Path: news.net.uni-c.dk!newsfeeds.net.uni-c.dk!newsfeed1.uni2.dk!news.get2net.dk!not-for-mail From: "Jim Lucas" Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets,comp.lang.apl,comp.lang.awk,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.cobol,comp.lang.dylan,comp.lang.forth References: <3AACB567.A59B8497@Azonic.co.nz> <3AACE6CF.7F05484D@ieee.org> Subject: Re: Einstein's Riddle Lines: 51 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Message-ID: <0W8r6.178$fo5.14165@news.get2net.dk> Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:56:35 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.234.11.106 X-Complaints-To: abuse@danbbs.dk X-Trace: news.get2net.dk 984423164 194.234.11.106 (Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:52:44 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:52:44 MET Organization: DanBBS Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.ai.neural-nets:67535 comp.lang.apl:29372 comp.lang.awk:17100 comp.lang.beta:12741 comp.lang.cobol:102511 comp.lang.dylan:24158 comp.lang.forth:78514 "Jerry Avins" wrote ... > Richard Plinston wrote: > > > > Steve Graham wrote: > > > > > > , and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, > > > The question is: "Who owns the fish?" > > > > While the clues mention 4 pets: dog, cat, bird, horse, there is nothing > > to indicate that the 5th 'pet' is actually fish. Thus the answer may be > > 'noone', the 5th may be a goat. > > > > Other than that the problem is either unsolvable (if in fact there is > > insufficient information) or mechanistic (if there is). I suspect that > > 98% can't be bothered with it. I also don't believe that Einstein wrote > > it. > > There is insufficient accurate information to solve this. Absolutely true, but also completely false. In one sense, there's not enough information in *any* text -- including yours and mine -- to make any sense of it, whatsoever. Communication and understanding are based on assumptions of shared meaning, perception, and even reasoning processes. E.g., I assume that your message was written in English, and that our individual understandings of the words and phrases (and the abbreviation "e.g.") are sufficiently similar that I have understood your content (though perhaps not your intent), and you will understand mine. I'm inclined to think that your English is more precise than that used in stating the puzzle (could the cigar-cigaret confusion be due to inexpert translation from the German?), and using that assumption I am reasonably confident that I have understood the intended logic of the puzzle sufficiently to agree with the others who have actually solved it as to the intended meaning of all the constraints, as well as the final, unique solution. > While each individual smokes a different brand of cigar, > Pall Mall (at least) is a cigarette. So is Prince, but that doesn't require that they're not also cigar brands. I believe that Dunhill makes both cigarettes and cut tobacco, but as a non-smoker, I haven't bothered to become an expert. > Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. You must be an engineer. You got a logic puzzle, and from it you made a semantic-philosophical nit pick. I'm tempted to ask you if you can write a program to do such nit picking for you, but I'm sure that would be a *much* more difficult problem than the one attributed to Einstein (Andrew Einstein, perhaps?). :-) /Jim Lucas