Sunday 20 May 2012

Unexpected Hanging Paradox

      Having ran out of original content I'm just going to start ripping off philosophical questions for a bit, sorry. So to start this spiral of unoriginality we have a variation on the unexpected hanging paradox, which despite sounding like something a couple of blue pills might help remedy is actually a significant paradox.
      Normally this paradox concerns either a man condemned to hang, which is a tad too morbid for this post, or an important exam, which I'd rather not write about in the middle of exam season (which is a misleading title, as I kind of hoped I'd be allowed to hunt exams). So instead I'll use the example of something equally unpleasant, my blog posts. Assume the following: I tell you, my loyal reader, that sometime in the next week, at 10 PM, I'll publish a blog post but the time (well, day) I publish it must be a surprise. Of course, knowing the quality of my posts, you are terrified. But then you realise I can't publish on the Sunday as at the end of Saturday you'd know I was going to publish on the Sunday and thus it would no longer be a surprise. Furthermore, you think to yourself (as you presumably have internal monologues that match the douchyness of my prose), this means it can't be on the Saturday as you already know it can't be on the Sunday and the same logic applies. This means it can't be on any day as it wouldn't be a surprise. You sit there, all smug and stuff, until on Wednesday I publish a post. Oh, balls, you think to yourself.
      So, what happened? All the steps make sense to get to the point that I can't publish anything while it's still a surprise, yet you're still surprised. But it is this deduction that means any day is a surprise.

      So, yeah, think about that.

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