Talk:Pinocchio paradox/Archive 1

Archive 1

Logic behind Pinocchio's sentence

I fixed the logic in two ways. I formatted it the way to make it easier to read and maybe :-) to understand, and I used present tense everywhere because I believe it should be in a present tense. The sentences: "Assume it is false" and "Assume it is true" are normally used by the logicians in such situations.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

How about the section "The Legend"? The title bugs me (it is a novel, not a legend per se, but I can't think of a better one. 118.96.157.247 (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe: the Man, the Myth, the Legend? Qrsdogg (talk) 02:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe "The story behind the paradox" ?--Mbz1 (talk) 02:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have changed it to "The Adventures of Pinocchio - the story behind the paradox". I am very much open for the other suggestions.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I just cut about half of the title out for brevity's sake. Qrsdogg (talk) 02:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see why stronger versions of this paradox haven't been mentioned. The article states that there is a problem with time. For example, it could be that Pinocchio's nose take some time to grow, that is, it doesn't grow instantaneously (let's say it takes 1 second from the puppet saying a lie until it grows). Under this assumption, when Pinocchio says "My nose grows now", his nose will grow, because it is not growing right now. This is mentioned en passant in the article, by stating that even the author is conscious of this temporal weakness associated to anything you say about your intentions or your guesses of your future behavior. Take for example the phrase "I'm lying now" or "I will lie" and you'll see that there are a hundred possibilities for making it true. Epimenides the Cretan version is stronger (Epimenides says all the people from Crete are liers, but he is a Cretan), as well as the version by Russell of the barber that shaves all people in town that don't shave themselves. Compare them to "This phrase is a lie", clearer as an example of Russell's fallacy than "I will lie". This whole article seems a cheap way for an obscure logic professor to become a "celebrity" (with an example full of holes not present in the already known, classic versions). It's embarrassing for Wikipedia to hear in the article that this has become known through the Internet but not mentioning the other, much better known versions. I guess nobody reads logic books these days. The fact that this article made it to the first page without any corrections of this type, shows that there is, somewhere, a Wikipedia editor (or moderator or whatever the name is for the exalted guys that select front page articles) or a group of editors that also don't read logic. The weakness of the article is patent in the LACK OF REFERENCES, which apparently, according to those very same editors, is the capital sin of half the articles in Wikipedia (an encyclopedia profusely adorned with little notes complaining about lack of the very same references that shine in this article because of their absence). The ones given (four) include two chapters of Pinocchio totally unrelated with logic and two written by the "famous" author of the phrase or her father!. Where are we headed with this kind of editors, I don't know. --Ciroa (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The article was built up on the available sources and not on original research. The section "criticism" explains why there's no paradox, if a sentence is stated in a feature tense. As I've already said below I believe this article could be used to teach children the beginning of paradoxes, it was not written to compare it to much more serious Liar paradox. Of course, if you have something else to add to the article please do, but we have to remember everything should be sourced. --Mbz1 (talk) 05:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, puhleeze, I said that before you did! Everything must be sourced. Where are the sources of this article? The only I see is by the father of the author. I wouldn't dream of adding something to this article, I thought that was clear. I'm used to "un-fixable" articles, articles that should be written from zero to improve them, but this is the first time I find an article that should be eliminated (or, as somebody else already suggested, included as a footnote in the TRUE source of the paradox) posted on front page. No more comments from me (nor additions, of course), don't worry: credibility of criticism will come if more people criticize it. I can wait for them, don't worry (or I'll be surprised if they don't appear). Your comments about how the paradox could be 'solved' show to me that you do not understand it, nor its role in modern logic. Gödel or Tarski anyone? ;) --Ciroa (talk) 05:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

From the section above: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Pinocchio paradox article". If the only improvement that you see is deletion, than please bring this to AFD instead of belaboring the point here. Qrsdogg (talk) 05:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not. I have written a dozen things about how the article could be improved for the first time in my life. Usually I don't get involved in talk pages. I simply improve what I can. In this case, I have declared myself uncapable of doing that. Good luck in that endeavor to all contributors. Besides, enough is enough, I'm not using discussion pages to chat with users. Mbz1 and yourself have been giving instant responses to what I wrote, this is also new for me. Suit yourselves, there are many articles where I think I can contribute more. --Ciroa (talk) 06:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Solution

Pinocchio's claim just should be verified by external observer to determine whether it's true or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.76.224.253 (talk) 01:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Now, this is a great solution :-) I was about to add your suggestion to the article, but in the last moment I realized this addition will violate WP:NOR policy :-) --Mbz1 (talk) 02:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This whole article violates this policy, except that it was not written by the author of this paradox (hopefully!) or one of his friends. How hard is to read about the origin of this paradox? It's in Principia Mathematica, btw. I, as I said before, find this article offensive to my taste. It's like a physics professor claiming he invented an example about how gravitation works, called The Orange and The Moon and forgetting somehow to mention Newton and his apple. Pinocchio a legend? For the love of Pete, Mbz1! Now, if an external observer were a solution for the paradox, then Russell paradox wouldn't exist! Epimenides the Cretan, the example I gave in the previous comment I made, could be qualified by an external observer ("That Epimenides! He's such a liar!") and then Russell's problem would be solved! Get this: this is an UNAVOIDABLE fallacy in logic. It forces you to change classic logic! It forces you to redefine what a group is. There is no way to solve it unless you change logic. That's the whole point of the paradox. Man... I do not what else to say, except to make a note to myself to contribute only in fields I have studied or researched thoroughly. I don't want to make the same mistake I see some people doing here (including the professor whose intelligent kids created this sorry example, full of logic holes as I explained before).--Ciroa (talk) 05:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The NOR policy states that material must be "already published by reliable sources". This example has had multiple articles published on it, so I'm fairly confident that it does not violate the no original research policy. It sounds to me as if you're your problem is with the editorial board of the journal that published these articles. Qrsdogg (talk) 05:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That is a bit low, Qrsdogg, or so I think. I do not have problems with anyone, much less with Wikipedia. I fail to comprehend how the editorial board makes this article to appear in the front page, given the lack of quality and research it perspires. There are a hundred articles on logic that deserve to be published. This one, IMHO, not. Besides, arguments ad hominem to me? Man, this is a kind of fight I've never have, nor in Wikipedia nor in the forums where I am a mod. I'm too old to become involved in that. Keep guessing what my intentions are, instead of making a decision about the article or (god forbids) making it better. That's not how I work here, I won't say a word about you, but about the article. What I can tell you is this: attack the post, not the poster and we all will be happier. I can take all the criticisms you wish about what I write in Wikipedia, but not about what I intend to do. I just did the same with the article, not with the editorial board, which has my admiration and respect (and right now, it has intentions I do not comprehend nor qualify, while illustrating such an important point in modern logic). As I said to Mbz1, a mention to Gödel or Tarskin is much more relevant for the illustration of this "paradox". I don't see how a professor of logic can give this example. Notice that half the article is devoted to claim it IS a weak example. The way to quality, btw, is hearing what people writes about what one writes, not to reject them by claiming what these persons are, nor what they pretend. I pretend nothing but to contribute to this site. --Ciroa (talk) 06:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

@Ciroa, you seem to know the subject well, yet this statement of yours "Take for example the phrase "I'm lying now" or "I will lie" and you'll see that there are a hundred possibilities for making it true." makes me wonder, if you really do. Of course there there are a hundred possibilities for making it true the sentence "I will lie", for example I could say: "I will lie. I am 5 years old" So my first sentence is true because my second sentence is false. So what? There's no paradox there. I am sorry the article is "offensive to your taste.", but not surprised the way you comment demonstrate why this article could be offensive to your taste.--Mbz1 (talk) 05:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, Mbz1, I apologize if I translated in my head a phrase from spanish (my native tongue), that now, when I see it, written in English by you, seems rather hard. Sorry, offensive is not the right word. I would prefer something with more substance, that's all. Mate, just improve the thing, will you? Thanks for teaching me that this old paradox has been rewritten by somebody, btw. Will you add something about its history? Frankly, I think that adding something about Tarski and Gödel, or even a good reference to Rusell's work that shows how old it is would improve it a lot. That's all I have to say, it's ridiculous the amount of things I've written about the article, I don't want anybody to feel bad, much less contributors to Wikipedia. About the "I will lie" example I gave, it seemed clear to me that ANY lie I say from now on will make that phrase true, if that's enough explanation for you. That is why this phrase about Pinocchio seems to me a weak example of the paradox, something that doesn't happen with "This phrase is a lie". The work of Gödel is related to SELF REFERENCE, that's the reason why the "good examples" of this paradox are themselves self-referential. Read about that in the article on Tarski's undefinability theorem or Gödel incompleteness theorem and you will understand the concept rather quickly. That's why Rusell had to redefine group theory (Russell's work was the first attempt made not to solve the paradox, but to "enhance" classic logic to "dissolve" it, if I am allowed to express it in this way). There was a very beautiful article by Martin Gardner in SciAm about this subject, I remember well the phrase by Gardner that went like this: Errata of this article: where it says "it should say", it should say "where it says"... That's what I call a beautiful example of self reference. Perhaps that's why my taste was... well, twisted somehow. The depth to this article is not in accordance with the consequences the paradox has about human thinking and semantics (the limits implicit in how we talk) and the limits of what can be really proven in mathematics. Now, I'm going to bed, best of luck to you and Qrsdogg. --Ciroa (talk) 06:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Image

It adds nothing to the article, and looks rather like an image macro someone slapped together in about a minute. They didn't even bother to center the text in the speech balloon. It would improve the article greatly were it removed. 192.31.106.35 (talk) 05:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Man, you take the words out of my mouth, I was going to write the same thing. As I said, it seems made by a kid.--Ciroa (talk) 05:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Liar paradox, rephrased

This should be included with the liar paradox, since it is an exact paraphrase. Only the history, legend, and picture are unique, for a total of two short paragraphs. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.84 (talk) 02:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

You'd be laughing, but during DYK nomination of the article a user claimed it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Liar paradox :-) But I am very much against combining two articles because Pinocchio paradox is a good article to teach logic to the kids, while Liar paradox could be boring and too complex for them.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The thing is, this formulation of the Liar Paradox has received specific attention in academic journals—which basically does make the article unique. Qrsdogg (talk) 02:53, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Care to include them, academic journals, in the references which "basically" make this article unique? Unique it is, but not by its quality. The Liar Paradox have been mentioned in academic journals for the last 80 years... As I said before, I'm not laughing, Mbz1, and I'm embarrassed by this thing making nomination, imagine how hard is for me to comprehend how it reached first page. It sounds like an anecdote of a proud father. I have thousands of anecdotes about my kids, and I've included some of them in articles I've written in academic journals, but I would never publish them in Wikipedia (at least not until I get Alzheimer). I started to laugh about this whole issue, then I read your comments on this discussion page and I felt forced to respond to them. Thanks heaven you haven't written more justifications, because is the third paragraph I write in a discussion page, something that I have NEVER done before, but I'm sure I will not be the only one complaining about this "thing" disguised as an article on logic. It seems written by an 11 years old kid (oh, wait. It was written by an 11 year old kid!). --Ciroa (talk) 05:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Often the nature of Wikipedia is that more recent topics get far more coverage than older, more established topics. That's always been a systemic bias across the project.

It looks like two articles on this specific paradox have been published in Analysis. If you don't think Analysis should have published them then I guess I respect your opinion if you're an expert in the field—but since multiple articles on it have been published in a major journal I think that its notability has been established per Wikipedia standards (WP:GNG). If you disagree then feel free to open a deletion debate at WP:AFD. If you see specific errors in this article, please be bold and help fix them. Qrsdogg (talk) 05:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I see your point, Mbz1 (child oriented vs adult oriented), although I don't see why the original liar paradox is not equally child oriented. (At least it was in my case when I first learned it; and also in my experience, most other children loved learning paradoxes about lying.<g>) As to the argument that this should get an independent article because it had an independent journal article -- is not the nature of academic research that multiple articles can be written on different facets of essentially the same topic? Thousands of academic articles are written on many topics that can be summarised in one or two Wikipedia articles, and in only a couple of pages or even parts of paragraphs in the average overview textbook on the subject. Finally, this paradox is not fully self-contained but carries within it a piece of external assumed information -- that Pinocchio's nose grows (now) only when he lies (now). This was partly touched on by the earlier comment about an external observer. (Come to think of it, the novel itself does not negate the possibility of nose-growing under other circumstances.) I don't know if that was addressed in the original academic article. - Tenebris

It may be that there are articles on "different facets of essentially the same topic" here. In terms of what works best on Wikipedia it is frequently the better to split these facets into stand-alone articles due to readability and length concerns. Wikipedia is not paper (WP:NOTPAPER) and there is no need to spend the same amount of space a given topic as your average college textbook does. Qrsdogg (talk) 14:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but the value and utility of even a Wikipedia article is not measured simply by whether the "paper" happens to be available to write it. By that argument, every academic article would have its own stand-alone Wikipedia article, and no article on Wikipedia would ever be deleted. The final determination here seems not to be the validity of this particular merge (not merges in general), but the determination to have *this* particular article as a separate one (not separate articles in general). I am guessing it must be yours? ... For the record, the Buridan's bridge sophism article, also new, possibly by the same author? does have a valid reason to be a stand-alone, because Cervantes actively used and addressed it in his most famous piece of writing (albeit not by using the traditional approach). This gives the Buridan's bridge sophism a different status than an attempted paradox derived from a fairy story, one of many that could be so derived. It just so happens that in this particular case, an opportunistic college professor happened to see a chance to add to his CV and possibly his tenure review by doing a quick write-up and publishing a Pinocchio version before anyone else thought the subject matter was worthwhile enough to do something similar. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.29.177 (talk) 13:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't write this article or Buridan's Bridge, though I did some copyediting work on them and watchlisted them. I guess we're arguing different issues here. What I'm arguing isn't that this article "value and utility" of this article is particularly high or low, but that the subject meets the General Notability Guidelines. While it may not be the most significant philosophical article on Wikipedia, it certainly meets the criteria for inclusion. Qrsdogg (talk) 13:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Is this a joke?

This IS the Liar paradox and I am sure the people who contributed to its publishing have had a long hard laugh at its existence being so long lived on Wikipedia. My main point is how the article attempts to define it as different from the Liar paradox with this paragraph:

'The Pinocchio paradox has nothing to do with Pinocchio being a known liar. If Pinocchio is to say: "I am getting sick", then, it could be either true or false, but Pinocchio's sentence "My nose grows now" can be neither truth nor false hence this and only this sentence creates the Pinocchio's Liar paradox.'

The sentence "My nose grows now" refers to a physical condition which can be verified more quickly than the "I am getting sick" sentence, it therefore CAN be seen to be true or false as soon as the outcome is determined. Using this as the only basis for saying it is different from the Liar paradox is both weak and insulting. I should also add that bringing semantic predicates into the mix only serves to complicate the definition and anyone who cares not to understand the concept will undoubtedly think "I don't understand, so they must be right." This so called Pinocchio Paradox is useful in no situation where the liar paradox is and there is no reason to distinguish between the two. As far as I, and many others are concerned, the Liar paradox and the Pinocchio paradox are one and the same thing. Remove this page for the good of Wikipedia.

115.87.215.145 (talk) 14:49, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Generally speaking, articles with inaccuracies should be cleaned up and fixed rather than deleted. I'll note that the article is not protected so everyone, even those without accounts, can help fix it. But please make sure you read the original articles in Analysis before making any changes. Deletion, however, should only occur when an article does not meet the Notability criteria. Qrsdogg (talk) 15:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Precision of phrasing

Disclaimer: I've not read Eldridge-Smith's paper. However, the paradox here is very sensitive to phrasing and the article is badly let down by using several different phrasings of the sentence: "my nose grows now", "my nose will be growing" and "my nose grows". These are presented as if they are equivalent but they are not.

• "My nose grows now" is a rather odd phrasing to a native speaker; "My nose is growing now" would be more natural. It means that, at the current time, Pinocchio's nose is in the process of growing.

• "My nose will be growing" refers to the future.

• "My nose grows" is a general statement about Pinocchio's existence and makes no claim as to what is happening to Pinocchio's nose right now: "there are times when my nose gets longer" or "I am the sort of person whose nose grows". Just like "I drink beer" means that there are times when beer passes my lips but does not imply that I am currently consuming beer. It could also be simply the answer to the question, "Pinocchio, what happens when you lie?"

In the second and third cases, there is no paradox. The future tense, "my nose will be growing" is just an admission that, at some point in the future, Pinocchio will tell another lie, so his nose will grow. The simple present, "my nose grows" carries no implication that it is happening right now; just that it happens in general. I would argue that, even in the first case, the present progressive, there is no paradox. "Is growing" implies that the change in length of Pinocchio's nose is not instantaneous but occurs over a period of time. If Pinocchio tells a lie, his nose will begin to grow. While his nose is in the process of growing, he can truthfully announce "my nose is growing now". The growth was caused by the previous lie and saying something that is true does not cancel the punishment for the earlier lie. If you want a paradox, in my view, you have to go for something like "Saying this will make my nose grow", creating a causal link between that particular statement and the nose growth.

I'm getting a bit off-topic by arguing about the subject itself rather than it's presentation here and I don't want to get bogged down in that. But I do think it's clear that two of the three phrasings used in the article do not lead to a paradox and that this should be fixed by somebody who has access to Eldridge-Smith's paper. Dricherby (talk) 11:16, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Aggressive archiving of this talk page

Why is this talk page being so aggressively archived? It receives little traffic so where is the need to shift discussions older than one week off this page? That just stifles discussion and makes it more likely that people will raise points that have already been discussed. Dricherby (talk) 23:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Aggressive archiving

Nobody gave any reason why this talk page was being archived so aggressively (posts were being moved to the archive after only seven days). I have changed the parameter to 90 days though, to be honest, I'm not convinced there's any need for archiving at all in this case. Please do not make the archiving time any shorter without justification. Dricherby (talk) 00:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Lots of Problems

The section 'The Paradox' is not particularly clear or well-structured. It also incorrectly reconstructs the supposed paradox. There is no 'ad inifinitum', if you grant the set-up of the story, his knows grows and does not grow. That's it.

The entire criticism section is based on a blog post by William Vallicella which does not seem to me a sufficiently scholarly source to base a criticism section on, even if the person cited had expertise in the area, which Vallicella appears not to have. If criticism must be included, it should come from J.C. Beall's response to Eldridge-Smith's paper which argues that this paradox isn't a problem for his brand of dialetheism.

The 'A Possible Solution' section appears to be entirely composed of original research. It doesn't help that it's also not very good.

For what it's worth this 'paradox' isn't supposed to be problematic or weird for anyone but a specific kind of dialetheist. For everyone else, it's not particularly paradoxical, it just shows that there could be no such Pinocchio (because he leads to contradiction). It's exactly the same as the Barber Paradox in this regard.

For these reasons, I think the 'criticism' and 'a possible solution' sections should be deleted (I haven't worked out how to do this). I'll try to tidy up the 'the paradox' section (and maybe more) later.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruby Gottlob (talk • contribs) 13:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC) 

Should the third proposed solution be deleted?

I understand we don't want any original research here, but ultimately what that sections deals with is the semantic understanding of Pinnochio's powers AND lies, i.e. reasoning. Basically, due to its very nature, I don't see why it would need and outside source. 201.190.31.149 (talk) 06:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

"In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." From WP:V, one of our core policies. Paradoctor (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I understand that and agree that you cannot simply come here and write "George W. Bush enjoys eating spaghetti with honey" and cite your dinner with him last night or even write common knowledge such as "sugar tastes sweet" without a source. But a logical argument (a proper one at least, haven't sat down to examine how well written the one here is) would appear to be different in that, given a set of axioms and proposals, it should be self-demonstrating. 201.190.31.213 (talk) 18:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

http://simplyphilosophy.org/self-evident-truths/

It took Bertrand Russell several hundred pages to develop his Principia Mathematica far enough to prove 1+1=2. When something takes examining to determine its truth, as you said you need to do, then that is a sure-fire sign that it is not "self-demonstrating". Paradoctor (talk) 19:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Upon further inspection, yes, that propose solution is at the very least terribly written. The second proposal, while also problematic in terms of (lack of) citations, at least properly enunciates why it draws its conclusion. But then again, it could be summarized as "the paradox only works assuming Pinocchio's nose grows iff he lies" (adding this note to the opening section might be useful).

In any case, I'll stop backseat driving and look around for sources on the paradox to see if the article itself can be improved. 190.5.117.235 (talk) 21:46, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Paradoctor (talk) 22:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Additional Solution

In addition to the False Premise argument, the phrase Pinnochio utters is both False and True = therefore it doesn't grow while being false and then while being true it grows, an indefinite amount of time after the initial statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.141.70 (talk) 23:13, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

False premise

But if he says "My nose grows now." a second time, after having noticed that it didn't grow the first time he said it, he would be lying. His nose would therefore grow. If he then said it again in the belief that it would keep growing, the statement would no longer be a lie and it would again not grow.

Basically, his nose would grow whenever he believed it wouldn't while uttering that statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.220.24.150 (talk) 12:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

For the purpose of the paradox, the concept of time is greatly simplified. The original story tell us that the nose grows after the lie has been uttered. For the paradox to work, it is assumed that it takes zero time to make a statement and that the nose will grow instantaneously without delay. It is of course ridiculous that a nose would be the first man-made object to exceed the speed of light. Not sure whether could be explained by quantum mechanics.

Note that the nose is still useful as an unlimited supply of pine wood. --Klaws (talk) 14:31, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

His nose also grows because of stress and shrinks from telling the truth. If he was not under stress it would be a paradox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.19.232.187 (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Truth telling Pinocchio

This is when Pinocchio say when he tell the truth he nose grows but the logic of the original will be the same. Now in the Disney version, Pinocchio gets sent off to an island, but in this version, he don’t, but he do die due to the fact the fox and the cat finds him and he put them on the tree hanging him, causing him to die. 2603:6010:5C31:B48D:DD96:F452:A47E:3847 (talk) 18:58, 23 February 2023 (UTC)