What is the smallest positive integer that cannot be defined in less than twenty-five syllables?

(In reply to Berry Paradox by Old Original Oskar!)

I should have looked at the category more closely: PARADOXES, not NUMBERS.

But I disagree that a paradoxical sentence "defines" anything. If it is paradoxical, it cannot define anything. A definition must be free of paradoxical content, since it has to state clearly what a thing is and what it isn't. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves" is a famous Bertrand Russel paradox; it is not a definition in any sense, since it is paradoxical.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited on April 15, 2004, 3:37 pm

Posted by Penny on 2004-04-15 14:56:27