Q&A: Pinocchio’s Paradox
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Pinocchio’s Paradox
Question
I came across a question on YouTube, where they asked whether this is a paradox.
What happens if you ask Pinocchio whether his nose is about to grow, and he answers yes?
I came across this question—do you know whether there is a solution to this paradox?
Answer
This is nothing but the liar paradox. It simply shows that you cannot define a Pinocchio whose nose grows with every lie, because there is no way to determine for every sentence in a language whether it is false or true.