The tiny town of Russell is so small that it only has one barber, a man named Jim-Bob. Since Jim-Bob is the only barber around, he shaves all the men in town who don’t shave themselves. And of course it would be silly to shave a man who already shaves himself, so the only people Jim-Bob shaves are the men in town who don’t shave themselves. Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong. In fact, it’s logically impossible. Jim-Bob literally cannot operate that way, because the concept is nonsense, like the concept of a married bachelor.
Unless you’ve heard of the Bachelor Paradox before (or you happen to have an extremely nerdy philosophy brain), you’re probably confused at this point. My explanation of how Jim-Bob operates sounds perfectly coherent and non-contradictory—why on earth is it nonsense?
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
