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mujun.io
A retro arcade for living paradoxes — pull the lever, watch contradictions bubble.
LEVEL 01 · LIVING
The Shipwright's Plank
A boat sails for fifty years. Each spring, one plank rots; each spring, it is replaced. By the fiftieth voyage no original wood remains aboard. Is it the same ship that left the harbor? The villagers say yes — they recognize her by the way she leans on the wind.
A second ship, built from every salvaged plank in the order they were removed, also lies in the harbor. The original captain visits both. He greets the floating one as kin and the dry one as memory. Both ships smile back. This is the lever you came to pull.
LEVEL 02 · LIVING
The Liar's Mirror
"This sentence is false." Your tongue trips on it; the words refuse to settle. If true, false; if false, true. The arcade cabinet hums in approval — a paradox that loops forever is a quarter well spent.
In the village square a mirror is engraved with the same line. Stand before it, and your reflection waves before you do. Stand longer, and you are no longer sure who started the wave.
LEVEL 03 · LIVING
The Sorites Heap
A heap of sand sits in the courtyard. Remove one grain; still a heap. Remove another; still. Continue. At which grain does the heap become a mound, the mound a pinch, the pinch a memory? No grain answers when called.
The wind, who knows about heaps, never tells. The shadow of the heap, who knows even more, has gone home for the evening.
LEVEL 04 · MOTION
Zeno's Arrow
The arrow flies. At any frozen instant, it does not move — for an instant has no width. If at every instant it is still, when does it travel? Yet it lands in the target, reliably, between heartbeats.
The arrow does not know it is impossible. The bow does not know either. Together, they conspire.
LEVEL 05 · MOTION
Achilles & the Tortoise
Achilles, swiftest of the Greeks, gives the tortoise a head start. He runs to where the tortoise was; the tortoise has crawled a little further. He runs to that point; the tortoise, again, has moved. The pursuit nests inside itself like a Russian doll of patience.
In practice the race ends near a fig tree at noon. In theory it is still going, somewhere, in mathematics' quiet office.
LEVEL 06 · SELF
The Bootstrap
A traveler arrives from tomorrow, hands you a notebook, and says: "Copy this; you will need it." You copy it word for word, and tomorrow take it back. Where was it written? The notebook shrugs. It only knows it has been read.
Some objects exist because they have always existed; their authors are also their readers, in turn.
LEVEL 07 · SELF
The Observer's Coin
A coin spins on the counter. Until you look, it is heads and tails simultaneously, a small blur of yes and no. Your glance settles it; the coin thanks you with one face and resents you with the other.
Somewhere a second observer, watching you watch, takes notes for their own paradox.
LEVEL 08 · TIME
The Grandfather
You travel back and meet a stern young man you have never liked. You consider, briefly, ending the line. The arcade cabinet shudders. If you succeed, you are never born to travel; if you fail, you sit and have tea instead. Tea is poured. Time relaxes.
Some doors only open from the inside. Some lives only continue because they refused to be edited.
LEVEL 09 · TIME
Newcomb's Box
A predictor places two boxes before you: one transparent (a thousand coins, visible), one opaque (a million if she predicted you'd take only it; nothing if she predicted otherwise). Take both, or take only the opaque?
She has been right ten thousand times. The arcade attendant whispers: "Trust the bubbles. They have seen this before."