Pinocchio’s nose always grows when he lies and one day he says “my nose grows now”. what will happen?
Let’s assume that “my nose grows now” is true. This means Pinocchio’s nose does grow now because he told the truth, but then Pinocchio’s nose does not grow because it only grows when Pinocchio lies and so on.
Now let’s assume that the sentence “my nose grows now” is false. This means Pinocchio’s nose does not grow now because it’s false, but then Pinocchio’s nose will grow now because it grows when Pinocchio lies and so on.
This is called the Pinocchio paradox and it’s pretty weird, but there is a way to sort of solve it. We can simply say that Pinocchio’s nose will only grow when he’s being dishonest intentionally (Which is basically lying). This means that the statement “my nose grows now” is not a lie, but a false prediction. let’s say Pinocchio says that everyone reading this will follow me. This is a prediction and when it is sadly ultimately false his prediction is made false. A false prediction is not a lie, therefore, his nose will not grow.
You can think about: What about if the only sentence Pinocchio said was “My nose will be growing” (future tense) did he tell a lie before he said “My nose will be growing”, or was he going to tell a lie and how long would it take for his nose to start growing?
Credits: GabeSweats and Carlo Chiostri
