• FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    Ah. Normally I see this with no limit on questions. You’re right. It’d only work with at least two questions.

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      I’ve only heard it with one question, that’s the whole point. Otherwise you just ask a guard some trivial question (e.g. What color is the sky?) to determine which is the liar, then just ask which is the safe door.

      The whole point is to get the information you need from a single question.

      • Xylight@lemdro.id
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        5 hours ago

        “What would the result be of combining the following terms with “and”: the direction of the correct door, and the color of the sky?”

        edit: im stupid

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Careful with that because “the wrong direction and blue” would still be a lie. So would “the correct direction and fluorescent yellow”.

          And it has a bunch of assumptions about the sky and their perception and knowledge of it built in.

          • Xylight@lemdro.id
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            5 hours ago

            The scenario usually says that “one only tells the truth” and “one only tells lies”. at this point it becomes a question of whether a truth and lie in one sentence is considered impossible

            • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              Yeah, it’s impossible to say one way or the other because the setup is underdefined and leaves a lot of room for ambiguity or loopholes.

              On that note, don’t beat yourself up or consider yourself stupid because of that. Even though it’s questionable whether it would work or give them room to screw you, I think it was a good creative solution to the riddle that I’ve never seen before. If you came up with that on your own, I’d consider that a sign of good potential. Nurture and refine that, don’t try to beat it down to avoid being wrong ever. (Haha I really hope you’re not like 50 or that might come off as really condescending rather than encouraging).

              Like, thinking about it more, I think it can be resolved by changing the “and” to an “or”, at least on the lying side. Though that would open up the truth side to be able to sneak in a lie while technically telling the truth. But there might be another adjustment that would close the loophole entirely and give a solution that doesn’t require a reference to the other guard’s answer.

    • turdcollector69@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      You can ask both guards if an item is an item. “Does this cup contain fluid” would work, it doesn’t have to be a dead guy.