you are stuck in a room with 2 doors and 2 talking parrots. you know that

1 door leads to the other leads to heaven.

your goal is to find your way into heaven. the parrots know which door leads to hell and heaven, and you are to ask the parrot of your choice. the catch is, 1 parrot always lies and the other one always tells the truth, and you have no idea of how to tell them apart. how to get to heaven and away from john mungrel's clutches ?_?

Sorry, made a mistake posting.

You ask a parrot what door the other parrot would choose if you asked him the way to heaven. Then you pick the other one.

Some of you may have come across the following before:

There is an island inhabited by monks who are very logical but have some very rigid rules that they live by. They must never know the colour of their eyes, else they must leave. Another rule is that, despite everyone seeing each other every day, they cannot communicate in any way whatsoever. That, combined with the fact that there are no reflective surfaces on the
island, means that the blue-eyed monks never find out their eye color and so all is good for years and years.

But one day a visitor comes to the island and before they leave, remarks for all to hear that they've never seen such beautiful blue eyes as on this island.

What happens?

Well if they've never communicated before, they wouldn't have a clue what he was saying, surely?...

honestfi said:

You ask a parrot what door the other parrot would choose if you asked him the way to heaven. Then you pick the other one.

Some of you may have come across the following before:

There is an island inhabited by monks who are very logical but have some very rigid rules that they live by. They must never know the colour of their eyes, else they must leave. Another rule is that, despite everyone seeing each other every day, they cannot communicate in any way whatsoever. That, combined with the fact that there are no reflective surfaces on the
island, means that the blue-eyed monks never find out their eye color and so all is good for years and years.

But one day a visitor comes to the island and before they leave, remarks for all to hear that they've never seen such beautiful blue eyes as on this island.

What happens?

Click to expand...

The visitor lied, no monks has blue eyes, so when hearing that and seeing no one with blue eyes, they all believed to be blue-eyed?

Great INTP answer! :laughing: OK - assume that they have, before they became monks with a vow of silence, could speak and understand the language of whoever stated that they could see blue eyes.

McKie said:

Well if they've never communicated before, they wouldn't have a clue what he was saying, surely?...

Click to expand...

A better question is, why don't they already know their eye colour if they had to have blue eyes to become a monk on that island?


EDIT: The visitor(s) could be referring to the baby or Hawaiian blue eyes flower.

EDIT2: You stated that a single visitor came but then multiple left, did one of the monks see his own blue eyes and was leaving?

It's an Island, so maybe the visitor saw his own eyes in the water as he was about to leave? :mellow: The monks still wouldn't know whether or not they had blue eyes. So nothing.

Some fab answers here. I thought maybe the mods would move to one of the recreation areas, but this could turn into a fascinating insight into the way we think.

Assume none of the monks know their eye colour. In fact it was a rule of the order that they did not know. OK - that seems highly improbable.
The visitor is not lying.
The visitor is referring to the actual eyes of the monks.

One of you out there probably knows the answer.

You stated that a single visitor came but then multiple left, did one of the monks see his own blue eyes and was leaving?

Click to expand...

Don't think I did, and have re-read?

But one day a visitor comes to the island and before they leave, remarks for all to hear that they've never seen such beautiful blue eyes as on this island.

Click to expand...

Sentence seems perfectly OK for the singular. But my grammar slips frequently.

Well logically nothing should happen.

1. Visitor says (s)he has never seen such beautiful blue eyes.
2. Due to there being nothing that they can see their own eyes with on the island they can't know by that method.
3. Since they have a vow of silence they cannot discuss what the visitor said.
4. They cannot prove who the visitor was talking about and if they all have blue-eyes they wouldn't be able to decide if it was them.
5. They are at a stalemate and nothing happens unless they break their rules which would lead to one or more of them leaving anyway.

But one day a visitor comes to the island and before they leave, remarks for all to hear that they've never seen such beautiful blue eyes as on this island.

Click to expand...

'A' denotes a single visitor.
'They' denotes a plural of the previous noun, in this case visitor(s)

Wrong. But thanks for the grammar tip.:happy:

Coldkick said:

Well logically nothing should happen.

1. Visitor says (s)he has never seen such beautiful blue eyes.
2. Due to there being nothing that they can see their own eyes with on the island they can't know by that method.
3. Since they have a vow of silence they cannot discuss what the visitor said.
4. They cannot prove who the visitor was talking about and if they all have blue-eyes they wouldn't be able to decide if it was them.
5. They are at a stalemate and nothing happens unless they break their rules which would lead to one or more of them leaving anyway.


'A' denotes a single visitor.
'They' denotes a plural of the previous noun, in this case visitor(s)

Click to expand...

The monks are flattered and life goes on.

honestfi said:

What happens?

Click to expand...

I looked up the brainteaser and the original had a line that is not in this one. "Blue eyes were evil to these monks and if they were to find out that they had blue eyes they would have to 'leave' that day."

EDIT: Actually if none of them knew they had blue eyes, they could also assume that they do and all leave. That is the other possibility.

Yeah I made this thread to see how we will tackle a problem. That being said, I think I have a solution. The monks can't communicate to EACH OTHER, but it doesn't seem like they couldn't communicate with the visitor. So I think each monk would ask the visitor if he was the one the visitor was referring to.(Note: They don't ask for the color of their own eyes because then they would have to leave) If the visitor reveals to whom he was referring, then that monk would know that he has blue eyes, and would have to leave. :mellow:

I thought the same thing as Coldkick. The visitor doesn't specify who he was talking about, so they still don't know and therefore don't have to leave.

Psychosmurf said:

Yeah I made this thread to see how we will tackle a problem. That being said, I think I have a solution. The monks can't communicate to EACH OTHER, but it doesn't seem like they couldn't communicate with the visitor. So I think each monk would ask the visitor if he was the one the visitor was referring to. If the visitor reveals to whom he was referring, then that monk would know that he has blue eyes, and would have to leave. :mellow:

Click to expand...

Good point about the monks being allowed to communicate with the visitor, but what motive would they have for asking him? They don't want to know.

Maybe we're over-thinking it. Perhaps they all know now so they have to leave, simple as that.

Here, I'm going to post the original brainteaser word for word to see if that helps.

There is an island inhabited by monks who are very intelligent but have
some very rigid rules that they live by. For one, they believe that blue
eyes are evil and if a monk finds out she has blue eyes she must kill
herself *that very day*. Another rule is that, despite everyone seeing
each other every day, they cannot communicate in any way whatsoever.
That, combined with the fact that there are no reflective surfaces on the
island, means that the blue-eyed monks never find out their eye color and
so all is good for years and years.

But one day a visitor comes to the island and before he leaves, remarks
for all to hear that he has never seen such beautiful blue eyes as on
this island.

Assumptions:
- every monk sees every other monk all the time.
- it is common knowledge on the island that all monks are rational
and obey all monk protocols perfectly.
- monks reason instantly and if one concludes that she has blue eyes
she will commit suicide by sunset of that day.
- the visitor's announcement is made publicly.
- the visitor adds nothing but that observation (that there exist
blue eyes on the island).

What happens?

The visitor didn't specify how many blue-eyed monks there were. If there's only one he offs himself because he knows the rest aren't and it has to be him. The rest of the non-blue eyed monks, despite not knowing their eye color at this point, stay on the island because there's absolutely no way of knowing now. If there are multiple blue-eyed monks it's a stalemate. I don't see how Coldkick's answer is wrong.

One important thing I noticed actually, the puzzle implies it, but does not implicitly state it.

When it was originally told me, all the monks had blue eyes.

Some of the versions have 100 blue eyed, 100 brown eyed, 100 green eyed...etc.

Actually it doesn't matter - the principle in the solution is the same.

Actually Dupree - you're nearly there in your thinking. What if there were more than 1 monk with blue eyes?

Hmm, I won't comment on this anymore as I found the solution but what I will say is: The solution is flawed, without a doubt. The solution they give can only be true if there is only one monk w/ blue eyes. I understand the solution for what it says but the monks would not act that way, they did it from a single viewpoint and not multiple at once.