(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 1)

The Paradox of Making the Strongest Possible Chain

The Question: If you were to try to make the strongest possible chain, what would be the best way to approach the problem?

One wrong approach would be to try to remove the weakest links. Here is a proof of this point:

To approach the problem this way creates a paradoxical situation. To set up this paradox we need one definition and five assumptions:

(Psychological Paradox & Puzzles — 2)

The Paradox of Changing Yourself

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 3)

A Contradiction in the Thinking of a Thinker

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 4)

The Paradox of Trying to Run from and of Trying to Stay within Reality

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 6)

"Inside" and "Outside": Paradox, Puzzle, Psychological Meditation?

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 5)

The Paradox of Trying to Make Someone Else the Center of Your Life

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 7)

Still more "In-Out" Paradoxes

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 8)

A Paradox regarding Consciousness

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 9)

A Paradox regarding Thinking, Depression, & Cheerfulness

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 10)

A Paradox from the Theory of Evolution

(Psychological Paradoxes & Puzzles — 11)

A Paradox: The gods are real and they are not real

If Freud and others are right, it is as if we have two minds, that is two ways of thinking. Typically, one is active at night when we are asleep, while the other is dominant during the day when we are awake and alert. The two ways of thinking are as different as night and day. The purest example of the night-time mind would be a dream, and the purest example of day-time thinking would be a rational, logical, scientific chain of thought. In sleep we relax away from the strict rules of rational thought and reality testing only to shoulder them again when we begin to awaken. Being rational and logical requires work, whereas, in the night-time mind, whatever is is real, and no evaluating is required. It is possible for the night-time mind to emerge and even take over in the day, and it is also possible for a person to think logically within a dream. For most people this may happen sometimes, and for some it may happen quite often. For some people, the rational, reality testing mind may be all but absent, even in the day, and waking consciousness then takes on a dream-like feeling where impressions and intuitions and feelings and inclinations rule without challenge and without control.