and it's still very fuzzy to me.
    In conclusion, I liked the story, but it gave me a headache too.

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