30 replies to this topic

[bonanova]

But the student in the first chair gets to guess first, no? So, if I walk in with the fairness assumption, then I don't really even need to see what the other two students have on their heads in order to determine what mine are.

Spoiler for but does that really work?

First, If the students do as the OP requires, they are not entitled to guess.

If your student who wants the first chair reasons, before stamps have been placed, that he will receive mixed color stamps, then his answer is not based on what he sees nor on the responses of the other students.

Furthermore his reasoning may be incorrect.

He reasons: this is a logic class, and the teacher is fair. But is it a test of logic not to present a rich set of possibilities from which, based on reasoning, a student determines a most favorable chair? And if you say that's what the student who reasons that fairness demands symmetry [and there is only one symmetric case] has done, then: [1] it's not much of a logic test, and [2] it is the teacher, not the students nor their logic, for if these premises are valid they all would want to have chair 1, who is determining the "winner", by allowing one student choose it. Fairness would not permit that.

Only if it is the case that it requires analysis of all possible distributions of stamps to disclose a favorable chair would it [1] be a fair test of logic and [2] be fair to let a student have the choice of where to sit.

Finally, the OP does not state the teacher is fair.