The problem of logic based on the laws of induction. PROBLEM There is a valley isolated from the rest of the world with exactly 1000 tribes people living in the valley. 900 of them have red eyes and 100 of them have blue eyes, but none of them know that because every individual can only see 999 other people. Note they know that it is possible to have an eye colour other than blue and red, but they do not know whether they have that eye colour or not. All the tribes people have perfect logic, as in they know how each other think, for example "I know that you know what I know." They are all devout followers of their religion that dictates that they must never discuss eye colour, and if they find out their own eye colour, they must commit ritual suicide at the noon of the following day. There are no reflective surfaces anywhere in the valley. Then one day, a foreigner who has gained the trust from the tribe, gives a speech of gratitude. And says "It is quite remarkable that I find someone else like me with blue eyes in this region. He is ignorant of their religion. ps. CONFUSION due to some confusion I have decided to edit in this part. "Note they know that it is possible to have an eye colour other than blue and red, but they do not know whether they have that eye colour or not." "Hint, time is everything" The Outcome What will happen on the island? As an incentive I will offer a reward of 5 diamonds for the first person to solve it and explain their logic although this is not a competition.
Okay. It took me a while to come up with something, but I finally did. In the meantime, I've learned a lot about inductive reasoning and the general psychology behind the human thinking process haha. I am starting to self-study for the AP Psychology test so I do feel obliged to implement some of that very philosophy. Human nature actually displays two primary methods of understanding and creating the reality in which surrounds us, referred to as inductive and deductive reasoning. Deduction is sort of like reduction which would infer that as time passes you start with a collection of information and narrow it down to a specific observation or purpose. You probably already know this. But induction is a different method of gathering information where our knowledge increases with the more information that we know. The problem with induction is that the user is confined to a certain level of knowledge until exposed by an external force or source. This would mean that until an external force is applied to an inductive circuit, the user could be running off of mislead information. An example of this can be displayed with the concept of racism where a foreigner goes to another country and runs into a group of rude natives. Having a horrible experience, he assumes all of the natives are rude and dangerous and therefore he avoids them. The laws of induction would dictate that until he meets more natives and increases his sample size, his reality would be built around the idea that the natives of that particular country are therefore unfriendly and hostile. So, when we encounter a situation that makes us use inductive reasoning there's a more effective method to doing this. Let's say we have bought a new Wii U because the new Super Smash Brothers looks awesome and it is also on sale. Inductive reasoning needs to start with the a foundational idea so rather than saying the Wii U is $$$ much money, we will buy it because it is on sale, because its on black friday, etc. Rather inductive reasoning starts at the foundational premise that 1) its black friday 2) its on sale 3) Wii U is this much when really it is $$$ much 4) best christmas ever! We go through this correct process of inductive reasoning every single day, the reason why we don't consciously realize it is because our brains are subconsciously going through the steps and going through them throughout the entire day. Therefore one of our decisions that we make could have been a series of inductive observations that had spanned our whole lives because change is our world's only true constant. Looking back at our Wii U example (I know it was pretty sloppy), we would be at a store and see a Wii U and be like OMG I wanna buy it, but if we think about the subtile subconscious decisions that we had made based on inductive observations, we would find that 1) we got out of the house because it was Black Friday 2) we entered the Best Buy because we knew that it was having a sale 3) we wanted a Wii U because of, who knows what 4) [the step that our conscious brains tell us] We decide to buy the Wii U (seemingly spontaneously) because of steps 1 - 3 which our conscious minds may not fully realize. This suggests that we never really make split decision on the fly. That because our reality and minds are always in a closed circuit, that no decision that we make in the future is ever seemingly completely random. The moment that an external idea penetrates our mental (inductive) circuit, it will always enter at a vantage point, or a connection (imagine a circle and it adds a little to the circumference of the circle) of both ends. I find this somewhat overwhelming because with this idea of induction, that would mean that no matter what our experiences will literally weigh down our bodies and minds cause they become apart of our reality. This is kinda like a ranked game of League of Legends or a Lawyer's track record. Lets say a new lawyer has just started off by doing 5 cases and he loses those 5 cases. He is 0 for 5 and therefore at a 0% winning streak. He doesn't give up, however, and then wins his next 95 cases. That means out of 100 cases he has won 95 and those 5 loses are to always be on his track record but it makes up the very fabric of his career's existence (no matter how small its sphere of influence). Getting to your island idea, we have now described a closed circuit where we have 1000 tribal natives, 900 which have red eyes and 100 which have blue eyes. The thing is, each individual (sober in thought and 100% logical) can see 999 pairs of eyes but not there own because there aren't any reflective surfaces. If they do know the color of their eyes they will then have a ritual sacrifice the next day. An external force (foreigner) enters in and (without knowing the culture's customs) tells everyone that he is grateful to see that there are other blue eye'd people in this valley - what kind of effect does it have on the community? 1) the first thing is that nothing could happen because they don't know that there are 100 people with blue eyes in the community. 2) if they knew that there were 100 blue eye'd people in the community, then there would be a problem. Through logical observation the next day if no one has killed themselves then a person will assume that they have blue eyes because there are at least 100 people with blue eyes and therefore the next day one person will have logically found out that they MUST have blue eyes and then commit ritual sacrifice. The next day everyone will know that there are now 99 people with blue eyes left and every single day there will be a person who kills themselves until 100 people have died because they would have logically thought that if no one else is killing themselves then they must have blue eyes or be ONE of those people that has blue eyes. The thing that just baffles my mind is that if the laws of induction state that a more specific knowledge comes from the addition of more information. But in this situation, even though we have increased knowledge we lost 100 people in the process. This would question the value of information placed on a society or even on individual basis. Even though I know this is an extremely hypothetical situation, how valuable was knowing the people with blue eyes? Even though it seems like the addition of knowledge came with the price of subtraction of tribal members the laws of induction still apply that no matter what you will always be adding to a system and never taking away. The reason why I say this is because the remaining 900 people within the community all gain the knowledge of 100 people that had blue eyes (even though that knowledge is seemingly pointless) it begs to ask the question of how valuable is a human life compared to us being more knowledgeable. We may think that this is a super extreme example but there are times in our lives where we will step on others around us for the sake of our growth and addition to our circuit. Therefore each community member (900 that remain) will receive 100 "knowledge points." Seems sort of useless or not a fair trade right? But that brings up so many other concepts and ideas such like matter not being able to be created or destroyed but instead changed. And the laws of energy would dictate that heat is the next form that energy takes and even though its useless (like the knowledge of the 100 people who died) that is just because that concentration of energy has then dispersed and scattered to which those 900 community members will never fully be able to utilize. Confused? I could say the same. But this idea can be cross-referenced with energy that plants get from the sun. They create energy using the sun's rays and when we eat plants we get (lets say 90%) of the solar energy, but if something eats us they won't be receiving the full 90% of the solar energy because a lot of it was used to keep us alive. All I am trying to say is that we're all connected in a series of levels of inductive circuits and this world is even a circuit itself! If there is one thing you can get out of this response is that I probably overthink things sometimes... maybe? Lol. Lemme think about that. I want to know what you think about this situation.
:O brilliant answer... I didn't really mean it to be a psychological question. "1) the first thing is that nothing could happen because they don't know that there are 100 people with blue eyes in the community." That is definitely an arguable side, but unfortunately not the answer that I am looking for when you consider that every tribesperson has perfect logic.
Hmm. Interesting. See, that was the part that confused me a little regarding logic and the situation. Because I feel like it has some holes in it, but that may as well be intentional. I'm not quite sure. Do they know that there are at least 100 people with blue eyes? If not, then that first answer would apply, even still with their so-called "perfect" logic.
They don't know as they can only see 999 other people, but if no one answers it correctly in a week, I will explain the answer, and the reasoning behind it.
I came up with 2 1/2 conclusions. Either: #1. This would be adding on to pizza's conclusion on how eventually all of the blue eyed people commit suicide. After all the blue people die, the rest of the people left (red eyed people) realize that they are not blue as there is only blue left. Therefore the red eyed tribes people have figured out what they are and they all too must commit suicide. Everyone dies. (not sure about the foreigner, but most likely not because of course he is after all, ignorant of the religion.) #2. It will not take any effect on the tribes people because they know that some people have red eyes and others have blue eyes, but the tribes people do not know who, or what group of people he is reffering to, or even are knowledgable what a tribes person's oneself is. #1/2. Adding on to conclustion number three, the tribes people do not like how the foreigner has mentioned eye color, therefore the foreigner looses the tribe's trust and is expelled off the valley or maybe even becomes a sacrifice because he is forced by the tribe, or maybe even the foreigner gets a death sentence.
Yeah~ I mean, assuming that this is a hypothetical situation, I would say that nothing would happen besides a bit of discomfort. My reasoning being that he did not specifically indicate someone's eye color, like you said, thus nobody was inclined to commit suicide. Also, if the tribe people had logical minds and acted rationally, they would consider the ignorance of the foreigner and the first point that I made and conclude that they would just tell the foreigner his fault. Unless I missed an important point lol Ughh I can't wait for xdras's answer asdfghjkl
same xD It would be a miracle if someone gets this right. This problem is driving me insane, I cannot shut up my mind as it is trying to produce conclusions that I am sure will fail.
Let me give you a hint: your second answer is on the somewhat correct path, but not the correct solution/reasoning. 1. How do they "find out" about their eye color? 2. They know who the foreigner was referring to: to the members of the tribe, specifically to the blue-eyed members of the tribe. 1/2. A good thought, but not correct because it still violated the religion which they strictly follow - so the tribal members must have to perform a ritual sacrifice. Since the foreigner isn't part of the tribe, so they cannot perform a ritual on him. Good try you guys, but try a little harder. xdras This is one of the classics and my favorite. I solved this in my "Philosophy 420: Introduction to Symbolic Logic" course in college when I was studying as an undergrad few years back. I know the solution & reasoning behind this, and there is a specific order that must be done in order to solve this, and only people who have taken any reasoning or symbolic logic course knows how to correctly solve this. I won't give out the answer or reasoning because I also want to see if you have the correct reasoning/solution to this. If anyone else get it right and explain the thorough process and the reasoning and the correct solution, I'll add in the extra 5 Diamonds making the total prize 10 Diamonds.
My theory is, once all the blue eyed tribes people commit suicide, red eyed people are left. Because the do not know their eye color and all the blue people are eliminated, which leads to this: Lets say i was a red eye person. Now that the blue are eliminated, all i see are red people. Which I would come to the conclusion that I am the last blue or that the rest of us are red. My mistake, what i mean is that the people are unsure if the foreigner is reffering to themself or not because they don't know their own eye color. I'm sorry if what i think is actually not at all near thet real answer but um you people are way older than me xD I'm not studying any philosiphy to anything. Really though. I will be in 9th grade next year. Oh well, effort counts, doesn't it?
Now think about it. EDIT: I know, and its just pure logic. Its not all pure mathematics(but it would be helpful in finding the solution if you knew this portion). So its okay if you don't have a mathematical solution with it. But you got to have a correct, thorough reasoning.
Thx for not spoiling it, I appreciate that. For all the tribes people know their own eye colour is anything, red, blue, black, orange etc. Hypothetical question. The foreigner doesn't die, the real question was more do the tribes people suicide or not? REASONING, any solution with enough mathematical proof can be correct. But I'm convinced on one of the stands. Im in grade 8.
Reasoning doesn't necessarily involve mathematics, it just involves a bit of logic. If you know permutations, then this problem is a lot easier to solve.
I'm slightly confused. Its said there are no reflective surfaces, but any liquid when still enough, can become a reflective surface. Do they have no water?
