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Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:59:05 -0500 (EST)
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### Begin Citation ### Do not delete this line ###
%R 98-01
%U /ftp/pub/WWW/faculty/shapiro/Papers/hangman.ps
%A Shapiro, Stuart C.
%T A Procedural Solution to the Unexpected Hanging and Sorites Paradoxes
%D January 05, 1998
%I Department of Computer Science, SUNY Buffalo
%K paradoxes, unexpected hangman, prediction paradoxes, sorites, parallel procedures, procedures
%X The paradox of the Unexpected Hanging, related prediction paradoxes, 
and the sorites paradoxes all involve reasoning about ordered 
collections of entities: days ordered by date in the case of the 
Unexpected Hanging; men ordered by the number of hairs on their heads 
in the case of the bald man version of the sorites.  The reasoning 
then assigns each entity a value that depends on the previously 
assigned value of one of the neighboring entities.  The final result 
is paradoxical because it conflicts with the obviously correct, 
commonsensical value.  The paradox is due to the serial procedure of 
assigning a value based on the newly assigned value of the neighbor. 
An alternative procedure is to assign each value based only on the 
original values of neighbors---a parallel procedure.  That procedure 
does not give paradoxical answers.