Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Pick a number between 1 and 10
SeraphimLabs:
IIRC who you ask is irrelevant, you ask one guard what the other would say and then do the opposite. Because the liar would give the wrong answer (by nature), and the truth teller would give the liars lie.
-Stoic Joker (February 27, 2015, 06:49 AM)
--- End quote ---
Its easier to just kick them in the shin and ask if it hurt. Then you know which one is telling the truth and which one isn't.
Of course your solution is less likely to piss them off.
MilesAhead:
IIRC who you ask is irrelevant, you ask one guard what the other would say and then do the opposite. Because the liar would give the wrong answer (by nature), and the truth teller would give the liars lie.
-Stoic Joker (February 27, 2015, 06:49 AM)
--- End quote ---
Its easier to just kick them in the shin and ask if it hurt. Then you know which one is telling the truth and which one isn't.
Of course your solution is less likely to piss them off.
-SeraphimLabs (February 27, 2015, 07:42 AM)
--- End quote ---
Plus assuming they are guarding something of great value implies they have weapons at the ready to prevent entry and/or dispatch intruders. But now that you mention it, a simpler solution might be asking either "If I try to kick you in the nuts will you kill me?" If the guard answers "no" he's the liar.
Renegade:
That's a stupid bait & switch question. The logic just doesn't follow. If you go down that path you end up admitting any base system, which is idiotic. What happens when some smartass comes up with base 0.2 or something similarly silly?
Mensa problems often suffer from the same issues -- they phrase a problem for which there are several answers/solutions, then pull the rug out from under you and yell, "Oh, that's not what we meant! We meant something entirely different!" Smart people are often idiots.
This is a general problem and is best articulated by Zeno of Elea around 2500 years ago. What system are you working in? It matters.
MilesAhead:
Mensa problems
-Renegade (February 27, 2015, 08:39 AM)
--- End quote ---
This makes me think of a Columbo episode where the murderer bumps off a fellow member of a genius society. He gives Columbo a riddle to solve. I can't remember the details. But it has something to do with a bunch of gold ingots, one of which is fake. There is a scale that gives a printed readout. IOW a card with the weight so you cannot do stuff like stand on it and have somebody hand you an ingot at a time. You get to make 2 measurements to determine which is the fake ingot.
Something like that. It's pretty nebulous to search on all that. I haven't been able to get the language of the riddle.
But to your point Ren, I always felt in Chemistry class in high school that there were "observations" inserted into the exams so that only a coached candidate could get 100%. I mean some of the cockamamie things "observed" were such that no normal person would think of them. You had to read the prep notes to know what to answer or you would miss 2 or 3 on every question.
Edit: I found the Mensa Riddle and Solution
SeraphimLabs:
IIRC who you ask is irrelevant, you ask one guard what the other would say and then do the opposite. Because the liar would give the wrong answer (by nature), and the truth teller would give the liars lie.
-Stoic Joker (February 27, 2015, 06:49 AM)
--- End quote ---
Its easier to just kick them in the shin and ask if it hurt. Then you know which one is telling the truth and which one isn't.
Of course your solution is less likely to piss them off.
-SeraphimLabs (February 27, 2015, 07:42 AM)
--- End quote ---
Plus assuming they are guarding something of great value implies they have weapons at the ready to prevent entry and/or dispatch intruders. But now that you mention it, a simpler solution might be asking either "If I try to kick you in the nuts will you kill me?" If the guard answers "no" he's the liar.
-MilesAhead (February 27, 2015, 08:20 AM)
--- End quote ---
Not necessarially. For that to be reliable you would have to know in advance how the guards would respond to your provocation. Some guards would chop off your head right away, others would simply remain at their posts and shrug it off.
Actually kicking them gives you an undisputed fact from which you can judge their responses.
Working along these lines a little more, it would really work with any well known or easily observed fact. Kicking them with its associated risk of death is not required.
Also relevant: http://xkcd.com/246/
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version