You lost me - how does the earth fit that definition with respect to the sun?

the earth relies on the sun for energy, orbit and even some gravitational protection. without the sun the earth could not survive. the earth takes without giving to the sun just like we take from the earth without contribution. Please feel free to explain if you do not agree, that's just the way i see it

Well, at the risk of mincing words:

"A parasite is an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host."

A) The earth does not live "on" or "in" the sun
B) The sun does not grow, feed or shelter the earth in the way that is meant in the definition; in fact, the sun's resources would be used up at exactly the same rate if the earth did not exist; we just happen to be in the path of a lot of energy it gives off into space.

Basking in the glow of the sun, to me, is not the same as an organism that lives off another and uses its resources and actually jeopardizes the survival of its host.

But back to paradoxes...

JBArk

Personally i consider being within the gravitational orbit of the sun to be essentially the same as living on or in it. Without that gravitational field, the earth absolutely would not be here. that gravitational field is our foundation, walls and ceiling to me.

I would also argue that the sun does feed the earth. It gives solar radiation and warmth, which feed the vast majority of producers on earth, and grows them. You put the sun's energy and chemical nutrients into different categories it seems, where i do not. I view them all as equally important to the photosynthetic organisms.

I also didn't see anything in that definition about changing the hosts output of resources. Basking in the warmth of the sun does not seem the same too you because you are not a plant. but if you were feeding from the light and warmth your basking in, it might be a different story.

Though you do have me on the organism in an organism part, since my thinking involves an ecosystem and a non living star. The main difference seems to be in our disagreement about what counts as shelter. which i am happy to agree to disagree on with you
.... yes the paradoxes await.

Ok, the only possible retort I have is to corner you to name an organism that is NOT a parasite. By your definition, all are, in one way or another!

But yeah, respectfully agree to disagree (though I did getcha at the organism bit )

JBArk

(now I feel compelled to search some paradoxes as penance for derailing this thread. But wait, agreeing to disagree is sort of a paradox, no? )

yes that is my view that every living thing is parasitic in one way or another lol. no worries on the derailment

OROBOUROS: autoparasitic AND a paradox.

CURRY'S PARADOX: If this sentence is true, then pigs can fly.

The ship of Theseus paradox: If a ship's components are all replaced, one by one, is it the same ship? What of a human, whose cells are allegedly fully replaced every seven years? (allegedly because it is actually false, though leads to interesting thought experiments)

RUSSEL'S PARADOX, paraphrased: A list that contains all lists that do not contain themselves must contain itself.

Paradox of the Court: A law student agrees to pay his teacher after winning his first case. The teacher then sues the student (who has not yet won a case) for payment.

Nice! i like the court one especially lol, the teacher gets paid either way. That student got lawyer-ed!

i got one:

In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, adult Link learns the “Song of Storms” from the Windmill Man, who claims that he learned the tune from a boy.

But then Link goes back in time and teaches “Song of Storms” to the past version of Windmill Man. So… where did the song come from? Who actually invented it??

You're misrepresenting Russell's paradox a bit.

In the original language it reads:
"Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R is not a member of itself, then its definition dictates that it must contain itself, and if it contains itself, then it contradicts its own definition as the set of all sets that are not members of themselves."

You can't just say "by this definition it must contain itself," because by the second definition it CANNOT contain itself. Hence the pardox

The ULTIMATE logic string is Godel's Muthfu*king Incompleteness Theorem which says that in any formal system powerful enough to do arithmetic, there will always be things that you can never know definitively one way or another. Some statements can never be proved.

For those of you who are not Number Theory geeks, what this says is that it is impossible to know everything definitively in any given system. There will always be questions we don't know the answer to, and in a nasty little twist, the Incompleteness Theorem tells us that we can't even know if a given question is unprovable or if we're just not smart enough to answer it.

Here is Godel's original proof
http://www.research.ibm....apers/canon00-goedel.pdf

Blessings
~ND

How is that "misrepresenting" it? I employed a rhetorical mode as a means of pointing the paradox out to reader, and underlining it, for effect, as opposed to a formal and logical explanation of why it is actually a paradox (i.e. "its definition dictates that it must contain itself, and if it contains itself, then it contradicts its own definition" ). In non-set language, an elaborate explanation would be unwieldy, gratuitous and well, patronizing, no?

To "misrepresent" it I would have to have corrupted the spirit of it. Is this what you are saying? I did say I paraphrased it, after all.

You lookin' fer a scrap?

JBArk

Guns at high noon!

In all seriousness, I was just a little thrown by your wording of Russell's paradox. It's all correct, but phrasing didn't sit right with me. I personally prefer the formalized language, and, ideally, the formalized notation, because that's how I learned it.

Let R = {x|x E/ x}, then R E R <=> R E/ R

In this case, I'm using E for "in" and E/ for "not in."

yay! I like numerical paradoxes the most

Oh and good looking on the link to the original! i'll be reading it a couple pages at a time whenever i have a chance.