Katabasis

by R.F. Kuang

On Paradoxes The reason why paradoxes trouble us is not because their conclusions are true. The donkey does not starve. The world does not consist of unending staircases. Of course Achilles could outrun a turtle, of course the arrow hits its mark, of course the heap runs out. The principle we must accept if we want to go on with our lives is that no paradox makes the world stop functioning as it should. The laws of the universe get their say. Things always snap back to how they should be, and a paradox always eventually runs out its charge. The only reasons why paradoxes perpetuate for as long as they do is because we let them. No—the reason paradoxes trouble us is because their absurd conclusions make us rethink all of our premises. A paradox is like a staircase, in which each step leads inexorably to the destination. But you get to the top, and the destination is impossible; you’ve stepped off into empty air. So one of the steps must be folly. Because the conclusion must necessarily be false, because we cannot live in a world where logic does not work, one of our premises must necessarily be flawed. This is the source of our unease. A paradox means that somewhere along the path, we have gotten something deeply, terribly wrong.