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Cinemaphobe's Paradoxes


Cinemaphobe

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Not when the number in question is zero. That logic would make me a heinous murderer, as I have killed hundreds of thousands of times more people than my roommate has. It is simply an illogical thing to say. The whole thing was just a cheap trick, since it is truly illogical in a real-world situation to come to any conclusion based off the fact that 0x = 0.

 

I knew someone would bring this point up. Technically you are a heinous murderer if the amount of people you have killed is an unknown value 3 times more than another unknown value, assuming that your roomate has killed anyone in the first place.Therefore, the logic is only flawed when assumption is out of the question. When people read the Chocolate-Box paradox they assume that Bob ate an impossible value of chocolates, when it is obvious that it would be impossible for him to do so in spite of me using the word "ate", because in reality he did not in fact eat any, which is why it is called a paradox and not a riddle.

 

A cheap trick? Well paradoxes often seem like that due to the fact that they are paradoxes; events that almost transcend logical explanation due to impossibility (The fact that Jen only ate two and there are no chocolates left in the box). But you can use the impossibilities of Bob and Susan having never eaten (because it's impossible) to justify that Jen had to have eaten them all herself. Which proves the solution to the paradox.

 

 

Bob and Susan never ate the chocolates because the box was on the ground. I threw in the word "ate" to see if people would assume an impossible value in spite of reality. And they did. Because the mind isn't comfortable with venturing out of the box to disprove seemingly disprovable things. People will doubt themselves based on the usage of the word "ate" which is paradoxical. Useless facts can bring people further away from reality. Bob didn't eat any. Mathematically, he ate 0.

Susan ate 3 times more than that (greedily). Mathematically, she ate 0, logically, she ate none. Perhaps I should have specified that it was counter-intuitive, but it's obvious that consumption is impossible if you can't consume an unknown value, which is why I didn't say that the paradox was counter-intuitive. 3x0 is 0, which is pretty straight-forward. The fact that Bob ate 0 means that Susan ate 0. You can't bend reality with math to prove that Jen only ate two. Because she ate ten.

 

 

 

 

Based on your other hints, I know this isn't going to be the answer you are looking for, but it is the correct answer, nonetheless.

Because 2 seconds is within 3 seconds.

 

It is not the correct answer in any sense. You can overlap time, but you cannot overlap distance. Even if you could overlap both, which you indirectly just did, it would be impossible because speed=distance over time. Luckily, this doesn't involve any more physics than that, but you can't have distance without time unless you teleported. Object 2 traveled 10 miles. Object 1 traveled 15.

 

So using the time-distance equation (t=time, s=speed) :

 

OBJECT 1

10= t x s

10= 3 x 5

10=15

 

OBJECT 2

 

10= t x s

10= 2 x 5

10= 10

 

 

It may look like Object 1 defied some mystical law of nature, but it didn't. Despite its equation not functioning as an equation should, it is still true--Object 1 traveled 15 miles to the same location from the same point. But how? Overlapping times includes the overlapping of distances, which is mathmatically and practically impossible in this case.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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I know this isn't going to be the answer you are looking for, but it is the correct answer, nonetheless.

Because 2 seconds is within 3 seconds.

 

Exactly. I thought that was the "simple logic" here.

 

The answer seems to be something like "Trajectory" or "Size", but I don't feel like going into thesaurus mode, will leave it to you guys. Like in the riddles thread, I've done my part in giving strangely obscure yet logical answers no one else would've.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Exactly. I thought that was the "simple logic" here.

 

The answer seems to be something like "Trajectory" or "Size", but I don't feel like going into thesaurus mode, will leave it to you guys. Like in the riddles thread, I've done my part in giving strangely obscure yet logical answers no one else would've.

 

You got it Reisen!

 

Object 1 travels in a curve upwards. Object 2 travels straight ahead with very little influence of gravity. Both objects are projectiles.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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... Just for the record, you posted that post 2 minutes before me while I was still writing mine, so I never saw it. And I'd like to issue a complaint, you never said that object 2 reached point B in a different amount of time. You should've established that they didn't. Though we could've assumed what you meant, I didn't. I was unwilling to work through a solution on assumed terms.

 

So in this case, I just got it right because I happened to be here for your "They got it, but it's one word" hint. I'm more proud of my previous answer. (But not my previous previous answer...)

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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To address your complaint, the fact that they arrived at different times was the entire reason why the problem could be considered a paradox, and could be easily be derived from the information provided. I probably should have been more clear about that vital fact, but the fact wasn't obscured by any tricky wording or nonsense, so Sushi and STEek were able to catch it, and almost solve the problem.

 

They were both travelling at the same speed, from the same point, yet they arrived at different times, and there were no obstacles.

That was the problem. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

 

Object 2 was launched in a straight line directly towards Point B, and Object 1 was launched upwards at an unknown trajectory. A trajectory that would extend the time and distance it would take to travel to Point B.

 

and your previous previous answer was incorrect, but incorrect doesn't always mean that it was necessarily bad. If this was a trick question, your answer would have been correct. But you had no way of knowing whether it was a trick question or not because you had the first paradox in mind.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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I feel like you need to reread your original posting of the paradox again. You didn't even state that object 1 got there in X time, which could feasibly mean that object 2 did not as you didn't state it and it wasn't a trick question. You only asked why object 1 gets there in less than 3 seconds. Object 2 is unrelated, nothing has been stated or implied about it. We have just as much reason to assume it also arrives in less than 3 seconds (physically possible, due to the "less than") as we do it doesn't.

 

The only reason I thought this was a trick question is because they appeared to have assumed what you were asking, and I assumed you would've pored over the wording of your paradox before posting it. And I barely had a chance to look at your original riddle before it was over. My answer was entirely based on my assumption that you wouldn't have made a mistake, and that you were researching how we would think about something.

 

Anyway, it looks like the type of mistake you make where you've already established how something makes sense in your mind, so when you actually physically go over it your brain fills in any missing or incorrect information as if it's implied. But like I said, for your sake I'll try not to let that type of thing slide. Clear your mind of the subject of the riddle and read it as someone who knows nothing about it. What you meant to imply could not logically be assumed reliably. Heck, convert it into a math problem if you'd like.

At this point I hope that I'm somehow wrong due to how much emphasis I've put into it, but I'm not.

 

 

To clarify, the problem lies in "then why does Object 1 always reach Point B within 3 seconds?" being the question. The implied question is understandable obviously, as others did make the assumption. But I couldn't get past that error to even worry about the actual question. Which should be obvious, considering it's been solved and explained twice and I'm still entirely focused on something irrelevant to the answer itself. But that's because the goal here isn't the answer to a paradox, but the workings of the mind.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Ah. Well now I see what you mean.

 

I actually wrote the question while I was mentally and physically tired. I usually revise what I write to verify whether it makes sense to others, but this time my revision didn't really help because as I said, I was tired--which is a pretty bad excuse for poorly writing a paradox. Thank you for pointing it out, I'll rewrite it and make it more clear for the people who try to solve it in the future. The fact that Object 1 reached Point B in X time was something I originally felt didn't need to be included, but that's where I went wrong. Not including that opens a wide range of possibilities for Object 1 that can logically change the reality of Object 2, and complicate not only the entire question, but also the answer.

 

Thank you once again Reisen.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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I'm glad there were more posts to read after Cinema's original response to mine.

Here I am confused as to why dividing 10 by 5 is overlapping time and space.

I'm guessing he assumed I meant something that I didn't, because he didn't realize the way in which he asked the question.

 

Also, regarding the chocolate "paradox" - with the absurdity of greedily eating nothing aside - I would like to point out that a puzzle like this based purely on assumption that also has more than one possible answer is silly. How is there more than one answer, you ask? Well, because Jen could have just as soon eaten 2, and then 4 more. If Bob ate 1, and Susan ate 3 times that, then Jen could have eaten 6. And there is a solution to the problem that doesn't involve absurd use of the word "greedily", except that, in both cases, Jen ate significantly more than anyone else, so to call Susan greedy is a bit short-sighted.

 

Solving a puzzle is done based on the information you provide. It's one thing to leave out some details that can be assumed, but when your whole puzzle is based off the fact that you provided misinformation (for example "Jen ate two chocolates"), then it is not a very well-formed one. I am sure you would like to argue that you were trying to see that people would "assume" that Jen only ate 2 and no more, but that is not sound logic. With that mindset, I can twist every single detail of your puzzle to change the outcome drastically, if I assume that you do not mean exactly what you say, and that those variables do not necessarily remain constant.

To take your second puzzle for example, I could assume that Point B was 10 miles away to begin with, but moves during the time that the objects are approaching. This is no more unreasonable than assuming that Jen later ate more chocolate.

I could assume that Object 1 decelerates at some point.

I could assume that the objects and points are on a sphere that is 25 miles in circumference, and that Object 1 travels backwards, taking the 15 mile route, rather than the 10 mile route.

I could even assume that Object 1 was teleported backwards on its way to Point B.

 

The stated variables in your puzzles cannot be lies, or subject to change, as that then opens up an endless amount of possibilities for what happened, and why. Maybe you were lying about how many chocolates were in the box, or more were added later.

Maybe Point B never existed in the first place.

 

Upon reading over this, I feel that I should note that I don't intend to sound rude or mean, or anything, so I'm sorry if it has come across that way.

"If this can be avoided, it should. If it can't, then it would be better if it could be. If it happened and you're thinking back to it, try and think back further. Try not to avoid it with your mind. If any of this is possible, it may be helpful. If not, it won't be."

 

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There is no sound logic within paradoxes, that's why they are paradoxes and not puzzles. For example, drinking water from an empty cup is a paradoxical statement. However, if you have the right reasoning and information, you can conclude that either the act of drinking water never happened, that the empty cup never existed, or that the entire event never took place (which is practical, but not in the case of a puzzle where you have to figure out which event didn't take place). When you are left with two clues that directly contradict each other, you really have no choice but do determine which one couldn't have occurred based on what you already know. So let's say the person drank from an empty cup but is still thirsty. With the added detail "but is still thirsty" it is now valid to conclude that the event of the person drinking from an empty cup never occurred. However, the empty cup does exist, and the person is still thirsty.

 

Another way of expressing this, is by saying; the person drank from an empty cup, but is alone in a room without objects. One can deduce from the added detail "but is alone in a room without objects" that since the cup is an object, the cup never existed, and the person never drank, therefore something else had to have happened. But since this example takes place within an extremely closed environment, you can never conclude what really happened.

 

And by the way, if Bob and Susan actually did eat chocolates, then that would no longer make it valid to conclude that Jen ate more than two. In fact, it would make it impossible to decide who ate the remaining 4 chocolates since everyone would have the same probability of having eaten them in the first place. Not to mention the combinations of ways in which the 4 chocolates can be eaten by 3 children. The original conclusion that Jen ate all 10 was made using the logic that it's mathematically impossible to eat 3x0 chocolates. There were no chocolates left, and she is the only one who ate an actual value of chocolates, therefore she had to have been the only one to have eaten them all. The OP indirectly asks "What happened to the remaining 8 chocolates" but if Bob and Susan actually ate, then that leaves you with a new question "What happened to the remaining 4 chocolates" which can never be concluded because all of possibilities this creates. 4 chocolates cannot be divided equally amongst 3 children and the OP wants you to find a definite number of chocolates per child.

 

 

That's really all I have left to say. Everything else that needs to be said has already been said.

 

And yes I'm aware of the flawed distance puzzle. I can agree that that puzzle severely lacks important details. But The Chocolate Paradox, which is a paradox by the way and is intended to not have sound logic, is not lacking in anything. If the facts within the Chocolate Paradox agreed with each other, then it would be The Chocolate Puzzle, which would make it solvable by a simple equation.

 

Paradox: Jen only ate 2, Susan only ate 3 times as many as Bob. Bob didn't eat 2.

Answer: Can only be concluded with math and logic because every premise is impossible.

 

Puzzle: Jen only ate 2, Susan ate 3 times as many as Bob.

Answer: Can be concluded with simple algebra. Bob ate 2.

 

The impossible premise that Bob did not eat 2 is what blurs reality, and increases the odds of assumption.

 

EDIT: You did come off as rude in your original post by the way (which really surprised me because I never saw you as a rude person). I tend to reciprocate rudeness though. But at least you apologized. I guess I should apologize for reciprocating the interpreted rudeness then.

 

DOUBLE-EDIT: I honestly don't think we'll ever agree on the definition of 'paradox'

 

TRIPLE-EDIT: For a moment I thought that you actually proved that the paradox was a puzzle, but then you would never be able to conclude who ate the last 4 chocolates unless you had more information, which in the closed scenario of Bob, Susan, and Jen, doesn't exist. You had to prove how many Bob and Susan ate, which is impossible, which leads to proving how much Jen ate. If I originally asked "How many did Jen, Bob, and Susan eat?" Then nobody would believe that she ate 2. She did eat 2 technically, just as Bob ate 0, but Jen also had to have eaten 8 more if nobody else ate.

 

QUADRUPLE EDIT: Susan did in fact eat 3 times more than Bob, even though Bob impossibly ate 0. So saying that she is greedy isn't too short-sighted, or far-fetched for that matter. For a person assuming that Bob and Susan actually ate, Susan would be greedy. For a person who knows that its impossible for them to have eaten, then Susan would not be greedy. Once again though, the usage of the word 'greedy' does not change the reality of what happened.

"Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative."

 

Yumi + Cinema

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Oh wow I was about to say this is impossible. good job there. Dammit. If Bob and Susan didn't eat any chocolate, this makes total sense. This would happen if I had chocolate and two friends.... hahahaha.

My lip hurts.

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