A prisoner is sentenced on a Sunday to be hanged, although he is not informed precisely when this will take place. The judge advises only that the hanging shall take place at noon on one of the next 5 days. In effect, the judge sentences him to a surprise hanging. The quick thinking prisoner protests that this is impossible, reasoning that it cannot be Friday, five days hence, because come Thursday afternoon he would be in a position to know, thereby ruining the surprise. having ruled out Friday, he could go on to infer on Thursday morning that Thursday would be the day; so again he could not be surprised. repeating this reasoning, he rules out the remaining three days. There shall be no surprise hanging, he bravely retorts.
Is this truly a paradox, explain your reasoning.
No this is not a paradox because while he safely ruled out all of the days he could be hanged, and while he closed off any way he could not be surprised it is his ending statement that cancels out the paradox. He states at the end that "There shall be no surprise hanging" this causes him to be surprised no matter what because this one sentence causes him to believe that no hanging shall happen therefore causing him to be surprised when said hanging occurs. This is because he no longer expects the hanging to happen causing surprise when the execution comes around.