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The Murderer


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I heard this one a long time ago.

A man aproaches you in a dark alley. He says,

"If you tell a lie, I will kill you with a knife. If you tell the truth, I will kill you with a gun."

What do you say to stay alive?

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I heard this one a long time ago. :mellow:

A man aproaches you in a dark alley. He says,

"If you tell a lie, I will kill you with a knife. If you tell the truth, I will kill you with a gun."

What do you say to stay alive?

This has been posted in a slightly different form elsewhere in this forum.

The usual answer is

make a statement that is true if he uses a knife and false if he uses a gun.

Several ways to construct such a statement. e.g. You will kill me with a knife, but you won't kill me with a gun.

A much easier solution is

Recognize that only declarative statements have a truth value.

Don't make a declarative statement; that way it won't be the truth or a lie.

Here are three possibilities:

[1] Remain silent. - or if you must say something, ask a question

[2] Why do you want to kill me? - or exclaim something:

[3] No! Please do not kill me!

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I heard this one a long time ago. :mellow:

A man aproaches you in a dark alley. He says,

"If you tell a lie, I will kill you with a knife. If you tell the truth, I will kill you with a gun."

What do you say to stay alive?

The simplest answer I have found was

"You will kill me with a knife." Any paradox, actually, should leave you alive.

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I would answer with another paradox which is:

"I always lie and never tell the truth"

This statement cannot be a lie or the truth.

If you do always lie, then you cannot make that statement - because it is the truth.

If you dont lie, then you cannot make that statement - beause the statement is a lie.

Yes that's what I'd say.

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"I have AIDS"

make him think twice about stabbing you... unless you really do have aids in which case he could shoot you from a safe distance

it's wrong, i know but give me a little credit

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Say: You will kill me with a knife.

Cause if it's true it can't be because then it will become false. On the other hand, it can't be false cause than he will kill him with a knife making it true.

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Of course the knife statement is the official answer but...

he doesn't say when he will kill you... and he doesn't say he won't kill you if you remain silent. Perhaps it would be best to say the truth and a lie before he has a chance to kill you. Then he HAS to kill you with a knife and a gun which should at least be hard.

Would you say such a paradox is both TRUE and FALSE, neither TRUE nor FALSE, or something else?

Edited by redshift
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I'm thinking if you rely on a paradox to get you out of this, he might just get annoyed and kill you with a nuclear bomb instead. You could get out of the situation non-paradoxically like this:

"If you kill me with the gun, you will stand absolutely still for 5 minutes before you shoot me"

He can't kill you with the knife because your statement would be true in that case. But in order to kill you with the gun, he has to stand still first to make the statement true (at this point you run). Of course he might have been lying from the start and just laugh and shoot you in the head.

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You say that he will kill you with a knife. So he can not kill you with a knife because it will be true and should therefore kill you with a gun. However if he then kills you with a gun your statement will be false so he should kill you with the gun and so on...

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I'm thinking if you rely on a paradox to get you out of this, he might just get annoyed and kill you with a nuclear bomb instead. You could get out of the situation non-paradoxically like this:

"If you kill me with the gun, you will stand absolutely still for 5 minutes before you shoot me"

He can't kill you with the knife because your statement would be true in that case. But in order to kill you with the gun, he has to stand still first to make the statement true (at this point you run). Of course he might have been lying from the start and just laugh and shoot you in the head.

If he killed you with the knife the statement would be false wouldn't it? So he could kill you with the knife. :mellow:

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My Way, Say "Can i Have the gun?", By asking a qestion your not telling a lie or a truth. this one is flawed on the assumption that you A) Must say something and B) Make a statment

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