Monday, May 28, 2012

Solving Conundrums Part 2


- Hints (including clarifications) to Solving Conundrums Part 1

The First Conundrum
Restatement of the problem:
How many of the alternatives in this question is/are correct?
A) 1 of the alternatives
B) 2 of the alternatives
C) 0 of the alternatives
D) 1 of the alternatives

The Second Conundrum
This solution is supposed to only use a question referring twice to the brother who is alive. This one is connected to the third conundrum.

The Third Conundrum
This question is related to the post on Limitations of Logic

The Fourth Conundrum
The wikipedia-page on this (unexpected hanging paradox) is the worst I have seen. It is a lot simpler than that. Start with defining surprised.

If you think something (H) will happen (or not), there are four possible outcomes with respect to your information:
You said H would happen, and it does -> you're right
You said H would not happen, and it does not -> you're right
You said H would happen, but it does not happen -> False Positive
You said H would not happen, but it does happen -> False Negative
Are you surprised when you do a false negative, or are you surprised whenever you do either a false negative or a false positive?

2 comments:

  1. http://lesswrong.com/lw/3zd/resolving_the_unexpected_hanging_paradox/

    I'll be working my way through it and see if they've found the sensible resolution; the linked page includes links to published papers on the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Addendum: No, they're not doing much better over there than on the 'pedia. There are a few posts which almost touch on what I consider to be the proper resolution, but they give so little detail that one can't be sure. I'll give the article a try too, I guess.

    ReplyDelete