You have just been captured spying on a student council meeting, and you face dreadful consequences. Not all is lost for you, though. You are told: "You may make one statement. If it is true, you will be dumped into a trash can in the cafeteria during the second lunch hour. If it is false, you will hang by your feet from the home basketball net during halftime of the varsity game this weekend." Can you say anything to save yourself from both of these terrifying fates? If so, what do you say?
Solution
Just to be clear, we on the Stella team do not condone or encourage spying on your local Student Council!
To escape both consequences, you need a statement that is a paradox, which cannot be labeled as either true or false. How about:
"This statement is false."
If the statement is true, then it's false; if the statement is false, then it's true. So it is neither true nor false.
In this situation, you can also say, “I will hang from the home basketball net during halftime of the varsity game this weekend." If your statement is deemed false, then you must go through the above punishment, making the statement true. If the statement is deemed true, then the above would not happen, making the statement false.