Poll: Yes or No?

[arebelspy]

Reminded me of the old paradox. On one side of a small piece of paper write "The statement on the other side is TRUE" and on the other side write "The statement on the other side is FALSE". Hand it to someone and watch their reaction.

The answer is, of course, what would your brother say is the true door?

 

[NW-Bound]

Aw, Midpack, I did not start this thread to poke at your mischievous poll as much as an acknowledgment of the critical thinking of our friend ERD50. Yes, although ERD50 himself has once surmised that he might be near the top of the list of posters who get "ignored" , I have always found him to have an interesting different angle to any discussion, and most often something I did not think of, whether I agreed with it or not.

Anyway, though I am not a mathematician, I have always loved mathematics for its precision. If anyone has seen a mathematician who successfully turned into a politician, I would surely like to hear about it.

The careful manner that a mathematician would make any statement was illustrated in a story by Professor Smullyan, which I have recounted here.

 

[ERD50]

Aw, Midpack, I did not start this thread to poke at your mischievous poll as much as an acknowledgment of the critical thinking of our friend ERD50. ...

heh-heh; I guess some people didn't know what to make of my response there, and I certainly didn't know what to make of some the responses to my response.

To explain a bit, it was foremost about 50% (attempted) light-hearted humor. The second 50% was a mix of my normal habit of looking at things logically, a bit of 'game playing' analysis (like this thread, and your black sheep story - is there a 'trick' answer?), and I just couldn't resist commenting after Midpack claimed there was an 'incorrect' answer, when I suspected that his idea of 'incorrect' was not the same as mine.

And since the poll was obviously a set-up, I probably looked at the question a bit differently, and looked for a 'hook'. Was I really the only one to see that? It actually seemed very obvious to me - 'Did you answer this poll?' - 'No, not yet.' was the first thing that popped into my head.

If any of the responses to my response were showing some aggravation (it's hard to tell in a post), I would find that odd, since the OP was obviously a set-up/joke, I would think any responses (esp with my' cherry tree' comment) would be taken as joking also. But maybe not?



At any rate - here's one of my favorite unexpected answers to a question, where the answer is obviously correct (From Benny Hill):

In the final round of a television game show, the game show host keeps giving one contestant (a beautiful woman) super-easy questions, the other contestant (Benny) is asked impossibly hard questions.

The final Q: And for 1,000,000 pounds, Mr. Hill, can you name everyone who attended the 1986 Wimbledon match, their full names, addresses and phone numbers?

The answer: No, I can't - and that is the correct answer to your question!



-ERD50

 

[obgyn65]

Is this a test ?

 

[NW-Bound]

No, not a test. I just thought that the paradox created by a simple question was pretty amusing. It is fairly well known, by the way.

Paradoxes are of particular interest to mathematicians, who are always very careful about making a statement. Anything and everything has to be consistent, and proven before it can be accepted as true. He would take care to avoid a paradox, or a contradiction (which are two different things). Like I said, the opposite of a politician.

In case anyone misses the point in the sheep story I cited earlier, the mathematician's comment regarding the black sheep shows his extreme cautiousness. Here's the gist.

From the train window, the mathematician could see only one side of the black sheep, and would not haste to jump to the conclusion that the other side of the sheep would also be black. Hence, he stated that "at least one side of the sheep is black", as he really could not be sure of the other side!