(Several days ago I wrote the post, Things I Would Like to Blog About. With today's post, I finally complete the list.)
I first heard of the island of knights and knaves when I read Raymond Smullyan's book, "What Is the Name of This Book?"
On this fictional island, knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie. So once you distinguish knights from knaves, you will always know the truthfulness of any statement.
Lew and I got into a discussion one night about how the consistency of a knave actually makes him/her somewhat "trustworthy." We can trust that a knave always lies.
Consider regular human beings, who are neither knights nor knaves. Things get a lot more complicated! Of course, some people are mostly truthful and some are habitual liars. Still, we don't have the same confidence that we would have on the island of knights and knaves.
I could go on with more thoughts about this. But I will spare you. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment