[extropy-chat] Petals around the rose

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:57 AM 6/5/2004 -0700, Spike wrote:


>I agree with
>Damien's suggested rewording of the question however.

The trouble with that, though, is that it probably provides too *much* 
information. It's hard to get the right balance. Consider




SPOILER




























A test that shows, say, three ordinary men and two horses. The question is:

How many legs on the man?

And the answer is 6.

You'd get it quickly enough, I guess, gritting your teeth.

But suppose one of the men was one-legged, and next time two of them were 
one-legged. You'd surely start out convinced that the puzzle must be 
focussing on him as the anomalous candidate, right? And fart about wasting 
guesses.

And so on.

Damien Broderick