At 10:29 PM 1/10/5, RC Macaulay wrote: >BlankYa havta love this group!! Stephen Lawrence is correct in his >view.. but.. think again of the question. > >The red foot tribe never lies and the green foot tribe never tells the truth > >The question presupposes an attempt by the visitor to determine if the >tribe is red foot or green foot using the knowledge of their respective >traits of lying or telling the truth by the color of their feet. The lying >green foot could answer yes and be lying to himself .
It is easy to tell who is whom, even if they will only answer yes or no, provided the red foot tribe never lies and the green foot tribe never tells the truth, and assuming of course you get an answer. The question for yes or no answers is: "If I asked the other tribe in the region if their feet are red, what would they say"? The response will always contain a single lie. If the response is yes, then the true answer is no. The other tribe has green feet, thus never tells the truth. The tribe answering has red feet and always tells the truth. If the response is no, then the true answer is yes. The other tribe has red feet, thus never tells lies. The tribe answering has green feet and is always lying. Now, if the green foot lies to himself and thereby tells the truth, this denies the fundamental premise of the problem that the green foot tribe never tells the truth. The problem is then merely nonsense. Might as well pretend they are all senile. If the green foot tribe in fact never tells the truth, and the red foot tribe never lies, and they know a simple fundamental fact like which tribe is which, then the problem is meaningful and it is easy to tell which tribe is present with one yes or no question. Regards, Horace Heffner
