Difference between revisions of "Talk:Blue Eyes"

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m (Rationality vs Superrationality)
(Rationality vs Superrationality)
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After that first night, both will know they both have blue eyes.<br>
 
After that first night, both will know they both have blue eyes.<br>
 
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.5|108.162.228.5]] 14:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.5|108.162.228.5]] 14:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 
== Rationality vs Superrationality ==
 
 
I believe the solution might be incorrect since it is based on rationality as opposed to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality superrationality]. The rules of puzzle indicates that everyone is perfectly logical and is aware of the fact that everyone else is perfectly logical as well. Everyone also knows the exact rules of the puzzle, which means the same starting assumptions. This means that the choices made here will follow the superrational path rather than the rational path.
 
:For example, even before the guru says there is at least one blue eyed person on the island, everyone (excluding the guru) on the island could only be in two possible states. Group A sees 100 blues, 99 browns and group B sees 99 blues, 100 browns.
 
:Group A can observe that there are at least 100 blues on the island. Each individual in group A also knows that all the 100 blue-eyed individuals must see 99 or 100 other blues (which would mean that group A person has blue eyes). There is no other possibility. It would be impossible for any of the blue eyed individuals to see less than 99 or more than 100 blue eyed individuals. Similarly, every member of group A can also assume that all the 99 brown-eyed people will see either 100 or 101 blue eyed individuals; no more, no less. This logic can be applied to B for at least 99 blues and those 99 blues will see only 98 or 99 other blues.
 
:Because of this, there is no initial presumption to trigger the cascade of events that leads to the exodus on the 100th night. Logically, by superrationality, the case of there being '''only 1''' blue eyed individual is an impossibility. That means that none of the superrational individuals would be waiting for the cascade because the information of ''at least 1 is already known through deduction''.
 
::Another way of looking at it would be if the guru had said on the first night, "There are at least 97 blue eyed people." On the first night, no one on the island can make the assumption that 98 other people are waiting for 97 people to leave the island because those 97 people see 96 blue eyed individuals as that is a logical impossibility which the perfectly logical population will never make.
 
::If the guru had instead said, "There are at least 98 blue eyed people." On the first night, those of group B know that of the 99 blue-eyed people they see, those 99 people will see either 98 or 99 other blue-eyed individuals. Now this can trigger the cascade for everyone to leave on the next night.
 
:::
 
[[User:Flewk|Flewk]] ([[User talk:Flewk|talk]]) 12:53, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 

Revision as of 13:08, 25 December 2015

Is it really incomplete on the grounds that Joel hasn't be identified? Explanations of comics 57-59 leave no more explanation of "Scott" than that he appears to be Randall's friend. The fact that we don't have a last name for him doesn't make either Scott or those comic explanations incomplete. Similarly, not have a full identifier for "Joel" in this one doesn't, in my opinion, warrant an incomplete tag. I'm removing the tag. If anyone object, revert it. Djbrasier (talk) 19:22, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

The proof for this puzzle is incomplete, if not wrong. The theorem is too weak, it should be: "Theorem: N blue eyed people with Nth order knowledge of all N people being logicians, N people having blue eyes, and any blue eyed person will leave as soon as possible after deducing they have blue eyes, will be able to leave on the Nth day." This may seem pedantic, but it really gets to the heart of the problem, which is trying to illustrate the use of orders of knowledge. In the theorem as stated, just N blue eyed people will leave on the Nth day, the proof for the inductive steps does not hold. You need to further assume that the person is able to deduce the hypothesis (which should be proven). In other words, you say X-1 people would leave on the (X-1)th day by hypothesis, so the Xth person knows he can leave on the Xth day. But you did not prove that the Xth person can actually deduce this, namely that he has all the information necessary to do so. In the correctly stated hypothesis, you then need to show that N + 1 people with (N+1)th order knowledge of all those things can deduce that the N people would leave if it was just them, and further that N+1 people have (N+1)th order knowledge of all these things. This is very important, and holds true (Since N+1th order knowledge is equivalent to knowing the N people have the Nth order knowledge necessary to fulfill the hypothesis, and by symmetry if the N logicians can figure it out the (N+1)th can too. Also, they have (N+1)th order knowledge of people leaving as soon as they can and everyone being a logician since in the proper statement of the puzzle it should be noted this is common knowledge, and the guru makes the knowledge of someone having blue eyes common knowledge.). Then you have a full proof, since you have now included that they can actually deduce the inductive step. Again, this may seem pedantic, but is really necessary both to be correct and as it illustrates the key of the puzzle, namely the guru gives 100th order knowledge of someone having blue eyes (this is the main problem people have, realizing the concrete piece of information the guru gives). Jlangy (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2015


What I don't follow here is that there's no clarification that the Guru is talking about someone different each time. Just because she says "I see someone with blue eyes" N times doesn't mean that there are N people with blue eyes; she could be talking about the same person every time, or each of two people half the time, etc. Can anyone clarify this? Thanks - 108.162.218.47 13:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


(EDIT: Observe the process of comprehension in action...or don't? I've been thinking about my own brain, with itself, long enough for one day, I'm tired.) So, maybe I am indeed just "dumb", as the wiki insists. Clearly, I do not have a perfect understanding of formal logic. But frankly, my read of this puzzle is that "formal logic" just enables you to jump to ridiculous conclusions. Let's theorize a simpler version of this puzzle. There are now only two people besides the Guru on the island, both with blue eyes. We'll call them Bill and Ted (totally bogus, I know). No matter how logical Bill and Ted might be, when Bill hears the Guru say "I see a person with blue eyes" to himself and Ted, and Bill has seen Ted's blue eyes himself, why would Bill assume anything about his own eye color? It would seem to Bill that Guru was just talking about Ted's eyes, and Ted would believe the reverse. Even knowing* that Ted would leave that night if Ted deduced he had blue eyes too, I still don't see why Bill would jump to the conclusion that the Guru was talking about him - he remains in the dark, as does Ted, and neither of them can be any more certain of anything than they previously were. Adding 98 more blue-eyed people, let alone doubling the island's population with irrelevant brown-eyers, hardly reduces the confusion.

  • This was the point at which I began to think I had understood it, but then I became unsure again. Like I said in the "edit", my brain is tired.

--So, that settles it, I do not understand how the puzzle can be true, and I'm not convinced that it actually is. Knowing Randall is, in general, smarter than me...I still do not have the ability to completely accept that he's always right, or that I'm always wrong to ignorantly question his rightness. I have long maintained that certain well-respected "systems of knowledge", of which formal logic is a textbook example, have been respected too well for too long for not-good-enough reasons. To me, they seem to be founded on an assumption which is itself founded on nothing. I'm not trying to insult Randall or anyone else, I'm just utterly failing to comprehend. I will appreciate if anyone else attempts to educate me on the subject, but I may prove an intractable student, since I am unable to extend much faith or trust (or even, on a day where my mood is worse than today, the moderate degree of politeness as I've already managed) to a teacher. 173.245.54.52 19:18, 30 October 2015 (UTC)


In your simplified version of the puzzle, Bill sees Ted has blue eyes.
Here's Bill reasoning:
- Either my eyes are blue or not.
- If my eyes are not blue, then Ted knows that his eyes are blue, because the Guru said at least one of us has blue eyes, and he'll leave the island tonight.
- Let's wait. If Ted doesn't leave tonight, that means he doesn't know his eyes are blue, and therefore my hypothesis is false.
When Bill sees Ted doesn't leave that night, he can deduce that he has blue eyes.
Ted can do the same reasoning.
After that first night, both will know they both have blue eyes.
--108.162.228.5 14:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)