The Cretan Paradox and the Limits of Language

Okay, so this one is interesting. We have two propositions:

1. All Cretans always lie. (Has to be said that way.)
2. I am a Cretan.

Now it's obvious that the first proposition couldn't be true, but what we're looking at is a paradox of language. It is impossible to put those two propositions together in language. What we have isn't a paradox, but a linguistic singularity.

There are a lot of things that can't be said in language. I happen to believe in determinism. That means that nothing can be changed, the cause and effect chain is totally worked out according to physical law. I believe the Spirit can take us out of this determinism, but without the Spirit, there is no other way except the way things will always go.

Now think if you talked that way. You can't. It would be like, I am physically being moved to go to work this morning by my protons and neutrons and the chemical forces in my brain. Kind of a silly way to talk, and that has to do with social convention, which is unfortunately where most of the limits of language come from.

These linguistic difficulties force us to use things like mathematics to explain things that can't be said in language, but as we'll see in a few moments, the language of math has its own linguistic paradoxes. I'll be back with that shortly.