Sorites paradox

“The Tyranny or Choice” by Barry Schwartz and “Is Google Making us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr may seem to be as dissimilar as any two essays could be, but they’re not. Both Schwartz and Carr write about the increase of available resources leading to decreased productivity. Carr talks about the abundance of information available at our fingertips and how it is really causing us to be lazy and decrease intelligence, whereas Schwartz speaks of the amount of choices we receive day to day and how the…

In this paper I will argue that trying to maximize happiness actually decreases the amount of happiness one experiences, and I will show why one should satisfice rather than maximize. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz presents the pitfalls of maximizing, with one being counterfactual thinking. Schwartz also introduces the concept of hedonic adaptation, which provides reasoning to why there is little importance to the choice that maximizers spend much time and energy with. To further show…

The Paradox of Choice Why Less is More by Barry Schwartz is a book about the pitfalls in an overstimulated world. We live in a society where options are endless, and so are the anxieties that come along with having so many available choices. Schwartz discusses how having too many options can hinder a person’s overall enjoyment of decision making, which can eventually lead to high anxieties, indifference, and even depression. Living in a world that allows one the freedom to choose whatever…

will fulfill every need and desire. Self-blame is the fourth and final attribute in “The Paradox of…

The Sorites Paradox, or the Paradox of the Heap is a paradox which comes in two forms; the many-premise version, and the two-premise version. Both versions lead to the same conclusions but offer different ways to reach that conclusion. This essay will focus on the workings of the two-premise version. The paradox arises as a result of vague predicates (Barker, 2009); demonstrating a problem with human language. This is the idea of human language being excessively vague, and that measurements we…