Leaky logic

Logic Level 3

Samuel tells Samuel's friend Bardimun that Sarah is unable to lie and that Sarah said Samuel was going to lie at least once to Bardimun after Samuel left Sarah . Samuel asked Bardimun if Bardimun knew if Samuel was lying.

Was Samuel telling the truth? What is the most we can know about how honest Samuel and Sarah were based upon Samuel's statements?

Assume Samuel does not talk to Bardimun for anything else other than this.

Yes, Sarah was telling the truth. We cannot determine anything about the honesty of either Sarah or Samuel from the given information. Yes, but Sarah was lying. No, we cannot determine anything about Sarah. No, Samuel and Sarah were lying. No, Sarah was telling the truth but bardimin lied.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

If Samuel was truthful then you would at first think there must be a paradox until you realize that Sarah did not specify when in the future Samuel would lie...Her statement could be true and Samuel could be telling the truth if he was going to lie after he made the statements described in the problem. One might suspect that the correct answer is that Samuel is lying, because of the paradox of his saying that someone who only tells the truth said he was going to lie...in that case we cannot determine anything about Sarah, as he may have even lied about her having made the statements. As both are completely valid we cannot tell anything about the truthfulness of Sarah and Sam other than that Sam cannot be telling the truth if Sarah was lying...I didn't include anything about that in the answer choices, but there was only one answer that admitted that no truthfulness was determinable from only the given answer...and thusly one correct one.

The question specifically states that the characters do not speak each other for anything else, so Samuel must be lying during that conversation, (if Sarah is telling the truth) or must be lying (if Sarah is not unable to lie), either way, he's not being truthful!

Dan Heller - 5 years, 5 months ago

Log in to reply

I apologize, the problem was adapted by the brilliant staff, meaning the answer listed as correct no longer is.

George Becker Rust - 5 years, 4 months ago

Log in to reply

I have replaced the ambiguity, so the problem is now presented as intended. Solvers were expected to realize that no such statement​ was made,

George Becker Rust - 5 years, 4 months ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...