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Cinemaphobe's Paradoxes


Cinemaphobe

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This thread is devoted to the paradoxes I created in order to test my hypotheses about thought patterns. You will not find the answer to my paradoxes anywhere else on the internet because they are completely original. These are not trick questions, nor are they counter-intuitive. Math will not help here either, as these are paradoxes, not mathematical riddles. Reasoning alone is the solution. Okay, here we go. Here are your objectives.

 

1. Prove why this is a paradox.

2. Provide logical reasoning proving the amount of chocolates Susan ate.

 

 

Three children: Jen, Bob, and Susan stumble upon a box of chocolates lying on the ground. All of them love chocolate, and so open the box. There are 10 chocolates in the box. Jen ate two chocolates, and Susan greedily eats three times as many chocolates as Bob. In the end, all 10 of the chocolates were eaten. How many chocolates did Susan eat if Bob didn’t eat 2?

 

 

If you can't develop an argument proving how many chocolates Susan ate, then any comment about your suspicions or thoughts will be helpful. This shouldn't be too difficult.

 

 

I'll post the answer to this paradox on 4/28/15

 

 

 

EDIT: Can someone please solve this? I posted it in every FB math and logic group I'm in and NOBODY has figured it out so far and I hate being the only one who knows the answer...

DOUBLE-EDIT: I resorted to emailing professors this paradox...

TRIPLE-EDIT: A Nigerian college student solved the paradox in 10 minutes, so this is possible to solve :)

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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Only thing i can think of from the get go is the most obvious one:

no one said that they didn't eat any chocolate not from the box

. Though this one is rather silly and probably wrong. But otherwise it's mathematically impossible.

現実に抗え!

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Only thing i can think of from the get go is the most obvious one:

no one said that they didn't eat any chocolate not from the box

. Though this one is rather silly and probably wrong. But otherwise it's mathematically impossible.

 

 

That possibility is correct, however that is not the answer because it is counter-intuitive. Everything in this paradox is concrete. There are no hidden chocolates, there are no hidden people, everything is as it is. Your answer wasn't silly--or even wrong for that matter, but there are no external factors in this.

 

 

Thank you for your input.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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This Is not mathematically possible to resolve, unless I implied the chocolates are not a discrete variable

In the end, all 10 of the chocolates were eaten.

So, the chocolates were eaten, but not entirely; not specified in the statement

Using "chocolates" like a continuos variable:

Having said that Bob could haver eaten 1.99 chocolates, while susan three times, ie 5.97

In total, 9.96 were eaten

All of this sounds really silly, but I didn't break any rule in the statement, right?

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Ok, several thoughts:

x + 3x + 2 = 10

x is equal to 2

 

But since the OP specifically says x is not 2, my next thought is that x is equal to 0. 3*0 is 0, so after Susan and Bob are done with the box, there are eight chocolates remaining, which are then eaten either by Jen in a separate session from her original 2, or by a fourth party.

 

But then the OP says that this is not a trick question, and that math will not help.

 

Before I go further, I should ask what a paradox is. Because I tend to think of a paradox as something like this:

 

The below statement is false.

The above statement as true.

 

Or if not that, this:

paradoxtg3.jpg

 

But a quick google search tells me that there's such a thing as a literary paradox, which is something like this:

"I can resist anything but temptation." – Oscar Wilde

or

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - Animal Farm

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

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This Is not mathematically possible to resolve, unless I implied the chocolates are not a discrete variable

 

The chocolates are measured in good ole' whole numbers. No decimals or equations involved. Only first grade math and pure, undiluted logic, as I said in the OP.

 

So, the chocolates were eaten, but not entirely; not specified in the statement

Using "chocolates" like a continuos variable:

Having said that Bob could haver eaten 1.99 chocolates, while susan three times, ie 5.97

In total, 9.96 were eaten

All of this sounds really silly, but I didn't break any rule in the statement, right?

 

As I said, math will not help you here, and Susan ate exactly 3 times what Bob ate.

 

 

Ok, several thoughts:

x + 3x + 2 = 10

x is equal to 2

 

But since the OP specifically says x is not 2, my next thought is that x is equal to 0. 3*0 is 0, so after Susan and Bob are done with the box, there are eight chocolates remaining, which are then eaten either by Jen in a separate session from her original 2, or by a fourth party.

 

Remember that there are no external factors, but this answer was so close to being correct that it made my heart skip a beat. Out of the dozens of people who are trying to figure this out, you might be the first to get it.

 

But then the OP says that this is not a trick question, and that math will not help.

 

And that is very true. But of course simple math can help a little bit, but this math is really just straight-forward logic.

 

 

Before I go further, I should ask what a paradox is. Because I tend to think of a paradox as something like this:

 

The below statement is false.

The above statement as true.

 

Or if not that, this:

paradoxtg3.jpg

 

But a quick google search tells me that there's such a thing as a literary paradox, which is something like this:

"I can resist anything but temptation." – Oscar Wilde

or

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." - Animal Farm

 

This is a logical paradox, and can be defined as a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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Is it possible that in addition to eating three times what Bob ate, Susan also ate four times what Jen ate?

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

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All I can think of is to play on the ambiguity of "Bob didn't eat two." Meaning that out of the chocolates that Bob had (let's assume four for this to work), he didn't eat two of them. Jen eats the two Bob had left over and Susie still eats the remaining six.

My Tulpa

And then it cuts to a scene where you're sitting in a padded cell.

 

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Sushi actually got the question correct originally when he said that Jen ate all of the chocolates.

 

 

The paradox is that Susan and Bob never ate chocolates to begin with. But this isn't counter-intuition. We can prove this. Bob did not eat two chocolates, therefore it is impossible for him to have eaten any number of chocolates other than two in consideration of how many times more chocolates Susan ate and how many chocolates there were in the box.

Susan ate 3 times more than Bob, 3x0=0, which means that it is impossible for her to eat 3 times more than him . Therefore she didn't eat at all. Technically the fact that she ate 3 times more still holds true, but mathematically, she ate none.

 

Jen ate two chocolates. I provided this fact only to bring Susan and Bob into the picture, thus creating two impossibilities. Whether Jen ate two or not is completely irrelevant; it is impossible for Susan or Bob to have eaten any chocolate, so Jen had to have eaten it all for herself. Jen is the only one who ate, so it is logical to conclude that she is the only one who finished off the entire box of chocolates. After all, why would Bob and Susan eat from a random box of chocolates they found on the ground?

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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