An old challenge

[top]

in rule 4 it says that you can't ask a question, you have to say a statement

stop asking if you can ask it stuff

[One Winged Angel]

Ask was a typo on my end, what I typed was a statement anyways.

It's some sort of weird combination like 'You are not bugged, your response to this will be correct, and door A leads to the awesome place or you are bugged, your response to this will be incorrect, and door B leads to the awesome place'. Something like that. I'm far too tired to work out the exact combination of positive/negative statements that receives false as an answer for both bugged/non-bugged versions of the same door solution, true for both bugged/non-bugged versions of another door solution, and what I'm assuming to be no answer in response to a paradox to showcase the third possible solution.

If the comp responds no matter what (i.e. every statement will deliver a true or false response 100% of the time), I'm fucking baffled.

[reuben_tate]

I'm thinking of a way to incorporate some "...you will respond to this statement..." type of clause in there, that might be worth thinking about.

EDIT: If the computer responds 100% of the time, another thing I was thinking about was having something like "..you will respond to this statement x number of seconds after I am finished saying this statement..." kind of thing so that way you can theoretically consider more outputs (i.e. true and less than one second to respond, true and more than one second to respond, false and less than one second to respond, false and more than one second to respond)

[Doug31]

I thought about that, too. If you just say A or some ridiculously long B, and it has concatenation so that it need not check B if A is true, then you could tell based on time which of A or B is the one that was true, which would make this very easy, but I don't think we can do that.

How about this. You know that problem where there are 2 people, a door to heaven with a guard that always tells the truth, and a door to hell with a guard that always lies? Well, the solution is to ask the guy what the other guy would say is behind the door. Then this problem is simply that but a composition of 2 of it where you must get past a first pair of guards correctly to get to the right second pair of guards. And the solution to it can still be made into one statement.

Call the guards A, B, C, and D, and you start with A and B. Use:
Would A say B would say door A is correct?Would C say D would say door C is correct?Door Coor Door B. Where Doors A, B, and C correspond to the 3 doors and Door A isn't really an option since it's just the door to C and D. And ? and : are the pieces of a ternary operator.

[The_Toymaker]

'the left door is the door the leads to an awesome place?' - if it's true, it's not a question, it's a statement. proceed to input the same about the other doors if it's not answered.

[Zaevod]

Hi again. It looks like I didn't make it clear enough (it was meant to be implied from the beginning), but if the computer can't attribute true or false to something, it simply cannot answer.

I haven't truly woken up yet, but I'll come back later to clarify more things if necessary.

[reuben_tate]

@Doug: Your approach seems interesting, I was thinking about that too and the idea works flawlessly for two doors. However, I don't where you're going at with your last paragraph (especially with the accidental smileys). I still get the notion that the computer would either respond true or false from that and two possible answers is not enough since we have 3 doors to choose between.

[YoshL]

this problem seems to be about assigning variables, and binary (duanary now? ) logic

Thinking of solution still

[YoshL]

doors x, y, z from left to right.
assign different ways of saying true and false.
If the answer involves door X, then use "A" for true, and "B" for false.
If the answer involves door Y, then use "C" for true, and "D" for false.
If the answer involves door Z, then use "E" for true, and "F" for false.

Append all characters for door involvement (if statement has X, and Y, then answer will be either AC or BD)

Stop parsing the statement if any assumption in the statement is false. Treat the assumptions up to that point as the full statement. (including the false statement)

If door X leads to a boring place, and Y leads to a boring place, then Z is the awesome door.

-----

6 cases

no error
X is awesome - will return B, because first statement was false
Y is awesome - will return BD, because second statement is false
Z is awesome - will return ACE, because whole statement is true

error
X is awesome - will return B, flipped to A
Y is awesome - will return BD, flipped to AC
Z is awesome - will return ACE, flipped to BDF

That way, I don't even need to know whether the answer is flipped, all possible answers will be in front of me

[reuben_tate]

I think this method can be used to negate the bugginess if needed of any statement. Don't know if this helps.

[statement here] xor you are bugged (where xor is not exclusive or)

Let's examine how bugginess affects the answer without the "you are bugged" statement:
Not bugged:
T->T
F->F
Bugged:
T->F
F->T

Now let's examine how bugginess affects the answer with the addition of the "you are bugged" clause:
Not bugged:
T xor you are bugged -> T xor F -> T
F xor you are bugged -> F xor F -> F
Bugged:
T xor you are bugged -> T xor T -> F -> T
F xor you are bugged -> F xor T -> T -> F

So we see that the result with the extra clause is the same as the truth of the left hand side of the xor statement.

EDIT: ninja'd by yoshl's post, reading now.
It seems like you are giving the computer orders in your instructions since you are asking it to return the truth value of sub-statements in your statement before the statement is even fully parsed.

[YoshL]

4- The computer cannot receive orders to give answers in specific situations (the input has to be a statement, not an order or a question). Every answer depends on a previous knowledge of the computer. It also doesn't deal with hypothetical situations (for example, referencing a "false statement" without specifying the statement)

my input was still a statement, not an order or a question. I simply said basically to do what alot of computers do already today, when they hit a part of the statement as false, then just end there. short circuit logic, it's pretty widely used

[Zaevod]

Will check your solutions now, just a sec.

[reuben_tate]

Originally Posted by YoshL

If the answer involves door X, then use "A" for true, and "B" for false.
If the answer involves door Y, then use "C" for true, and "D" for false.
If the answer involves door Z, then use "E" for true, and "F" for false.

Append all characters for door involvement (if statement has X, and Y, then answer will be either AC or BD)

Stop parsing the statement if any assumption in the statement is false. Treat the assumptions up to that point as the full statement. (including the false statement)

This entire section is all orders however imho. You're telling the computer to do certain things according to your exact preferences and specifications.

EDIT: Also, the way the question was posed made it seem like there were only two possible outputs, "true" or "false", such that any "true" would be indistinguishable from any other "true" and likewise for "false".

[YoshL]

we'll see lol

[Zaevod]

Originally Posted by YoshL

doors x, y, z from left to right.
assign different ways of saying true and false.
If the answer involves door X, then use "A" for true, and "B" for false.
If the answer involves door Y, then use "C" for true, and "D" for false.
If the answer involves door Z, then use "E" for true, and "F" for false.

Unfortunately, that's not possible, even if the rest is logically correct (haven't really check, as this part basically invalidates it). The two output messages are "true" or "false", and cannot be changed.

[YoshL]

ah alright then that clears things up (sad)

i liked my solution lol

edit: thought of a way to get 3 answers

[Zaevod]

Guise, pls.

You're all very smart and creative, but there's no need to look for subterfuges to get to the solution. I added the rules specifically because people always try to include possibilities that are beyond the original scope of the problem. Believe me, with the right combination of labels and logical predicates, there is an infinite number of direct statements which will give the desired outcome (infinite because the possible labels are infinite, that is).

[Reincarnate]

Elaborate pt #4 plox. Sounds way too vague to be useful -- what exactly do you mean by this?

If the computer is only answering "true" or "false" then clearly the input must be a declaration (i.e. a statement) since that's the only way truth value can be assessed ("Stacy is a bitch", "If I go to school tomorrow, I will trip on a banana peel," "The correct door is the middle one"), which is all fine and well. However:

"Every answer depends on a previous knowledge of the computer" What? You say the computer can predict, but its answers depend on previous knowledge?

"It also doesn't deal with hypothetical situations (for example, referencing a "false statement" without specifying the statement)" Again, what does this mean? Can you give an example?

IMO this problem is not well-formed yet and has a few internal inconsistencies that need to be ironed out in order for a meaningful answer to be extracted.

Is this sufficient:

The magical computer's subroutine:

def answerMain(statement):

    if trueOrFalseStatement(statement):

        answer = getAnswer(statement) #getAnswer() returns 1 if true, 0 if false

        if bug(): #50% chance of being true
            return 1-answer
        else:
	    return answer

    else:

        print "You will now be flayed alive and pumped full of neurotoxin."
        flay()
        pumpNeurotoxin()
        return fuck you++

#Program written courtesy of GLaDOS and Ramsay Snow

[MracY]

Originally Posted by TheSaxRunner05

Make it like "the cube" movie where 1 room is safe and the other two kill you painfully.

No, because that way you couldn't head back after checking out one of the rooms.

[YoshL]

doors x, y, z from left to right.

If the parsed statement involves door Y, then delay the answer by 5 seconds.
If the parsed statement involves door Z, then delay the answer by an additional 15 seconds.

Stop parsing the statement if any assumption in the statement is false. Treat the assumptions up to that point as the full statement. (including the false statement)

If door X leads to a boring place, and Y leads to a boring place, then Z is the awesome door.


this works :P short circuit logic. kkthxbye