Timeline for Considered harmful: questions where the asker expects us to figure out a scientific explanation or alternative for their handwavium
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 13, 2023 at 12:08 | comment | added | Tortliena - inactive | @elemtilas + N.Virgo It's probably going to take some time, so let's discuss about this question conundrum in chat. It'll pollute too much the answer otherwise ^^'. | |
| Jan 13, 2023 at 7:45 | comment | added | elemtilas | @N.Virgo --- A Little Peace and Quiet (Twilight Zone) is a good, though not exact, fit. | |
| Jan 13, 2023 at 7:38 | comment | added | elemtilas | @Tortliena --- Ask the question! | |
| Jan 13, 2023 at 2:57 | comment | added | N. Virgo | @Tortliena I'll bite. One thing that could happen if an unstoppable force meets an immovable object is that time slows down, Zeno's paradox style. The thing exerting the force never stops moving towards the object, and the object never moves, but nobody in the entire universe ever experiences anything after the moment they meet each other. One can imagine a story where scientists have discovered such a situation will soon arise, and that therefore the world will effectively end on a certain date (and nothing can stop this). It wouldn't be out of place in an old science fiction magazine. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 22:46 | comment | added | Tortliena - inactive | @Elemtilas Then prove us you can answer VLAZ's question, if it is answerable. I am sure I'll continuously find a non-matching, critical element which needs even more explanation, and the end world (both factually and doc-wise) will be a real mess to write a story on top of it. Note it's part of helping the user to not waste efforts in worldbuilding for minimal results | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 20:38 | comment | added | elemtilas | @VLAZ --- If that were true, then it would be our job --- our artistic duty --- to help the OP describe a world wherein the unstoppable meets the immovable. Keep in mind: we don't answer strictly real world questions, and that particular is a "logical contradiction" only in the real world. If a person asks that query here, we must assume that she is asking about a fictional world where this is not a logical contradiction. Also, none of those questions are logical contradictions. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 20:18 | comment | added | elemtilas | This is the only correct response to the posited argument. The best stories always ride, like a glorious iceberg or the highest mountain peak, upon a massive foundation of unseen, often unknown amount of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding provides the depth and breadth of knowledge upon which the wise writer can write their story from within the fictional world rather than from the perspective of the real world. N Virgo's response should be upvoted thousands of times just for making this one point. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 10:02 | comment | added | N. Virgo | I was thinking in particular of worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/240031/… . Life on Earth doesn't use electrical conductors for much, but elsewhere, who knows? I don't see any kind of logical contradiction there at all. Or worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/240000/…, where the question asks for a number and the answer gives a number - what's the problem even meant to be? | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 9:55 | comment | added | Tortliena - inactive | @VLAZ + N.Virgo You're both right : The affected questions include both pure logical contradictions and ones which don't have an answer, but are not necessarily strictly absurd. For the first, you've got an almost matching case with this one, and the second could be most examples in this post. Reaching true contradiction is quite hard if you have thought on the topic a bit, tough ^^. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 9:47 | comment | added | N. Virgo | @VLAZ I don't think the example questions are logical contradictions though. They might contradict facts of known science, but that's a different thing from a logical contradiction, since those facts might not be known to the OP. As a matter of fact, as a scientist myself, I would say several of the example questions don't contradict any known facts at all, and would be considered open research questions if someone in a relevant field were to take them seriously. I'm not saying the examples chosen are good questions. I just don't think they're bad for the reason you say they are. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 8:56 | comment | added | VLAZ | The reason I went over the famous logical contradiction is because that is what the meta question is talking about: different versions of logical contradictions. It's about questions that pose something impossible to justify and then ask for reasoning how to make it possible using known science. Which is a logical contradiction. The very premise of the question is wrong. As with the unstoppable force/immovable object. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 8:56 | comment | added | VLAZ | What happens if an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? This is a rather famous question that poses a logical contradiction. Some people would say that the unstoppable force would pass through the immovable object by the virtue of being "unstoppable". Others would say it would be stopped by virtue of the object being "immovable". Others still would say that both nullify each other. Yet the only possible answer is that this is a logical contradiction and there cannot exist an unstoppable force and an immovable object at the same time. The very premise of the question is wrong. | |
| Jan 12, 2023 at 8:50 | history | edited | N. Virgo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 687 characters in body
|
| Jan 12, 2023 at 8:44 | history | answered | N. Virgo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |