Which Alice?
Which Alice?
Which Alice?
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ALICE IN PUZZLE-LAND<br />
eleventh pages, which were still blank. Then he wrote the following<br />
on the tenth page and handed it back to <strong>Alice</strong>.<br />
—10—<br />
THE SENTENCE<br />
ON PAGE 10 Is<br />
FALSE.<br />
"Now," said Humpty Dumpty, "is the statement on page ten of<br />
your book true or false?"<br />
"I see no way to tell," replied <strong>Alice</strong>, after thinking it over for a bit.<br />
"It could be either."<br />
"Wrong!" exclaimed Humpty Dumpty. "It's not that it could be<br />
either—it's that it couldn't be either!"<br />
"Why not?" asked <strong>Alice</strong>.<br />
"Now look, child; could the sentence possibly be true?"<br />
"Why not?" asked <strong>Alice</strong>.<br />
"Well, suppose it were true. Then what it says must be the case.<br />
But what it says is that it is false. Therefore, it must be the case that it<br />
is false. So if it is true, it is also false. But it is impossible that it can<br />
be both true and false; therefore it is impossible that it is true."<br />
"Of course," said <strong>Alice</strong>, "and since it cannot possibly be true, then<br />
it must be false."<br />
"Wrong again!" said Humpty Dumpty triumphantly. "It can't be<br />
false either!"<br />
"Why not?" asked <strong>Alice</strong>.<br />
"Well, suppose it were false. Then what it says is not the case. Now,<br />
what it says is that it is false. Since what it says is not the case, then it<br />
is not the case that it is false—in other words, it is true. So if it is<br />
false, then it is true, and we again have a contradiction. Therefore,<br />
it can't be false. That's glory for you!"<br />
"Oh, dear," said <strong>Alice</strong> disconsolately. "I seem to be in the same<br />
predicament as with your first puzzle!"<br />
"Exactly!" replied Humpty Dumpty, "and that's the beautiful part<br />
of it!"<br />
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