Aeiea
Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.
You are a traveler and stop in an inn to rest. While you sit by the fire, you meet another traveler, who introduces herself as Aeiea. You begin a pleasant conversation, and exchange information about why you are travelling. She says that she is travelling in search of gold that her ancestors buried, and if you come with her she will share it. You become excited until she adds one more comment about herself. "Oh, I do need to tell you one thing. I always lie."
Now you need to figure out two things:
1) Is Aeiea telling the truth or lying when she says she always lies?
2) Can you trust her story?
HintIt's not as hard as it might seem at first. Think CAREFULLY about what would be the case if she lied or told the truth with her final statement. Try not to make assumptions.
Hide
Answer
1) Aeiea is lying.
It's really fairly simple. If Aeiea is telling the truth, that means that she does not ALWAYS lie, because then the statement would be false. It leaves that Aeiea must be lying when she says that she always lies. A common misconception is that if she is lying about always lying, that means she must always tell the truth, and if that were the case then neither case would be possible. However, she doesn't have to ALWAYS tell the truth if she's lying about always lying, she simply has to tell the truth SOME of the time.
2) Taking into account the answer to number one, you cannot trust her story, as she does lie some of the time, not to mention the fact that she is obviously willing to lie to YOU.
Hide
Comments
inudbz  
Mar 16, 2003
| i thought it was a paradox. |
Christina0213
Mar 16, 2003
| Nope. That's why this is a riddle at all; that's what people think at first. They think that if someone is lying about lying all of the time, that has to mean they tell the truth all of the time: it doesn't.  |
griphook 
Mar 16, 2003
| Very cool. More. |
OD-1 
Mar 19, 2003
| GOOD TEASER.TOOK ME A WHILE JUST TO SAY THE GIRLS NAME THOUGH, IN FACT I STILL CAN'T SAY IT AAAEEIIIEEAAA . OH WELL GOOD TEASER. |
Christina0213
Mar 19, 2003
| Hehe, thanks. |
electronjohn 
Mar 19, 2003
| She may be lieing about the gold but if she is cute then I would likely go with her anyway. 8^) |
Skybet
Dec 10, 2004
| Isn't saying "I always lie" a paradox? because to say this then you are telling the truth and therefore dont always lie |
JasonD 
Aug 04, 2008
| inudbz & Skybet, re: "I always lie."
The sentence is *most likely* a falsehood, because practical experience tells us that even a chronic liar sometimes tells the truth.
However...
If that is the only statement a person has ever made, or if all of her other statements are, bizarrely, false... then it's a paradox.
Such paradoxes arise easily when self-referral is allowed, because self-referral is an abuse of the very concept of symbolic language. For more, check the wikipedia entry on "Liar's Paradox" and scroll down to the explanation from Alfred Tarski.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with the riddle. Characters in a riddle can and should make paradoxical and abusive statements. :-) |
Back to Top
| |
|
