By that quintessential Philosopher, Bill Clinton It depends on what your meaning of ‘it’, is. By that quintessential Philosopher, Bill Clinton

‘This sentence is false’ ‘This sentence is false’. If it is true, then it is false; and if false, then true inconsistency

‘This sentence is unprovable’. If true, then fine. But it can’t be proved, so it is incomplete.

‘This sentence (I believe) is indubitable’. Doubt it, and it is false. Therefore you shouldn’t (can’t) doubt it, so it is true (and dogma threatens). But what it says corresponds to your indubitability. It is your belief, your world, your ‘reality’. But if so, it is incomplete: a true statement that includes itself, a totalizing statement, and it includes you, the believer. But you can’t deny it (yourself)—which puts you in ‘Cartesian anguish: either reason, or the horror of chaos. It is as to say ‘I believe it’, hence you put yourself outside. So it was incomplete. It: the universal signifier, the ‘empty set’, the ‘noticed absence’.

It is like the Prisoners’ Paradox: both determinable and indeterminable

The warden told the prisoners they would be executed within the next 7 days, but that the day of their execution would be a surprise. They reasoned that if the day of their demise were the 7th day, it wouldn’t be a surprise, so that day was canceled. Then if it were the 6th day, no surprise, so that day was discarded. And so on until the present day, but if that were the case, then no surprise. Thus, the warden couldn’t make good on his word; thus they couldn’t be put to death.

Like Russell’s paradox: ‘Any and all universal statements are henceforth prohibited’, which is inapplicable to itself.

Or like a variation of Chaitin’s paradox: ‘This sentence is indubitable’. If it is determinately dubitable, then its dubitability is indubitable. Thus the problem of determinability, and applicability, to itself. It can’t be determined absolutely if it is dubitable, so it is not indubitable.

The nonperson pronoun, an infinitely variable ‘Empty Set’, between ‘openness’ and ‘closure’, that which is ‘nothing’, yet it is potentially ‘everything’.

‘My only salvation is happiness ‘My only salvation is happiness. The atonal happiness within the essential it. That doesn’t make sense? But it must… To live is this: the happiness of the it. And I’ll yield not as someone vanquished but in an allegro con brio’. Clarice Lispector, The Stream of Life, 1989, p. 77