Philosophy Carroll, Lewis: What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. V1. 28 May 2011

[LucieA]

Lewis Carroll's short dialogue "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" (1895) playfully questions the principles of logic. Problems arise and branch out from Zeno's paradox, beginning with Achilles attempting to pass the tortoise in the race, but ultimately failing through the tortoise's clever arguments. This is an entertaining tale of the ultimate race that cannot be completed using the foundations of logic.

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[crich70]

It is an interesting tale. I remember the first time I read it the text was in a book about math which makes sense since Lewis Carrol was a mathmatician.

[LucieA]

This really sparked my interest in creative writing books on logic. There's a similar dialogue with the Tortoise and Achilles characters illustrating most aspects of the Godel theorm. I'll post it if I can get the right permissions.

[crich70]

I also understand that Queen Victoria got quite a surprise after reading his Alice books. She wanted copies of the other books he'd written. She got them too and I can only imagine her surprise to find she'd acquired a large number of books relating to math. lol. Even the Alice books relate to mathmatical logic to a degree I think.

[LucieA]

lol, I know I was surprised. He's a genious, especially for his time. I tried his "game of logic" book the other day and it reminded me how old these books really are.