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This what my thought process:
We want to give the beta to a starcraft player, hence we must know from this one yes or no question who the person questioned is(SC player or HoN). That is, we must know if the person being questioned is a 'truth teller or a liar', or a HoN player. So I need to think of a question where the truth and liar will be the same and the HoN player is different than the other two. Since the HoN player can be yes or no and exhausts both answers as per the following quote, it provides no way of knowing a consistent response and can always be either or:
-The HoN player really wants that beta key so he's willing to lie or tell the truth whenever he feels like it.
Hence it is impossible to differentiate between the two groups (SC and HoN) and thinking about the question doesn't even to exist. It's not possible with the given information. Hope i'm right :-D
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On February 13 2010 03:15 Phrujbaz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2010 03:08 XeliN wrote:
One aspect of what I am saying is that you can never be certain that the person you are asking is the HoN dude no matter what the response. That is not a problem if you ALWAYS give the key to one of the two people you are not asking.
The only situation on which you would give the key to one of the two people you are not asking is if you are sure the person being asked IS the HoN player
Therefore it is a problem still as you can never ask one of the individuals a question which would single out the HoN player//you can never be sure the person being asked is the HoN player.
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-The contestants are complete strangers, they don't know anything about each other at all
The answer is highly dependent on what this means. Do they know that they're the only 3 people, do they know that there's 2 starcraft and 1 HoN?
The breakdown is you can't rely on the answer of the person you're asking*. So you must choose the other 2.
But the other person doesn't know anything about the other 2. Therefore you have to create interaction. Ask your person to choose one of the other two (you watch) and ask him a yes/no question to be chosen, and answer whether the person HE asked said yes/no.
*If that's illegal, then you lie to the person you're asking about, say the conditions of the contest. Like I have two keys, I'm giving one to the HoN player and one to a starcraft player, are you the HoN player?
Or you could lie about the status of the other two players. Like there's two HoN players, but I only want to give it to a HoN player. Are you one of them? Technically that question doesn't work, but you could do something of the sort.
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On February 13 2010 03:26 XeliN wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2010 03:15 Phrujbaz wrote:On February 13 2010 03:08 XeliN wrote:
One aspect of what I am saying is that you can never be certain that the person you are asking is the HoN dude no matter what the response. That is not a problem if you ALWAYS give the key to one of the two people you are not asking. The only situation on which you would give the key to one of the two people you are not asking is if you are sure the person being asked IS the HoN player Therefore it is a problem still as you can never ask one of the individuals a question which would single out the HoN player//you can never be sure the person being asked is the HoN player.
You are making a mistake of logic. We do not need to be sure the person we are asking is the HoN player. We just need to make sure the person we are giving the key to is not the HoN player. If, by some mechanism, player A reveals player C is the HoN player, then we can safely give B the key. Even though we cannot trust player A's answer, because he could be the HoN player, we can still safely give B the key because he would still be a starcraft player in that case.
The real issue is how to make player A reveal player C is the HoN player, if player A does not know anything about players B and C?
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Creating interaction doesn't help either, player A cannot figure out which of player B or C is the HoN player, because they could both answer the same.
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If the HoN player does not answer randomly, but can be tricked into revealing information, then it becomes a psychology problem not a logic puzzle. You have to guess things like "how smart is the HoN player"
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I'm not sure whether my answering the questions will point you too much in the direction of the answer so just assume everything here is a spoiler or a big hint even though it may not be.
+ Show Spoiler +@Klive Actually your previous attempt was interesting. In fact I'm even going to go as far as to say it's very close to the actual solution. @L HoN player can lie/tell the truth whenever. I think this is actually a big hint so I will spoiler it again + Show Spoiler +you have to account for situation where he lies to answer the question, and another where he doesn't lie to answer that same question -- and your conclusion should not change regardless of what he does. a tall order, i know. @Bone_Idle Probably when I post my next one. @igotmyown I'm not sure how to unambiguously describe what "they dont know anything about each other" means. Consider that they cannot answer questions of the nature "would this other dude over here lie if i asked him X" because they don't know. I guess they are aware there are other people, but beyond that there's nothing. Just pretend it really is 3 strangers, and that's all. That's the best way I can think of it. @phrubjbaz yes, that's a very important point. Remember, you're not trying to determine who the HoN player is. You're trying to determine who the HoN player is NOT. A fine line, but it makes all the difference in this puzzle. And no this is not a psychology problem.
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On February 13 2010 03:52 JeeJee wrote:
[spoiler]@Klive Actually your previous attempt was interesting. In fact I'm even going to go as far as to say it's very close to the actual solution.
Which previous attempt? I've a sneaking suspicion that you're describing my attempt that he was the first person to quote, and my ego won't stand for not getting the credit, if so!
@igotmyown I'm not sure how to unambiguously describe what "they dont know anything about each other" means. Consider that they cannot answer questions of the nature "would this other dude over here lie if i asked him X" because they don't know. I guess they are aware there are other people, but beyond that there's nothing. Just pretend it really is 3 strangers, and that's all. That's the best way I can think of it.
Can I ask one of the contestants to ask the others questions and report back with the answers (providing that it comes out as a single yes/no answer, of course)?
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Can I ask one of the contestants to ask the others questions and report back with the answers (providing that it comes out as a single yes/no answer, of course)?
I will say that the answer I have in mind does not require this, but I also haven't thought of trying it like that. So I'd like to see what you can come up with, and if it works, then great!
edit: of course I am keeping the restriction of only one question being asked. I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but if it's something like "hey person A. Ask person B <insert yes/no qusetion> and tell me what he says" then go ahead.
@MoC they can't answer that, they're complete strangers. they would have no idea what the other person would say. Unless I'm mis-interpreting it?
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Germany2896 Posts
+ Show Spoiler +
Obviously you can't give it to the player you asked.
Ask A: What would the other Starcraft player say if I asked him if B is a Starcraft player?
Answer yes: Give it to C, answer no: Give it to B
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So my answer wasn't it?
I'll repost it so you don't have to search for it
"I will give you the beta key to you if you are willing to tell a lie for me, would you do it?"
Liar: would lie, says opposite: no
Truth: wouldn't lie, says so, no
HoN player: wants key, saying yes is in his best interests
*edit* Just realised Slayer91 already posted this question page 1 anyway, o well
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United States47024 Posts
On February 13 2010 04:16 MasterOfChaos wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Obviously you can't give it to the player you asked.
Ask A: What would the other Starcraft player say if I asked him if B is a Starcraft player?
Answer yes: Give it to C, answer no: Give it to B
I thought it was established before that none of the other players know anything about one another?
EDIT: I like Handfish's answer. Even if it isn't it, I like it.
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Germany2896 Posts
On February 13 2010 04:20 TheYango wrote:
I thought it was established before that none of the other players know anything about one another?
I'd say it is impossible then, unless you go for some rule tricks(like players are allowed to not answer at all, or giving them instructions).
Proof:
If you ask the HoN player, you don't gain any info from his answer, so you must give it to one of the other players.
If you ask an SC player, neither you, nor him knows which of the others is the SC player, so you can't succeed with certainty.
edit1: You can win it using psychological assumptions, but never with certainty. For example the assumption that the HoN player believes that what you are saying is true.
edit2: handfish uses this assumption
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On February 13 2010 04:19 HaNdFisH wrote:
So my answer wasn't it?
I'll repost it so you don't have to search for it
"I will give you the beta key to you if you are willing to tell a lie for me, would you do it?"
Liar: would lie, says opposite: no
Truth: wouldn't lie, says so, no
HoN player: wants key, saying yes is in his best interests
That's an interesting answer.
However.. there's kind of an implicit assumption that the HoN player is telling the truth about his capacity to lie. He could lie about his capacity to lie and even though he's willing to lie, he could say 'no'. I'm not sure if that makes sense?
it seems to me this is more of a psychological answer as you're playing off of what is in the "best interests" of the HoN player, correct me if I'm wrong.
This isn't intended to be a psychology problem
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So do the three players know how many of them play HoN and how many of them play SC?
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So does the HoN player always either tell the truth or lie?
If that's the case, then
+ Show Spoiler +The question to ask is: If I asked you "Are you a HoN player?" would you say yes?
If he's a truth-teller, he's not a HoN player, so he would say no to the 1st part of the question. Since he won't say Yes to the 2nd part of the question, he'd answer No.
If he's a liar, he's not a HoN player, so he would say yes to the 1st part of the question. But to the 2nd part of the question if he says yes, he'd be telling the truth so he'd also answer No.
If he's the HoN player, he can either tell the truth or lie.
a) If truth, he'd say yes to the 1st part of the question. And in the 2nd part of the question he'd also say yes, so he will answer Yes.
b) If lie, he'd say no to the 1st part of the question. However, he would lie for the 2nd part of the question and answer Yes.
So in the end, you'd give it to the guy who answers No to the question.
But this is assuming the HoN player doesn't answer randomly and always either tells the truth or a lie. If this fails, odds are still with you, so GAMBLEEEEEEE.
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I guess to avoid the whole 'hmm what can I ask such that if I ask the HoN player I can make him lie/tell the truth' line of thinking (it is not intended to be a psychological exercise), let's just put it the way someone else did earlier in the thread -- if you happen to pick the HoN player, he is going to flip a fair coin where heads = him lying, and tails = him telling the truth. You can't see the coin or anything of course.
Correct me if this changes the puzzle in any way, although I don't think it does.
re:mayorITC, no they don't know anything about the other 2 contestants.
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well, it's interesting, if you ask the question "if i were to ask you if you played sc, would you say yes?" the both sc players say yes. but that doesnt really help you since the other guy could say yes too.
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On February 13 2010 05:11 JeeJee wrote:
I guess to avoid the whole 'hmm what can I ask such that if I ask the HoN player I can make him lie/tell the truth' line of thinking (it is not intended to be a psychological exercise), let's just put it the way someone else did earlier in the thread -- if you happen to pick the HoN player, he is going to flip a fair coin where heads = him lying, and tails = him telling the truth. You can't see the coin or anything of course.
Correct me if this changes the puzzle in any way, although I don't think it does.
re:mayorITC, no they don't know anything about the other 2 contestants.
This makes it really difficult because there's nothing separating the SC players' answers and the HoN player's answer.
I'm terribly confused lol
EDIT: What if your question gives away that there are two SC players and one HoN player haha
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EPT
