Paradox Limericks

 Paradox Limericks

 

 

There once was a poet from Crete

Who performed a remarkable feat

He announced to the wise

“Every Cretan tells lies”

Thus ensuring their logic’s defeat.

 

“What I’m telling you now isn’t true”;

Tell me, what’s a logician to do?

For it’s wrong and it’s right

And it’s black and it’s white

This confusion is making me blue.

 

Bertrand Russell once dolefully thought

“Is set N in itself? Is it not?

If it’s in, then it’s out;

If it’s out, then no doubt

it is in. What on Earth have I got?”

 

Mr. Gödel, with ill-disguised glee

One day wrote down a sentence named G.

It said, “G has no proof”

And if proof equals truth

It makes truth equal falsity. See?

 

Said Zeno to archer, “A quiz.

Is your arrow moving? It is

In its flight to the west

Every instant at rest

So when is it moving?” “Gee whiz!”

 

There was once an unfortunate ass

Who stopped between two heaps of grass

At the midpoint. It tried

But it couldn’t decide

Which was closer. It starved there, alas.

 

Or so Mr. Buridan said;

But don’t leave the donkey for dead;

For the actual mule

Was an ass, not a fool;

So it foraged at random instead.

 

An electron confessed to the fact

That its nature was not too exact.

“I’m a particle, yes

That is true, more or less

But I frequently like to diffract.”

 

There once was a humanoid race

that wanted to travel through space.

But the aliens said, 

“Do not help them! Why spread

 such critters all over the place?”

 

Doc Strangelove once angrily fumed

“These peaceniks have falsely assumed!

For we’re safe if we’re gambling

And safer if scrambling

And safest if certainly doomed!”

 

A citizen asked me, with rue,

“Now what is a voter to do?

For Moe is a knave

And Larry’s not brave

and Curly has hardly a clue!”

 

I once heard a butterfly shout

while giddily flitting about,

“Of Chaos I sing!

Each flap of my wing

Brings thunderstorm, rainbow, or drought!”

 

 Said a monk to a man named Joshu

“Is that dog really God?” He said “Mu”.

This answer is vexing

And highly perplexing

And that was the best he could do.

 

You may think that these limericks are clean

just because they aren’t lewd or obscene;

but they do whisper scandal

that some couldn’t handle

if only they knew what they mean.