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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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