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The Sorites Paradox

Stimulating critical thinking - a loose series on paradoxes

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Alexander Rink
Feb 16, 2024
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Gödel's is a newsletter about interweaving ideas and making decisions under uncertain conditions. I discuss knowledge management, mental models, and supporting Tools for Thought.


The Sorites Paradox, as imagined by Dall-E

The Sorites Paradox, a fundamental challenge in the philosophy of language and logic, confronts the dilemma of vague predicates and the indeterminacy they bring to logical reasoning. It is most famously applied to the concept of a heap of sand. The paradox begins with the seemingly uncontroversial premise that a single grain of sand does not constitute a heap. If one adds another grain, it seems equally reasonable to say that one still does not have a heap. This reasoning can be continued, one grain at a time, leading to the conclusion that no matter how many grains of sand are added, one can never arrive at a heap.

Similarly, the paradox can be applied to baldness. The paradox starts with the premise that a man with a full head of hair is not bald. If one hair is removed, this does not lead to baldness. If this process is repeated, pulling one hair at a time, it seems impossible to determine at which exact point the man becomes bald. This gradual removal of hairs creates a series of states from not bald to bald that challenge the binary nature of language and categories. The paradox highlights the absence of a precise threshold that definitively marks the transition from being not bald to bald.

This paradox challenges our understanding of categories and linguistic terms that do not have sharp boundaries. It suggests that using language to categorize the world into discrete entities might be fundamentally flawed when dealing with vague concepts. The term "heap" does not have a precise number of grains of sand that marks the transition from non-heap to heap, nor does the term "bald" constitute a number of hairs where non-bald becomes bald, making it difficult to determine when precisely this transformation occurs.

Various solutions and responses to the Sorites Paradox have been proposed. One approach is to reject the premise that there is a clear-cut transition from non-heap to heap, suggesting instead that "heap" is a term with fuzzy boundaries, and its application can vary depending on contextual factors. Another response is the epistemic approach, which argues that there is a threshold at which a non-heap becomes a heap. Still, our limited cognitive capacities prevent us from determining this exact point. Some philosophers advocate for using formal logic systems, such as fuzzy logic or supervaluationism, to model the vagueness inherent in such terms better.


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By Alexander Rink · Launched 3 years ago
Aiming for completeness and consistency is honorable but futile - Gödel’s is a newsletter about interweaving ideas and making decisions under uncertain conditions. I talk about knowledge management, mental models, and supporting Tools for Thought.
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Arjun Rajagopalan
Feb 29, 2024

A similar paradox is seen in the phenomenon called emergence. Not only does a qualitatively new trait arise, but it also becomes a distinguishing element of the system that has been established after the shift. It's not possible to fix the point of transition.

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