The Paradox
Suppose there is a town with just one barber, who is male. In this town, every man keeps himself clean-shaven, and he does so by doing exactly one of two things:
- Shaving himself, or
- going to the barber.
Another way to state this is:
- The barber is a man in town who shaves those and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.
All this seems perfectly logical, until we pose the paradoxical question:
- Who shaves the barber?
This question results in a paradox because, according to the statement above, he can either be shaven by:
- himself, or
- the barber (which happens to be himself).
However, none of these possibilities is valid. This is because:
- If the barber does shave himself, then the barber (himself) must not shave himself.
- If the barber does not shave himself, then he (the barber) must shave himself.
Read more about this topic: Barber Paradox
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