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Riddles, verbal games, etc.

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12:56 / 29.04.03

Here's one paraphrased from Ghost King by David Gemmell

There was a prince who was hated by his king but loved by the people. The king decided the prince must die, but fearing the wrath of the populace, he devised an elaborate plan to end both the prince's popularity and his life. He accused him of treason and offered him trial by Mithras. In this way the Roman god would judge the innocence or guilt of the accused. The prince was brought before the king, and a large crowd was there to see the judgment. Before the prince stood a priest holding a closed leather pouch, and within the pouch were two grapes. The law said that one grape should be white, the other black. If the accused drew a white grape, he was innocent. A black grape meant death. The prince knew of the king's hatred and guessed rightly that there were two black grapes in the pouch. How did the prince produce a white grape and prove his innocence?

So - what's the answer? And - provide your own riddles, etc - made up, borrowed or stolen.

13:09 / 29.04.03

By deftly peeling it in the bag??

13:15 / 29.04.03

God Cholister - that's going to annoy me. I'm so tempted to google an answer.

Here's mine (which I think I saw on a film once):

A man lands in the jungle and is in a bad way - he needs help fast and can't survive for long on his own. He knows that there are two villages nearby. In the first village, everyone is happy and if he gets there he will be saved. The villages from this village ALWAYS tell the truth. The second village is full of angry canibals who will torture and kill him (....and eat him!), and everyone from that village ALWAYS lies.

He comes to a fork in the road and knows (I don't know how either - it's a mystery) that one path leads to the liar canibal death villages and the other path leads to the nice truth telling bunch.

There is a lone villager standing at the fork of the road and the man is allowed one question to ask him to know which road to take. He does not know if the man is going to lie or tell the truth. What is the question?

13:16 / 29.04.03

By doing that kids trick where he placed his thumb between his finger and yelled "I got your nose!!!" but in this case he yelled "Behold! The white grape!" Either that or he deftly plucked his eye out and used that as a grape.

13:16 / 29.04.03

By palming it as he draws it from the bag, then popping it in his mouth: "Well the grape left in the bag is black, so the one I drew forth must have been white": king cannot expose the prince's treachery without exposing his own.

I asume everyone's heard the one about my trip to St. Ives, and the fellow I met on the road?

13:39 / 29.04.03

That bigamist and all his wive's children's cats you mean? yup.
A form of the liar riddle was used in Labyrinth- you say "If I asked you 'is that the correct road to get to the village of pacifists?' what would you say?"

13:41 / 29.04.03

It's the Cretan Liar paradox, isn't it?

13:57 / 29.04.03

Quantum - I think it's a bit different to the labrynth thing because there were two doors involved there and she couls ask them both questions right? So even if he says "yes that is the road to the pacifists village" - or "no, it's not" - you still don't know whether he's lying or not. Asking "If I asked you 'is that the correct road to get to the village of pacifists?' what would you say?" is the same as "is that the correct road to get to the village of pacifists?" isn't it?

KCC, I'm not sure if it's the Cretan thing - I didn't steal it from a myth but a film - although they probably *did* steal it from there!

14:05 / 29.04.03

The St Ives riddle annoys me. We're supposed to assume that because he met the man while travelling to St Ives, the man was going in the opposite direction. What if the poet was just travelling faster than the man (as would be quite likely, considering the man's Mormonic family had hundreds of sacks filled with cats and kittens to drag all the way there) and caught up with him while they were all on the way to St Ives? I'm sure I'm missing the point, but I don't care!
My favourite riddle was always the one about something that runs all the way around a field without any legs.

14:09 / 29.04.03

a hedge?

and good work on the st ives riddle - I would've liked to see Bruce Willis explain that it made no sense to `Simon' the terrorist in Die Hard 3.

14:16 / 29.04.03

Jub - Re. the Cannibal one, I was thinking more along the line of you'd have to ask something like "What would someone from your neighbouring village say if I asked which road took me to safety?". But I think Quantum's solution is right, because of the question within the question. If you asked the cannibal directly, "Is that the correct road to get to the village of pacifists?", he'd say "No" if it was and "Yes" if it wasn't. But if you ask him what he would say, he has to reverse that lie and tell you the truth, because if he accurately reported what he would say, he would be telling the truth. If he's the truth teller, he'd give you the same answer both to the question and the meta-question, so it makes no difference.
I think.

14:24 / 29.04.03

Jack got it. One wonders if he has read the book, or if all the hype is true and he really has superhuman intelligence.

14:40 / 29.04.03

Weaving- that's right
Jub- by nesting the question you turn the liar on his own tail, so he is caught in a paradoxical situation. By lying to you he inadvertantly answers the question-within-a-question truthfully.
The Labyrinth version was just a two-person version of the same thing.
The Cretan liar paradox is something different. If I'm from Crete and I say "All Cretans are liars" am I lying?

14:54 / 29.04.03

Quantum - If you're a Cretan, and you say "All Cretan's are [always] liars", isn't the answer to whether you're lying or not simply 'yes'?

14:55 / 29.04.03

One wonders if ... all the hype is true and [Jack] really has superhuman intelligence.

KNEEL BEFORE MY ENORMOUS BRAIN!

Shame I've got no legs, though.

14:56 / 29.04.03

Smoothly & Quantum - let's say for the sake of argument that it is the LEFT PATH which does in fact lead to the pacifist's village. Now....

If you do indeed have the double logic thing (ie the meta-question), you may come out with a consistent answer but not necessarily the correct one.

If the tribesman is a liar, then he will say that someone from the other tribe would say the right path (because he knows the truth teller would say the left path). If however he was telling the truth he would say the right path (because he knows the liar would lie).

The point is, you don't know which path is correct to begin with, nor do you know if he is lying.

15:00 / 29.04.03

Jub - Yeah, so in my solution you'd always take the path not suggested. Quantum's solution is different, and more elegant IMHO.

Although I could be wrong about all of this. I'm not the brightest Barbe in the Lith.

15:54 / 29.04.03

Whoops, sorry Jub, I missed the meat of your objection:

If you do indeed have the double logic thing (ie the meta-question), you may come out with a consistent answer but not necessarily the correct one.

I'm sure a consistant answer is necessarily the correct one, because the truth teller can only give you the correct one. If the nature of the question requires the liar to give the same answer as the truth-teller, then Bob's very much your uncle.

17:09 / 29.04.03

Heh before i read jacks answer, i was gonna say he peeled it. Tho that wouldnt make it white. (but it does make it oh-so-yummy!)

07:53 / 30.04.03

Smoothly:
If the nature of the question requires the liar to give the same answer as the truth-teller

aye, and that's why the answer I had was "which direction is it to your village. That way, whatever direction he points to is correct whether he's lying or not.

Sorry - I got bogged down in the ifs and buts and couldn't see the wood for the trees.

11:44 / 29.08.03

A man is pushing his car along Oxford Street. He stops opposite a hotel and discovers that he's bankrupt.
How come?

hanabius yamamura

11:52 / 29.08.03

... does he own the hotel and discover that the receivers are in ?

11:57 / 29.08.03

Nope. All information given is relevant.

11:59 / 29.08.03

He's playing Monopoly?

12:01 / 29.08.03

Cigar for the bear.

12:32 / 29.08.03

Right... this is the way we used to do it. 4 oldies.

1. "a man lies dead in a field. There are no footprints"

2. "three men dead at a table. There is a deck of cards."

3. "A person looks out of a window. Behind them, hundreds of people are screaming"

4. "Anthony and Cleopatra lie dead. Behind them, the curtain moves. There is broken glass on the floor"

I can answer yes, no or irrelevant.

hanabius yamamura

12:48 / 29.08.03

... mixmage, re riddle 1, is the man wearing an unopened parachute?

unheimlich manoeuvre

13:04 / 29.08.03

mixmage, re riddle 4. is there water on the floor?

13:35 / 29.08.03

heh... told ya they were oldies!

hanna bi: Yes. job done.
Unheimlich: Yes. you heard this before?

okay... here's a tough one. (unless you already know it)

5. "A one-armed man delivers a package, smiles then walks away."

13:37 / 29.08.03

That's the plot of Bad Day At Black Rock, isn't it?

14:09 / 29.08.03

heh... a similar point of departure, it seems. Not having seen the movie, I'm relying on synopses here.

No. This is not Bad Day at Black Rock

15:07 / 29.08.03

Heh, before I read Jack's answer I was going to say:

"The Prince puts his hand in the bag and says, before withdrawing it: 'First, here's the one I DON'T want."

mixmage: is that the entire riddle? What are we supposed to be trying to work out?

15:17 / 29.08.03

Has everyone heard the "Fire from ice - think, think!" one that RAW quotes and was used in a wilderness survival film with one of the Baldwins and Anthony Hopkins?

The answer's so easy and so obvious. However, I'd like to know if it really works, in practice.

15:26 / 29.08.03

Alec Baldwin. The Edge, that was, written by David Mamet & directed by Lee Tamahori.

15:27 / 29.08.03

Thank you, Jack.

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