What the Tortoise Said to Achilles: Lewis Carroll’s paradox in terms of Hilbert arithmetic

31 December 2021, Version 1
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed by Cambridge University Press at the time of posting.

Abstract

Lewis Carroll, both logician and writer, suggested a logical paradox containing furthermore two connotations (connotations or metaphors are inherent in literature rather than in mathematics or logics). The paradox itself refers to implication demonstrating that an intermediate implication can be always inserted in an implication therefore postponing its ultimate conclusion for the next step and those insertions can be iteratively and indefinitely added ad lib, as if ad infinitum. Both connotations clear up links due to the shared formal structure with other well-known mathematical observations: (1) the paradox of Achilles and the Turtle; (2) the transitivity of the relation of equality. Analogically to (1), one can juxtapose the paradox of the Liar (for Lewis Carroll’s paradox) and that of the arrow (for “Achilles and the Turtle”), i.e. a logical paradox, on the one hand, and an aporia of motion, on the other hand, suggesting a shared formal structure

Keywords

equality
Lewis Carroll’s paradox
Liar’s paradox
paradox of the arrow
“Achilles and the Turtle”
Hilbert arithmetic
qubit Hilbert space

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