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DanielLC comments on The Parable of the Dagger - Less Wrong
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The King DID lie, because he wrote the inscriptions. What is written on the inscriptions is inaccurate if the dagger is not in the second box.
Given that it's strongly implied, and logically necessary, that both inscriptions not be true, I don't think it could be considered a lie.
So, if someone came up to you and told you something that couldn't possibly be true, you'd say they weren't lying?
It's not dishonest anyway. The king did not suggest that all inscriptions he wrote were true, nor did the jester assume that.
The king did, however, count on the Jester's assumption that the content of the boxes could be deduced from the inscriptions.
The King counted on the Jester making a deductive error in the second puzzle (namely inferring that the content of the boxes could be deduced from the inscriptions given what the King said), just like the Jester counted on the King making a deductive error in the first puzzle.
In this situation, it is still a correct deduction to say "if the statements are true or false, then the content of the boxes is...." With these contents, these statements aren't true or false.
Sorry, it's not clear to me why you wrote this reply. Are you trying to dispute something I said, or are you bringing up an interesting observation for discussion, or what?
It sounds like Jiro was saying that the Jester really does not assume that "The content of the boxes can be deduced from the the inscriptions." He just assumes "The inscriptions are either true or false," and it logically follows from what the inscriptions say that he can deduce the contents. So the problem wasn't making an assumption about how the contents could be discovered, but making an assumption that the inscriptions had to be either true or false.
That is correct.
Ok, thank you for that clarification.
If someone came up to you with a puzzle involving transcriptions where there is an expectation that some of the inscriptions are true and some of the inscriptions are false, and nothing the person actually utters is false, then that person was not lying.
In contrast, if someone came up to me and gave me something that looks like a legal notice -- a scenario where there is NOT an expectation that the notice might be false -- and it turns out that the notice makes false claim, then that person is indeed "lying", especially if, when I take the notice and say "Thank you" and start to close my door, the guy says "Actually, you have to pay the fine immediately; you can't just mail it to the police station later" or whatever.