Mind bogglers.
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There are two doors, one leads to heaven, the other to hell. In front of each door is a guardian. The two guardians both say the same thing:StarStruckStrumpets said:
"You can ask us only one question. One of us will tell only the truth, while the other will only tell lies. You must use your one question to find which door leads to heaven."
And the kicker here is:
Since they both said the same thing to you, then it can't be true that one will only speak lies and one will only speak truths, because what they said cannot be both a truth and a lie. Therefore you can't trust anything they say or have said, and have to blindly guess which is the right door.
Not true:Amethyst Wind said:
Most questions will get opposite answers, however if you ask them about each other's response to a question, they will give the same answer, because one will tell the truth about the other's lie, and one will lie about the other's truthful response.
This is just a variation on the old "I always lie" bit. Its supposed to be a paradox but its not, as while it can't be true, it can be false. When I say it, I can be lying that one time without necessarily lying all the other times I say something. I always find it amusing when someone on TV (or elsewhere) beats a computer with this non-paradox, as it happens quite a bit, and any computer capable of comprehending the question would immediately understand the answer.Skeleon said:
This just uses a faulty assumption. You say that taking one away will not make it cease to be a heap, but that is simply untrue. Even if one grain was enough to be a heap, taking that last one away would eliminate the heap. If one is not a heap, then a heap must be at least 2 or more, and you're assertion that taking one away doesn't change it is disproved.Fr331anc3r said:
You simply have two contradictory claims, rather than a paradox.
Now here's one from me:
A certain prison has 100 prisoners. The warden offers the following deal: Each prisoner has a unique number from 1 to 100. In one room, 100 boxes stand in a row. Into each box is placed a scrap of paper containing a number from 1 to 100. Each number appears exactly once, is placed randomly. The prisoners will be enter the room in order, one at a time, and open boxes one at a time, up to 50 boxes. They may only look in the box to see what number is there, they may not move the scraps of paper or the boxes. All boxes will be closed after the prisoner leaves the room, before the next prisoner is brought in. If any prisoner fails to open the box containing their own number, all the prisoners will be put to death. If every prisoner finds their own number, then all prisoners will go free. Once the process begins, prisoners will not be allowed to communicate with each other in any fashion. Clearly if each prisoner opens 50 boxes at random, the probability that everyone will go free is (1/2)^100, which is not very good. By what strategy can the prisoners improve their chances?
You've missed the point:Dikaiosune Exousia said:
They won't be a liar and a truthteller. It's impossible for them to be a liar and a truthteller if they have both told you the exact same thing, which they did when they described the rules of the game. Since they both lied at that point, you can't trust anything they say past that point, no matter what answers they give. You can't trick them with the question because they control the outcome from before you arrived.
Not so..Amethyst Wind said:
About the rules being stated, there are two ways out of that: One is that in any proper telling they should not be the ones explaining the rules.
The other is that they may not be bound by those rules until after they have stated them, or that it may only apply to their answers to questions. They do tend to phrase it in the future tense. I mean, if they are the ones explaining the rules then there is nothing that says that the liar is always a liar, and not just a liar in the context of this little game.
Of course, if the whole lying and truth telling bit is a lie, then this doesn't work, but most of these riddles are fairly stupid if we refuse to accept the premise. Once you find the answer that saves your life the bad guy one of these scenarios could choose to forget about promising to let you go and instead just kill you so you don't start telling everyone the answer.
The other is that they may not be bound by those rules until after they have stated them, or that it may only apply to their answers to questions. They do tend to phrase it in the future tense. I mean, if they are the ones explaining the rules then there is nothing that says that the liar is always a liar, and not just a liar in the context of this little game.
Of course, if the whole lying and truth telling bit is a lie, then this doesn't work, but most of these riddles are fairly stupid if we refuse to accept the premise. Once you find the answer that saves your life the bad guy one of these scenarios could choose to forget about promising to let you go and instead just kill you so you don't start telling everyone the answer.
Dikaiosune Exousia said:
It's kinda the point that they are the ones telling you the rules and not an outside influence, that's why it doesn't work. If it was an outside influence I'd just be repeating Digga1994's post (the one directly above my original), I purposefully didn't do that and provided a different scenario. Also, that tenses argument is just grammatical pedantics. If you want, you can read it like this:
Both guardsmen - "One of us always has, and always will, lie. The other has told and will tell nothing but the truth."
Also, this isn't a riddle thread, if it was there would always be an answer. This thread is about scenarios with non-obvious outcomes, which include logical fallacies.
Both guardsmen - "One of us always has, and always will, lie. The other has told and will tell nothing but the truth."
Also, this isn't a riddle thread, if it was there would always be an answer. This thread is about scenarios with non-obvious outcomes, which include logical fallacies.