Pinocchio Paradox

I like paradoxes.   You know, a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction.  Perhaps the simplest paradox is…

This statement is false.

If the statement is false, then it is in fact a true statement thus making it false.  Huh?  Exactly.

Another paradox…

God is all powerful and can do anything.  God could even create a rock so heavy that he couldn’t lift it.

If God couldn’t lift the rock, he isn’t all powerful… and if he couldn’t create the rock, then he isn’t all powerful.  But suppose God could create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it… then the fact that God couldn’t lift it would mean he wasn’t all powerful.  And if he could lift such a rock would mean that he wasn’t powerful enough to create a rock he couldn’t lift.

There are also a lot of movies [The Terminator, Back to the Future, 12 Monkeys, etc.] that involve time travel paradoxes. So, I’m pretty familiar with a lot of different types of paradoxes.  I’d never heard of the Pinocchio paradox until I stumbled across it at Neatorama.  I got a kick out of it.  I hope you did as well.