Now, had your goal been to make a true sentence false that refers back on itself:

If this sentence is true, then this sentence is false.

@krellin - not a paradox, just a false statement. Why does everyone think a false statement is equal to a paradox?

@Draugnar- my sentence is a paradox, not just false.

1. I think that IF the sentence is true, santa claus exists.
The statement itself actually simply states and affirms what I said in 1, and I think its correct when it affirms that thought. Therefore I think it is true. Therefore SC exists.

The Thread is "This sentence is False" AND paradoxes. Chill out, people. Geesh!

"If this sentence is true, Santa Claus exists."

Nothing about your thoughts exist in the sentence. Again, taken as a whole, the sentence is false and not a paradox. I say the sentence is false, therefore Santa doesn't exists. No paradox. In fact, if you were to say "If this sentence is false, Santa Claus exists" would be a paradox. Santa doesn't exist therefore the sentence is false, but that means Santa exists therebaye making it true...

The if clause in your sentence can be evaluated by a simple program, but in my it sends it into an infinite loop with no resolution.

said another way, paradoxes are a subset of the larger set of false statements... and they are a subset of of the larger set of self-contained and self-referential statements... Paradoxes occupy the intersection of the "false statement" and "self-contained/self-referential" sets.

This is a paradox

Jumbo shrimp.

Oh wait that's an oxymoron

i disagree.

@Draug "The if clause in your sentence can be evaluated by a simple program, but in my it sends it into an infinite loop with no resolution." - let's assume you write a simple programming language which can handle simple paradoxes.

The If statement doesn't throw your program into an infinite loop. Instead it fails to evalute the statement and can't tell whether the sentence is true or not.

It tries two alternatives : assume sentence is true. test the self-refential sentence for contradictions - if this sentence is true, then santa claus!
Assumed it is true, hence santa claus.

Second test : assume the sentence is false. test for contradictions - if (false) -> null statment.

again no contradiction. There is no situation where the sentence contradicts itself. Either it is true AND therfore santa claus! or it is false and it makes no claims about santa claus.

It is not resolved in that i don't know if it is true, but were it to be true that would imply something and not be contradictory.

Can it be false? well it doesn't make any contradictory claims, thus independantly of any other statements it should evalute as true.

Thus it seems to be a self-supporting statement.

Damn i wasn't trying to get that as my result - Dave bishop, if that makes sense then i think i understand a bit better the Santa Clause. Thanks.

@the santa claus paradox--"If this sentence is true, Santa Claus exists."

It doesn't clarify how the sentence in "true" in any nature; ergo, it is void.

Don't go into the water untill you learn to swim.

If you can read this, you're blind.

Everything I say is a lie.

All sentences are not true.

No, obiwan, you are lying. You always tell the truth.

It strikes me how much we expect language to always make sense... when it is constructed into a paradox it is jarring and enticing. ...it can seduce the mind into a loop to try and suss out meaning from the nonsense. Visual contradictions such as Dadaist art and optical illusions (such as Escher paintings) can be similarly engaging, of course. Watching a dog chew for hours on a rawhide chew toy or better yet, one of those toys where there is a tablespoon of peanut butter buried in the center of a rubber ball with a hole through it... I am reminded of this when thinking how people will chew over mental challenges - even ones that are hopelessly impossible to "solve".

Put that into a college application essay ^

Ivy League material.

yeah right.

Trust me, I work in admissions.

well then... thanks for the kind words. I guess I think I could do considerably better with the idea... and figured, therefore, that you probably thought so as well. I think they call that "projection". :-)

I was, of course, referring to the idea, not the actual text itself.

of course. Thanks.

@ava2790:

Do you really? What university?

See relevant PM.

i hope you Pm'd him: "Everything i say is a lie"

I think the idea of the santa claus paradox is you just IMAGINE the sentence is true.
When you do that, you come to the conclusion that IF the sentence is true, Santa Claus exists.
Do you disagree that "IF the sentence is true, Santa Claus exists."

Now, read the sentence again: all it does is claim the very thing you've just agreed to, namely that if the sentence is true, Santa Claus exists.
You can't claim the sentence is false, as you know the sentence is correct when it says "If this sentence is true, Santa Claus exists".
To claim the sentence is false is to claim it is possible for the the sentence to be true, but Santa Claus not to exist.

Once you've agreed the sentence must be true, as it must, then Santa CLaus clearly must exist

I'm not very good at explaining this... you could always look up the paradox on wikipedia or something...

"i hope you Pm'd him: "Everything i say is a lie"

hahahahah!!! funniest thing i've seen in a WHILE

tha't good dave, i think i understand.

also great lies...