Ever since I first started writing every day, one of my main goals has been to share wisdom I encounter—or observations I made—that might be able to help us think more clearly about the world.
Meanwhile, the world continues to move faster and faster, leaving less room for us to process what’s happening. Instead of thoughtful dialogue, we’re handed ultra-short video clips and memes that offer us conclusions.
One very useful tool for me has been learning to think about paradoxes. Our world is not binary, and in spite of how surface-level conversations might make us think so, there is a lot of nuance out there. Human beings have complicated ideas, and we’re all different from one another.
Paradoxes present a mental playground rife with contradictions. They offer us valuable frameworks for thinking critically and understanding the complexity of our rapidly changing world. Let me share some examples with you.
Hilbert's Paradox of the Grand Hotel
Imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, each one occupied by a guest. A new guest arrives and wants to check in.
Philosopher David Hilbert suggests that we could make room for this new guest by asking each current guest to move one room over, so the guest in room 1 would move to room 2, the guest in room 2 would move to room 3, and so on.
Room 1 is now vacant, and the new guest can check in.
Clearly, we humans are not wired to think about infinity. We live in the world of the very finite, and our thinking has evolved to suit the world we live in. That’s why thought experiments like this are so useful: the counterintuitive nature of limitless resources immediately challenges our understanding of numbers and space.
In a society obsessed with growth and expansion, Hilbert's Hotel encourages us to question our preconceptions and think creatively about how we manage our limited resources. And, there’s one area of modern society where the infinite hotel seems particularly apt: our monetary system.
Money is created out of thin air—that’s how fractional reserve banking is designed to work, not some horrible mistake or scam.
The dollars circulating through our economy can be thought of like the guests in Hilbert's infinite hotel. When new money is introduced into the system, whether by central banks or financial lending, it's as if a new guest arrives at the hotel. The existing money—or guests—shift around to accommodate this new addition.
More money has been printed in the United States since 2007 than was printed in the preceding hundred years, and it’s not even close. Classic economics suggests that if the money supply goes up, the price of everything should also go up.
Yet, predicting when inflation will rise dramatically in our modern economy is all but impossible. Like the infinite hotel, our economic system is more flexible than we give it credit for. New money can be absorbed and redistributed throughout the economy without necessarily causing harm, thanks to regulatory mechanisms and adaptive markets.
However, while money can be created, resources like land, water, and energy remain finite. The hotel is really big, in other words, but it’s not infinite. We need to keep this in mind.
I wrote a bit more about the nature of money here and here, in case you’re interested.
Sorites Paradox
Imagine a heap of sand before you, a simple pile that anyone would readily describe as a "heap." Now, envision yourself removing just one grain of sand from that heap. It's still a heap, right? How about after two grains are gone?
How about ten grains? A million? At what specific point does it stop being a heap?
The Sorites Paradox calls us to question our conventional understanding of qualitative categories and borders. When does a small change result in a significant shift in meaning or status?
This paradox highlights the inherent vagueness in our language and definitions. In our data-driven society, where algorithms categorize us based on measurable variables, the Sorites Paradox prompts us to question the thresholds used for such categorizations, be it for defining poverty lines, marking academic success, or even assessing health metrics.
This is a close cousin to the Ship of Theseus paradox I wrote about.
This paradox might seem a bit silly, but I want to call attention to it because of the parallels in today’s world. Each of us defies portions of what algorithms classify us as, and even as the internet becomes capable of incredibly precise measurements and proclamations, we live in the gray area beneath all this.
“Why do you hate freedom?” might be a question that showcases this paradox on the biggest stage. There’s simply no one definition of “freedom” any more than there’s one single definition of a “pile” of sand. There isn’t a place where freedom begins and tyranny ends, or vice versa. Society is a spectrum.
How about poverty? The World Bank reports that “in 1990 there were 2.00 billion people living in poverty, and in 2019 that had fallen to 0.648 billion. The average fall over the 29 years in between is: (2.00 billion – 0.648 billion)/29 = 46.6 million.”
Is earning $2.16 a day enough to say you’re not living in poverty? The World Bank says yes. Now, many of these folks can eat for less than $2.16 a day, but many others cannot. While things are undeniably better for the most impoverished among us, 1.3 billion people did not “escape poverty” under the same circumstances.
Much like how a heap doesn't become “not a heap” after the removal of one grain, the definitions of “freedom” and “poverty” don't change overnight. Yet, our understanding of these terms varies based on context and personal experiences.
It’s fair to say that “heap” is a sliding scale.
Clarity Amid Complexity
If you’re anything like me, you like to practice thinking. Your brain is like a muscle: it can become stronger at reasoning, and better at thinking about more complex topics as you flex your mental muscles on a daily basis.
Paradoxes serve as much-needed cognitive anchors that challenge our tendency for binary thinking. These thought experiments remind us that the world seldom fits neatly into the boxes we create for it.
They encourage us to question our assumptions about seemingly immutable economic principles and nuanced social constructs like freedom and poverty. More importantly, they invite us to embrace the gray areas and nuances, which are often where the most exciting discoveries and meaningful debates happen.
Did I miss your favorite paradox? Let me know what that is by commenting. Let’s think together!
Paradoxes are why I named by book Paradox because, in the battle over advanced AI it's a question of whether we will lose our humanity or learn what truly makes us human.
good stuff