Barber Paradox

[red2]

This poped up on Yahoo's Front Page.

There is a village where the barber shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?

 

[mdunn]

the barber has a beard!

 

[RichGem]

The barber was a woman & preferred to bleach rather than shave.

 

[red2]

The barber was a woman & preferred to bleach rather than shave.

Extra points for getting the female loophole. Here's another formulation:

Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.

Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?


This was reportedly used by Bertrand Russell to illustrate a paradox

 

[RichGem]

Extra points for getting the female loophole. Here's another formulation:

Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.

Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?


This was reportedly used by Bertrand Russell to illustrate a paradox

Again the female loophole. Just because there's "just one male barber" does not exclude the possibilty (as you wrote it anyhow) of the town also having a female barber. Unless of course, the town had "only one barber who was a male"; that would be a different story altogether.

 

[D.Irving79]

the village is not named. what if its the north pole? then the barber could be santa.

 

[Stubblefield]

Extra points for getting the female loophole. Here's another formulation:

Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.

Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?


This was reportedly used by Bertrand Russell to illustrate a paradox

Simple. When the barber shaves himself he does so at home, so he is technically not acting as the town barber in this specific situation, but is one of the townsmen.

 

[gollum83]

The barber has a beard!

Well if he did, there no way I'm letting him shave me. It's one of the rules I live by. Never trust a barber with a beard to shave you. Another rule is don't let a barber with bad hair cut your yours. You're just asking for trouble otherwise.

The barber was a woman & preferred to bleach rather than shave.

Bleach? Way to go and ruin female barbers for me!

Simple. When the barber shaves himself he does so at home, so he is technically not acting as the town barber in this specific situation, but is one of the townsmen.

Solved by a technicality? I loved it!

 

[red2]

It's one of the rules I live by. Never trust a barber with a beard to shave you. Another rule is don't let a barber with bad hair cut your yours. You're just asking for trouble otherwise.


There is actually another barber riddle which goes somiething like this.

A man drives into a small town on Sunday. He passes the Barber shop which is closed but sees two men inside one tying an apron around the other's next as he settles into the chair. The next day the man goes the barber shop sees the two barbers as the men from the night before. One has a fantastic haircut. The other has a terrible haircut. Why does the man choose shaggy barber to cut his hair.

 

[Pirate-M.Lifnen]

A man drives into a small town on Sunday. He passes the Barber shop which is closed but sees two men inside one tying an apron around the other's next as he settles into the chair. The next day the man goes the barber shop sees the two barbers as the men from the night before. One has a fantastic haircut. The other has a terrible haircut. Why does the man choose shaggy barber to cut his hair.

Pretty obvious. Since they cut each other's hair, the man chooses the one that's shaggy who does a fantastic hair cut vs the one with the nice cut who cuts like crap.

 

[Jethro1984]

This poped up on Yahoo's Front Page.

There is a village where the barber shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?

Who said the barber grows any facial hair?

 

[Stubblefield]

Solved by a technicality? I loved it!

The whole argument is a technicality, in that it depends on the definition of certain words.

Supposedly Godel proved this paradox could not be solved, but I'll save that for later.

 

[tg16]

If the barber has a multi personality disorder, he could get one of them to do the shaving. That would also bring up the question of how much to tip.

 

[The Nid Hog]

The barber is a child prodigy who has not yet reached puberty. As such, he has no beard to shave. What's more, although he is the town barber, he himself does not live in the town. Because of the high cost of commercial real estate, he lives in the next town over.