At 12:00 AM 3/26/2005, you wrote:
> > That isn't a paradox. Going back in time and getting your
> > grandmother pregnant with your father isn't a paradox. Going back in time
> > and killing your grandmother before your father is born is a paradox.
>
>Not necessarily - in logic a paradox is a statement that is either self
>contradictory (your interpretation) or one that contradicts the primary
>axioms: a primary axiom is causality, every effect has a cause. Yet this or
>any similar histeresis clearly breachs the axiom of causality because it is
>impossible to say where it begins - hence it is a paradox in the second
>sense.
It is if you accept that particular version of causality (all
effects have causes and all causes must precede effects). There are other
versions which it wouldn't contradict: 'Fields separated by space-like
distance commute with each other', for instance, because in this case the
separation is time-like.
>John
--
Doesn't the fact that there are *exactly* 50 states seem a little suspicious?
George W. Harris gharris_at_mindspring.com
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End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 76
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