The Unexpected Hanging Paradox
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- In this video we take a look at the unexpected hanging paradox, also known as the surprise exam paradox. Almost 100 papers have been published on the paradox, but there is still no agreement on what the correct solution is. Can you solve the paradox?
Sources and additional reading:
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Music:
"Constancy Part Three"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Website: www.smartbydesi...
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Executioner: **knocks on door**
Prisoner: "HA! I KNEW IT!"
Executioner: "aw man" **sad face and leaves**
Lol 😭😭😭
Underrated comment
Dora The Explorer vs Sweeper
I just changed my name *sweeper*
Executioner: "understandable,have a nice day"
The judge eventually decided to give him the electric chair, leaving him both shocked and surprised.
Literally shocked
@@uchikattana I'm going to guess that that was the joke.
I laughed louder than I shoukd have
You tickled me
This is very good
The fact the prisoner is analysing it so much and doesn't know means any day would be a surprise.
Agree, the fact that he did not believe that he would be hanged means that anytime after that is a surprise because he doesn’t believe it will happen.
Exactly what I was thinking
100% agree
I don't know but wouldn't that assumption be based on the fact that the judge knew that the prisoner would react by eliminating all the possible days and therefore expect not to get hanged only to be surprised when the executioner knocks
Except the judge is psychic, or seriously trusts the deducting skills of the prisoner for some strange reason.
But the prisoner isn't a real person.
The prisoner's fatal logical flaw is that he adds a final option, ie that the execution does not take place. Because of this it becomes possible that he can be executed on Friday, and still be surprised (since he was expecting to get off free), so he can no longer eliminate any other days.
I will make it simple to understand it. Imagine the judge said to the prisoner that he will be hanged either on monday or Tuesday at noon on suprise. Tuesday cant be the suprise day coz when Monday noon passes he automatically knows its Tuesday, so he has to be hanged on Monday but then he knows that he will be hanged on Monday.
@@MadMax-xc4lr If he doesn't die on Monday, he'll be confused because Tuesday wouldn't be a surprise. All of Tuesday that contradiction will exist, and he'll be stuck wondering. He'll start to think that he might survive; that maybe the judge screwed up. Because Tuesday wouldn't make sense, right? So even if he dies on Tuesday, he'll be surprised, though probably not by much. Because just a bit of him hoped he might live. The puzzle seems illogical because it kinda is. The crux of it is an emotion (surprise), and they aren't perfectly logical at all.
Or I'm just going way too philosophical on a Wednesday night.
@@tokatstorm9270 if you take the words of judge to be carried out literally then the thief logic cant be denied. Thats the point here. Its like saying grandfather paradox dont exist because time machine doesn't exist. You have to use logic to solve the dilemma here not by simply saying the judge will hang him Tuesday so it would be suprise cause he is thinking he wont be hanged. Its like a math problem. If it was that easy then this wont be in the paradox list it would have been dismissed by great thinkers and philosophers.
Lol
yeah, as soon as he rules out Friday, then Friday becomes a surprising day after all. he can't rule out any day without turning it into a surprising day, so he can't rule out any day. being surprised early (knowing thursday afternoon that it is friday) is just a technical flaw in the judge's setup that can't be avoided but wasn't stated explicitly.
Or look at it this way: prisoner deduces that no day is possible, so the judge picking any day would be a surprise to the prisoner.
that was my thought process. his smugness fails him
yeah that’s what i was thinking too lol. reverse psychology
i thought the same thing but that cant be THE answer theres no way all these philosophers are all split over this and the answer is as obvious as that..
@@TheTruthWholeTruthNothingButTh sure it can, why not. Lol
I was thinking the same thing
Judge: "i wont tell you when we gonna execute you"
Prisoner: "Oh cmon dont leave me hangin'"
Oh my gaaaaaaaaaaawd
Pls stop!!
ಥ_ಥ
Boogie boogie your a legend
this comment doesn't have the recognition it deserves
Underated comment.
Sounds like too many people with doctorates are debating the meaning of “Surprise.”
I mean what else are they supposed to do
That doesn't surprise me.
Didn't know Dustin had a brother :O
Lol that was my conclusion
Its a debate of Logic, not really on the definition of the word "Surprise".
These sorts of thought processes sound stupid but they can give incredible insight in to Mathematics and Science. Kind of like the paradox of Achille's race.
For this particular thought experiment, if you can find a solution to it, that sort of solution could potentially be applied to a predictive program or algorithm that could be used in a field of, say, Finance or Actuarial science.
It could also just lead to nothing but a lot of wasted time.
You won't know until well after some sort of solution has been found.
Executioner: “aight you boutta die”
Prisoner: “knew it”
Executioner: “nvm you’re free to go”
AKA contrarian's paradox
😂
Well if he thinks he’s not gonna be hanged on any day, then any day would’ve been a surprise.
Yeah that’s how I’m thinking about it. Any day other than Friday is still a surprise
Mind blow.
Exactly, it’s not a paradox anymore. The judge said he would be surprised and he was.
Yup people in the past were dumb for this 1 lol they took a trick question and called it a paradox lol
When one guy on youtube is smarter than 100 graduates writing full papers on some dumb ass theory xD
When a prisoner takes the word “surprise” too seriously 😐
It won't be a surprise if it was told to him that it was a surprise right?
If he wouldn't think that hard and worry all the time, judge would be wrong
damnLad I think surprise implies not knowing, but since the judge told him he can anticipate that it WILL eventually happen, therefore it won’t be a surprise. I think what is meant is that he will NOT KNOW when it will take place, not necessarily that it will come as a “surprise” to him, as in shock.
If you remove the word surprise, I think the paraxox will not exist.
U guys are missing the point it's a trick question, because the prisoner actually believes that he won't be hanged based on his logic so the original statement of it will be a surprise is true Because he thinks it won't happen lol
I kinda started to like this prisoner. He was a good prisoner. May his logic rest in peace.
That's because you don't know what he used his logic for when he was alive. I can still hear the mother crying in her testimony... So sad.
That man was a dirty criminal
I love how everyone’s assuming he went to jail for like robbery or murder. We all know that in reality he got arrested for pulling a Yoshi and committing tax evasion
That man commited 4 war crimes in Vietnam, over 6 attempted murder and assassination, a conspirator back in 1960s, money laundring, pedophilia, attempted rape, arson, and several other petty crimes. Yet you still symphatise with him? Shameful.
@@antisuyu6075 damn, that man must've had one hell of a life.
I interpreted the judge's statement as "a day of the week will be chosen at random, and you will not know the result of that random choice". The prisoner is correct that if he isn't hanged on Thursday ,then the hanging is no longer a surprise, but that is based on the knowledge he will have on Thursday, while the judge's statement was based on his knowledge on Sunday.
It also conflates the meaning of surprise. Surprise can convey a statistical and emotional meaning. If he isn’t hanged in Thursday, he’ll think he’s free and won’t be hanged on Friday. When Friday comes and they knock on his cell, he’ll be REALLY surprised that his theory didn’t work out.
this this this this this
"he will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day"
I also took the judge's sentence to mean that it would be a day chosen at random, and they would not inform him what day had been randomly selected. And I'm no expert but what you said makes me think of the game show host thing? Like, do you pick door 1, 2, or 3? And after one door is revealed, statistically you're better off switching doors when given the option. It's like, your knowledge increases as you go through the week, but that is not the case in the beginning. And so if the prisoner introduces himself the 6th option of not being hung at all, then the odds change in his favor as you go through the week right? Am I making any sense? Is this coherent, at all? 🤔
Also, I just had a thought. I feel like Friday as a surprise option is only taken off the table come Thursday. Like, from Sunday he cannot fathom a guess as to which day a random number generator chose. It could be any of them. So Friday would be viable at the point of only possessing Sundays knowledge. And as he moves through the week, gaining more knowledge of what days aren't hanging days, then the odds of a surprise diminish, right? And as of Wednesday I feel like Friday could still be the day, as from Wednesdays point in time he cannot know which it could be. It's only until he moves into Thursday, and noon rolls around, does he know for sure that it will be Friday - thereby making Friday a non-surprise, and therefore a non-option. Fulfilling his possibility of not being hung, which was not a possibility, and why its a paradox. But my whole point is that he cannot know that at the beginning which of the days were chosen at random. Which, to me, seems like Friday should be theoretically, on the table. Yes? No?
That was what I thought too. His first statement is based on the supposition that he isn't hanged of Thursday. Well, what if he is ? He has to see Thursday evening to confirm that.
*Gets Hanged on all five days*
Ha surprised you on that one huh
Not going to lie they had us in the first half
ButterPlayz_YT
Don’t you just hate it when that happens
This is........Requiem.
_Didn't see that coming?_
They had us in *both* halves
Actually, there is a third option:
1. Statement - you will be hanged by surprise.
2. Deduction - I cannot be hanged on any day because I cannot be surprised, thus I will not be hanged.
3. Outcome - The prisoner is surprised when he is hanged on Wednesday, thus rendering the judge's statement true.
So the third option is thus "Knowing the prisoner would come to the logical conclusion, the judge made a statement which would result in a self fulfilling prophesy by luring the prisoner into a false sense of safety."
Seems pretty straightforward to me; judge was just trolling him. Paradox solved!
I just came to this conclusion myself. The only reason the prisoner is able to be surprised is because he believes it is impossible to be hanged because of his reasoning.
By eliminating every day as a possibility, he therefore makes every day a possibility - even Friday! Because if he gets to Friday, he will say he cannot possibly be hanged that day because he knew it would happen - so therefore believes himself to be safe - so therefore is able to be hanged by surprise.
If anything therefore, his surprise is as a result of his belief that the Judge would only tell the truth. He would be surprised if the Judge lied and he correctly predicted the day he would be hanged. But because he believed he couldn't be hanged, the Judge ended up telling the truth, rather than lying.
You people are truly idiots you need tell the fault in prisoner's logic what fault he did on his logic that led to the judge's statement coming true. He deduced he cannot be hanged on any day without contradicting judge's statement. What was the fault in his logic? You're not allowed to take prisoner's final deduction to solve this problem you need to tell why the solution is wrong. Everybody already know it's wrong.
Clever, but he expects it thus forth to make assumptions upon whether he will be hanged.
I thought of that during the video
@@ashutoshdwivedi4513 Prisoners logic is wrong because even if he removed Thursday and Friday also Monday he would be hanged by surprised on Tuesday or Wednesday.
It's just a catch-22. The more certain the prisoner is that he will be hanged on a certain day, the more certain he becomes that that he cannot be hanged that day, which in turn makes it all the more surprising if he is. The logic of the premise is circular.
Yes, it is. Not sure what you're getting at.
@@SeantommyE ua-cam.com/video/wujVMIYzYXg/v-deo.html
Wednesday is the most surprising day, because Monday is too obvious. Then you think "It might be tomorrow, i.e. Tuesday" and then when it isn't Tuesday, you start to think "I wonder which day it will be now." And bang, you hit him while he's wondering so he's caught by surprise.
LemonZeppelin but, since you could deduce that logically, the prisoner could also deduce that and subsequently expect Wednesday the most, making it the least surprising and the other days more so.
@@AutomaticDuck300 The most surprising day is Saturday. Right when he thinks he's got off.
I think the flaw is actually already present when the prisoner deduces he cannot be hung on the Friday. Because if he reaches Friday and thus is correct in his deduction he would still be surprised because he had deduced it was impossible. Just like what happened on the Wednesday. "Basically, if A happens and I think A is impossible because I would not be surprised, I would be surprised".
Solution: If he rules out every day, then any day will be a surprise. Just because the prisoner thinks that it's true doesn't mean that it is.
That would only get him killed on any day because any day is a surprise. What it takes to get over the sentence (assuming there is a geteway) is to just accept death, thus no day would be a surprise and that would mean youre free. But youre not to be fixed in the outcome because that would make you think you would be free and any day would be a surprise. So to overcome death you have to accept it without expecting it to free you from it
This is a philosophical question, not a practical question. Yeah, sure, if he accepted death then of course he wouldn't be suprised. But the point is not to find a practical, real world solution but rather tackle the philosophical problems this paradox creates. By saying "just accept death" you are literally just ignoring the whole point of the thought experiment like as if it just went over your head.
Acre ! - So what is the point? To tackle the philosophical problems? What problems? I just don’t quite see them and would like to get it explained. :)
Also, just because he would accept death doesn’t mean it won’t surprise him. There’s still the matter of not knowing *when* he dies
sup johnny
Executioner: "looks like all this thinking has made you tired. Why don't you follow me and lie down in this bed and rest your head on this pillow."
(Bed drops out from underneath him and the prisoner is hanged).
Executioner: "SURPRISE!!!"
The sadistic humor of this is top-notch 👌🏻👌🏻
Lmao 😂😂😂
Now imagine that same exchange, but in Skyrim guard voices.
Underrated comment😆
The prisoner’s reasoning is faulty, and this isn’t a paradox at all. The reality is that no matter what day the prisoner “rules out”, the hanging will still come as a surprise.
Except if he's still alive Thursday evening. Then he knows he'll hang on Friday x
maarten doclo Precisely, but the fact that he already deemed Friday impossible will make it all the more surprising when the reaper still comes to collect his due.
@@Smfsableye Ah - the video states that the prisoner will "not know the day of the hanging _until_ the executioner knocks"
However, if the executioner does not come on Thursday, then he will be surprised in advance, and expect the executioner on Friday. The knock itself will not be a surprise.
What if he always expected the knock, so itd never be a surprise? Would that void his sentence?
WINNER except friday if hes still alive thursday evening, its 100% going to be friday then so it wont be a surprise
“I haven’t a clue what’s going on here, but I’ll act like I do!”
Naruto.?😮
Naruto reference lol
good one
x over o gang, nice. I use the name "Dxwnward" on everything.
@@SasukeUchiha-ss8lb sasuke
"the prisoner was then surprised when the executioner knocked on his cell"
Congratulations, you solved it on accident by using a poor choice of words. Because the prisoner believed it couldn't happen, he was surprised when it did happen
lol exactly?? the logic is weird in this "logic video" on thursday he wouldnt know either cuz it could still be friday
LMAO true!
@Adam Battersby But if the prisoner rules out the option of being hanged on friday, it would be a surprise if it actually did. I guess that's why it's a paradox in the first place.
So on friday, wtf did he think was going to happen?
@@foxhound963 well like they said, he believed it would be impossible for him to be surprised, so no matter when, it would have been a surprise
Watched this stoned and now my brain is broken... Thanks
same here brother. and im usually good with stoned philosophy
lmao me to , don't understand shit
jonny Beck bro i swear its the dumbass British english references they have in here they're like blanks in my vocabulary when it comes to stupid british slang/english like n then ill be dwelling on wtf that word even means while the deep thinking and focus just absolutely scrambles n then im sooo confused on the whole fucking situation all cuz u just had to feel like a fucking smart ass n use fuckin words like "deduce" and u talk like a fuckin webster
Lil Juda you are just an idiot then.
Robert Rous same lmao
*I gently clicked on this video...*
...and actually got impressed by it!
Idk man, doesn't matter if you reduce the # of days. They can still hang you on a Friday after deducting that they won't.
That's a pretty big surprise execution when you think you're safe 🤷♂️
Main problem is that we asume that the statements are absolute and true. For what we know, the judge lies and the inmate can be an illiterate person.
Bottom line is, there's no way for him to get saved as the only true part of the statement is that he will be hanged
It makes more sense to view it as if its sunday and the week hasnt begun, and you have to prove the judge wrong
The checkpoint is the morning of each day basically
Friday is the only day you can guarantee you wond.be surprised becaude if you havent been hanged up until then, ya get beaned. From there though its impossible
Yeah having expectations is one of the most naive things.
I think this is the best answer yet. He WILL be surprised on Friday because his logic tells him it won't happen that day. So, there is no paradox.
leafbelly But since it was said that he would be executed a week day, if hasn’t been executed till Friday then it would only be logical for him to assume that he’s going to be executed on that day
Meaning that it can only be a surprise execution if it’s done on a day he was told was not possible for him to be executed on at all
Easy, whenever someone knocks on his door, just immediately say, "I know, I know, it's the execution day," This tells the executioner that the prisoner was expecting him, and therefore should not execute him that day. Boom, easy hax, u mad bro?
u MAd BrO?😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
This will only work once, because when he does that twice. His first guess was wrong, therefor the whole assumption
You think people knock on prisoners doors? Its a prison...not a hotel...
Hax fuckin money
Dude you cracked it right open, this is actually huge
And in the end he was surprised by a firing squad.
Toby flenderson, is that you?
Nah, he just copied my haircut.
😂
I just read “The unexpected hanging” and thought of Sayori.
Bro you said Sayori and I thought of persona 5 lmao
Why do everyone talks about Sayori every time when hanging is the topic?
It's stupid and annoying by now. Although, it's not like it wasn't stupid and annoying before...
Hanging is the common way of ending someone's life. It's not like Sayori invented it or used this method of death first...
@@monoryba4465 that just actually shows how mentally impactful the game was.
He wanted the prisoner to conclude he wouldn't be hanged. Then, hanging him REALLY is a surprise
Great!👌
This is exactly what I had mentioned in my comment, glad to have found at least one person with the same conclusion and analysis of this so-called paradox.
Why do you assume the Judge would know the prisoner's thought process after he told him?
Daniel Gonzalez he doesn’t really conclude that he won’t be hang, he concluded that he won’t be surprised if he get hang (which make him think it will be impossible then for him to get hang), I think the paradox is just doesn’t make any sense, especially if it’s in real world
@@fos1451 no, the prisoner definitely concludes he wouldn't be hanged. "00:29"
Basically:
The lawyer says “your hanging will happen next week, ON A WEEKDAY”
The prisoner says “well I know if I am not hanged by Thursday evening then I know it must be a Friday so it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He continues with that argument working with each day backwards.
The problem is he works backwards. Let’s say it’s Monday of that week, he doesn’t know whether he will be hanged or not. If he doesn’t get hanged on Monday he knows it will be either Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday but he cannot narrow it down from there.
The only time the prisoner wins is if it’s Thursday.
On Thursday he knows that he will be hanged because if he isn’t hanged on Thursday then the only day of the week left is Friday.
Nah cause then he would know it was happening on thursday. So it wouldnt be a surprise. We just went over this.
You smart.
@@BuTtErFiNgEr4321 that's why it's a win
Tiny Dong I don’t think there’s really an in real life answer, there are only hypothetical answer, the real life answer is the prisoner doesn’t know what day is it so when he thought it’s weekend, it turns out to be weekdays
There is no winning. The days are irrelevant.
By assuming a surprise cannot happen because you would expect it you then no longer expect it thus it becoming a surprise again.
It's that simple.
Judge: You will have a surprise hanging
Prisoner: HA, I've deduced that there's no way for me to be surprised
Judge: **orders a firing squad instead**
Prisoner: **surprised pikachu**
I forgot to laugh
@@user-ii9ig7vq1e i forgot who asked you
Filip No one asked grace to make a shit joke yet she did
T I agree
@@user-ii9ig7vq1e It was one of the few jokes that were funny.
Also, you are rude, toxic and should get out.
Imagine that the prisoner does this logic and figures out that he won’t get hanged, and than on the Friday the prisoner still thinks they are getting away when the executioner knocks on the door and hangs them. This goes for any of the days which means that it will come as a surprise and the prisoner won’t know the day no matter what day the hanging occurs.
We could introduce the fatalistic argument: Once I'm dead, none of this matters.
or, we could say that because the judge said that the hanging will occour between monday and friday, its not a surprise because the prisoner would be expecting it.
To me this “paradox” is more striking as an example of how even logic won’t help you in the face of cold reality. Man can think up all sorts of intelligent nonsense but in the end things will go on in the same old way and the executioner will still come knocking. His first mistake was assuming he could think his way out of a death sentence.
A great example of the human brain. We wouldn't have come so far as a species if everytime death was approaching, we accepted it, instead of thinking "How do I survive?"
thats absolute nonsence
"Intelligent nonsense" is an oxymoron.
Its easy !
Friday was to be eliminated IF he still had not been hanged on thursday , However as soon as he eliminated Thursday, The condition of friday's elimination becomes false and it isnt eliminated .. Since friday isnt therefore thursday isnt and so on.. thus it will always be a surprise unless he is still alive on thursday
@@AppleOfThineEye smarty
The answer is super simple:
This “paradox” is really a representation of what is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because the prisoner was able to think through the problem and find the loophole in the judge’s logic it made the execution even more surprising to him than if he was expecting it to come. If the prisoner was on death row, he would expect his death to be every day after he survived as the odds of his demise increased day by day. Only because he thought he was going to survive did the execution truly come as a surprise. So this “paradox” is probably more accurately labeled as a catch-22, or like I said earlier: a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Hmm.....
I was thinking along the lines of “The prisoner can’t rule out Thursday, because if the executioner doesn’t knock on Wednesday, he can still be executed on one of two days” but your thought makes more sense
Ah yes the self-fulfilling prophecy, the Greeks never could get around that.
im just gonna act like i understood your answer
@@kokirij0167 But it has to be a surprise, if he's 100% sure it can't be Friday due to him not being surprised by Friday then Thursday is the last possible day, you can forget about Friday. If he's still alive by Thursday then he'd 100% know he's going to be excecuted, meaning it's not a surprise. So it can't be Thursday. That means that Wednesday is the last possible day (sound familiar?)... which rules out Wednesday by the same logic. Then tuesday, then monday.
There is one big hidden variable not being mentioned here: Time. The objective "surprise" assumes time is linear, the future is always unknown, and tomorrow is always a surprise no matter what. The prisoner treats all days like equals. Today is as (un)predictable as tomorrow or the day after.
That, and what can legally be defined as a "surprise" is unclear. The judge keeping the date from him at all would make any day besides Friday inherently surprising. Regardless of whether he guesses, he does not know. Regardless of whether he guesses correctly, I doubt he could convince himself 100%. Logistically speaking, a surprise can mean anything from the unexpected to simply having information withheld from you.
Philosophy is the art of complicating semantics.
LotsOLuck777 or diving deeper
That’s not true at all. This is a paradox, not really philosophy.
This isnt philosophy, this is stupidity.
@@sonufmahn2480 lmao
@@fenhen Paradoxes are a common medium for philosophers to use though.
The "paradox" is flawed.
You can effectively eliminate Friday but by eliminating Thursday, you again create the opportunity for surprise.
No, you can't even eliminate Friday. If on the Friday noon the prisoner is convinced that they won't hang him, his hanging would still surprise him.
@@amit_bisht you could also drug the prisioner have him wake up in a truman show like world, and then just hang him while he's having breakfast. If you can change the time at when hangings take place, you could do whatever you want to effectively surprise the prisioner, but thats not the point of the paradox.
Yup, it really is this simple.
Yes, because you can eliminate Friday ONLY if on Thursday you've not been hanged. Therefore you cannot keep discarding the last day of the sequence as the prisoner is doing
@@amit_bisht no the prisoner doesn't have to be convinced he won't be hanged, you know you're going to be hanged next week, the fact that it isn't suprising doesn't change that. So if by Thursday you don't get hanged, it wouldn't be a surprise to die Friday, but you would still die. I don't know why guessing what day you die on means you won't die. The surprise comes from thinking you won't be hanged when if it's the last day logically you will day (and shouldn't be surprised)
The prisoner stopped expecting himself to be hanged, and was then surprised when he was hanged.
I’m a bit confused about the initial example though. The prisoner’s catch 22 error is based on his observations over time. As the week progresses, and more days pass without hanging, the resulting hanging becomes more predictable because the available days reduce. So far so good. But the prisoner can’t make this assumption up front to eliminate Monday to Thursday in advance. The only day that’s actually predictable is Friday, and only if he wasn’t surprised by an earlier hanging. My brain has now turned to jelly.
This is the stupidest “paradox” I’ve ever heard of
I believe there's a reason for that?
I just don't really get it though, he's always going to be hanged, right? So what does it matter if he's surprised or not?
@@josephpayne113 You are missing the point of a "thought experiment". "What does it matter?" is a non-sequitur because "matter" in this context is not a part of problem. This is why it is called a "logic" problem.
it's a logic problem sure, but it's not a logic paradox (as was in the title). The logical explanation in this video is subject to many flaws.
@@WavyCats I agree that the use of the term paradox is quite loose in this example. However, there is a paradox in there... it just isn't all that compelling and really just serves to illustrate the limitations of language when trying to articulate state dependent phenomena.
EDIT: Just to clarify, my remark was directed specifically at Juice. It seems as though you are responding to my remark as though it was a response to your initial post. I was only pointing out that to ask "What does it matter" was irrelevant to the thought experiment's intent.
By assuming “no execution” with the prisoners logic, that would rule in a friday execution as being surprising and any day during the week would come as a surprise to the prisoner who assumes they will escape an execution. Obviously this is a 200 IQ play by the judge by allowing a paradoxical statement to be said
😅Oh duck your right. Nice
The prisoner having convinced himself that he will not be hanged, means that should he get executed, it will be a surprise to him.
🤯🤯
Yes, but the whole point is to demonstrate how his logic was faulty.
Exactly,this isn't a paradox he is told he will be surprised thinking he out smarts judge and won't be hanged yet does and as he thought he would not this surprised him
Sharon Murphy it is a paradox. The reason is that his logic seems sound. He reasons that he cannot be hanged and his logic is seemingly correct. At least it’s is extremely difficult if not impossible to formalize an argument to disprove his logic, yet he is still surprised. That is the nature of the paradox.
@@Vgamer311 But the judge said he will be hanged eventually. So the prisoner just took 1 part of the judge's statement (the surprise part) and ignore the rest?
To quote the superhero, Surprise Attack: "Because it is no longer a surprise, it has become a surprise again"
He was hung by the Spanish Inquisition. As nobody expects them, it was a complete surprise.
They poked him with the soft cushions to get his confession
Don’t forget the comfy chair!
@@jeffthebracketman *Zooms into Terry Gilliam's Face* "tHe CoMfY cHaIr?!"
Brilliant!
Confess! Confess! Confess!!! I confess! NOT YOU!!!
As long as the prisoner thinks it isn't going to happen means it's always unexpected
I think the answer to the paradox is that they told him "your death will be on a random day" on purpose so the prisoner overthinks it and thinks it would never happen when in reality they already choosen the day
it doesnt matter when they chose the day, the paradox is that he cant rule out any day since then it would be a surprise on that day.
@@nicifrey5989 but what happens if he knows this and believes it will happen on the day he is on right now. The only way then that he could be surprised is if he is not executed.
@@nabilahmed442 how can he know ?
This just sounds like the prisoner went insane right before he got hanged.
The flaw in the prisoner’s logic: you only KNOW that the hanging must be on Friday once it is Thursday afternoon, so on Wednesday night the prisoner is yet to be certain of whether it will occur on Thurs or Fri. So in reality, any day other than Friday has potential to be a surprise. It doesn’t matter how many days you look at: if he gave him a window of a month rather than 5 days, it is still only when he has reached the last day of the month that he knows “today must be the day because there are no more days left.”
If he makes it to Thursday afternoon, then he knows the hanging will be on Friday. But once he reaches Wednesday afternoon, he does know it must be on Thursday because it 100% cannot be Friday. If it was Friday, then he would know about it on Thursday afternoon and therefore the hanging couldn't happen.
Can that same logic be applied to Tuesday and Monday?
@@RobbenVaart2 No it can't, this is a paradox only if you view this problem in a certain way. No need to try to disect it.
@@rcutler9 so, if he "KNOWS, 100%" that it CANNOT be friday, and then he go hung on a friday, would that not be surprising to him?
@@RobbenVaart2 no. He will only "know" that he is going to be hanged on Thursday if he makes it to Wednesday alive. But he has no way of knowing if he will be alive that day. There is still the potential of getting hanged Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
*Gets hanged on Saturday morning*
Judge: "Too bad you, I lied. Surprise!"
How is that a lie? Saturday would be at the very end of the week, and therefore the judge wouldn't have lied.
He said it had to be a weekday
the fact that every option is expected makes them all a surprise
What if he says: "I'm sure it's today", every single day
Then his reasoning could be wrong at most 4 times. He has no evidence, no reason to conclude that the hanging is today.
That's how I would do ,if I were the Prisoner ! (Big Brain Time!)
Martin Alcala then he doesn’t know for sure which make him surprised
He can say hes sure but saying hes sure doesn't make it so.
Since it can only come by surprise, once he says he's sure it's today he simultaneously becomes sure it's NOT today, opening himself up to it being today (hence the paradox)
If the prisoner by logic deduces that he cannot be hanged on the Friday, and believes that he will therefore not be hanged, then being hanged on Friday would come as a surprise on the basis that it was not expected. The end.
It has to be a suprise at the exact moment the executioner knocks at his door thought thats why this solution dosent work. By thursday noon he would know his execution would be friday
@@EpperEcheloN not true - because the prisoner has convinced himself he cannot be hanged.
Let's boil it down to one day. If the judge said he is to be hanged tomorrow, but when he is hanged, he won't expect it to be that day, then the prisoner will assume that he cannot be hanged, because the Judge's statement is seemingly contradictory. But as a result of him not expecting it, he can therefore be hanged. And the Prisoner makes a false assumption - that the Judge and executioners will keep to the word of the Judge and will only hang him when he isn't expecting to be hanged that day. Back to the 1 day scenario, the prisoner is expecting to be hanged that day, because that is the day the judge said - so he is surprised that the Judge lied by telling him he will be surprised - but in doing so, the judge will be correct - as the prisoner is surprised to be taken away as the judge did not tell the truth that he was expecting the judge to tell.
No, if he gets to noon Thursday and there’s no knock on the door Friday would not be a surprise.
@@slapmyfunkybass it would be a surprise to be hanged on Friday though - because come noon on Thursday he has assumed he can't be hanged. So when he is hanged, he is surprised.
erobed21 depends on how the prisoner interprets the information wouldn’t it? For example come Thursday he would know that his execution is 100% going to be on Friday. However, this contradicts with the idea that it will be a surprise as to when it happens so it can’t happen. The conflict here is that he knows it has to happen that week so it has to be Friday. But also knows it can’t be Friday because he will be expecting it. Either way he is correct.
"I wouldn't be surprise if you hang me tomorrow"
Solved.
"Ha! Now they can't hang me."
*gets hanged*
"Well I didn't see that coming."
@@GrandSupremeDaddyo "I'm pretty sure that they won't hang me now, but later they will"
I think the only paradox here is the prisoner’s logic. The action of saying that you can’t be hanged on Friday but you CAN be hanged on a Thursday means that when he eliminates Thursday he is contradicting his own logic.
@@Zaz5y that's why I didnt follow that shit logic with longer "suprise" chance.
If the judge assumed that the prisoner would deduce the way he did, then it would be a surprise to the prisoner to be hanged on any day of the week.
I don’t understand this video ..
Like at all
Brendon Maximus
Trust me, you’re not the only one
Axiom means the starting point. Does that help?
Brendon Maximus I didn’t either, rewatch the part where he eliminates the days. Now I think I get it.
Brendon Maximus i don‘t too
Mr. Toasty Burger what he says there is dumb too I don‘t understand that these arguments sound like sh*t to me yk
Prisoner: "I won't be hanged at any day!"
Executioner: hang him on the night instead
Big Brain moment
Lol it deserves more likes....
There is an error in the reasoning here. There are basically 2 statements:
- You will be hanged next week
- The day will come as a surprise to you
By the time you ruled out all 5 days, you cannot just conclude that the other statement (you will be hanged next week) is suddenly no longer valid. Instead, I think you end up in an infinite loop where after ruling out all days, all you can do is say "hey, I don't know what day it is" and start over with removing Friday again.
That still doesn't solve anything of course - but it's a very different situation to analyse.
The prisoner assumed the contradiction proves the first statement wrong, when it really just proves either statement wrong. But the point is: neither was wrong.
the second statement is not garunteed to be true. the prisoner could simply do out with philosiphy and logic and just guess he was hanged wednesday in which case he was correct. in this scenario it is not a paradox the judge was just wrong with his second statement. it is not likely the prisoner will guess which day he is hanged, but it is not impossible as the judge assuems
Hans van Zutphen that’s the reason it’s a paradox
Exactly. If the second statement is false, the first statement can still be true OR false. That factuality of the hanging is not reliant of the factuality of the surprise.
The Judge DID miscalculate in believing the surprise statement was enforceable. (It did ultimately come true, but this was largely by luck - the Prisoner thought five levels of logic deep, but if he'd stopped at two levels or waited until Tuesday afternoon to think it through, he could've assumed he was being hanged on Wednesday. The Judge made an assumption about the Prisoner's thought process.)
But the Prisoner was also mistaken in linking the two statements together, and in assuming that if one is false, the other must also be false.
all i ever learned from that was "assume they're gonna kill you soon at the first opprotunity"
For the Friday case: for the prisoner to expect a friday hanging, he will need to live through M-Th to be able to make that logical argument.
yeah - I tried to work out how to express that for each day, but it ended up being a tautology: he can only be surprised to be hanged on Friday given that he wasn’t hanged on a preceding day...
You waited the entire week for my hanging? I'm surprised.
Yeah its kind of trippy to think about, and I thought more and it seemed like a tautology. I think this objection works because we are rejecting the given statement as an axiom, its a conditional statement.
Daniel Zheng very good point
@Nova Flares There's no paradox.
A Friday hanging is still a surprise. It's just that it's revealed when there is no hanging Thursday, not on Friday when the guard comes to the door.
Isn’t this a simplified version of the “rapture paradox.”
“No man will know the day nor guess the hour.”
So as long as at least one person on the entire planet believes that each separate day of the year may be the rapture, then it would never occur.
@Andrew Elie one man for every hour then
@@georgebrantley776 😂yep we can prolong the time till we are like "ok now we need to go"
@@asanokatana keyword "ususlly"
@@truth24searcha98 Never is the most accurate word
It doesn't say will know, but KNOWS. Secindly, even if it did say that, it's different, because you can only guess or propose an argument for a particular day, but not KNOW it with 100% certainity.
The prisoner seems to set up his own surprise by way of how he tries to solve the riddle of the judge's sentence, strongly suggesting that the prisoner's original inference against a Friday execution is to blame. From the perspective of Thursday afternoon, there is only one remaining possibility left, leaving a 24-hour warning. But from the perspective of Monday morning, there are still five possibilities. By trying to work backwards in advance, the prisoner erroneously eliminates Thursday as a possibility, since that morning there is still a possibility of execution. Until noon on Thursday, it is still possible to be surprised!
this was the only explaination that made sense, thank you
Yeah this was what i thought, only what makes sense. Logic can’t be beaten like this i mean
"If i won't be hanged on evening (insert day of week here) then i cant be hanged!"
*Gets executed noon*
"Bruh."
The statement that he could predict his hanging for friday is only true if he makes it to Thursday
Zeeshan Mehmood same with all the days.
@@sockscav but with the rest of the days it's flawed logic to fall back on. Since its the root
Exactlyyyy
No, even if he survives Thursday, he cannot logically deduce that he will be hanged on Friday.
Since he has ruled out being hanged at all. Whenever does get hanged (especially if it’s Friday) imagine how surprised he will be.
I've always thought that the paradox is brought about by the reasoning of the prisoner, which works backwards in time, and the experience of the prisoner, which moves forward in time. Can't really explain it, but I think the fallacy is in there.
This is more of a semantics thing. The prisoner thinks that when the judge says "by susprise" it means at a time he won't be able to deduce, when in fact it means at "a pre-determined day that the prisoner doesn't know about, whether he rationalizes the options or not".
So, really, the "surprise" here simply means the prisoner can't guess the day and the judge doens't have to indulge in this thinking of ruling out friday, thursday, wednesday and so on just because the prisoner won't be "surprised". After all, if you wanna make another try at at mental gymnastics you could say the guy wouldn't be surprised at all because he already knows he's being executed ( lol jk)
Another great post. This is it right here
The paradox has nonsensical language. Another example would be if they guessed the current day each time. They would be guaranteed to be correct.
According to this guy, you can make any nonsensical and random statement a “paradox”
This isn't a reply to your comment. Boom, paradox.
There are different types of paradoxes
@@joshuas390 You could just say that that was a lie, if you're trying to make that kind of paradox
@@idkhonestly7163 I thought he was joking along
This both is AND isn't a comment if you don't read it!
...shit, hang on, wrong paradox. And where the fuck is my cat!?
"HAH! It did not come as a surprise!"
Ayy but you still dead tho
But the judge said that his hanging would be a surprise. For him to realise that his hanging would not be a surprise, that would mean he will not be hung, as it is in contradiction with the judges statement.
@@jake1173 Theres also the chance that the judge does not care if it actually comes as a surprise because... you know...
The guys still dead.
@@jake1173 but if he thinks that and he still gets hanged it'll be a surprise still
The prisoner's statement "I can't be hanged on Friday" is based on an assumption that he won't be hanged till Thursday. He then used similar assumptions for the other days. Yet there's nothing stopping the executioner from choosing any day. This whole thing was pretty stupid tbh.
Nah u didn't get the actual point.
The fact that he can't be hanged on Friday has nothing to do with the assumption that he won't be hung till then. Even if he is hung before Friday, it isn't possible to hang him on Friday. That's just a fact and the same counts for the other days.
The actual problem is that when the prisoner get's to this logical conclusion he loses his expectation that he can be hung during this week. But this expectation was the only condition to survive.
There are two cases:
1. He doesn't get to the conclusion and thinks he will be hung, but doesn't know on which day
2. He gets to the conclusion that he can't be hung
In both cases it will come as a surprise
Here it was the second case.
It has nothing to do with the assumption u mentioned but with the change of his mindset from "they can't hang me, bc I will always expect it" to " I won't be hung"
@Santek Kamik I'm agree with you, the executioner will kill him whenever he please. It's a random issue, no logical exercise can predict that. Maybe I'm wrong, but this exercise is quite dumb tbh.
Well to me it does not sound like paradox but faulty logic on a prisoner part
Friday is the only day that doesn't work because it is the end of the weekdays and it is obvious that he wouldn't be surprised if the executioner arrives. But how is it possible for other days to work like friday. His logic kinda seems dumb. Also he would still be surprised on a friday noon if he thinks his logic is gonna work.
@@rbe.a His conclusion is logical, if you don't understand it I can't help you. But just the fact that exactly this conclusion, "I can't be hanged, bc I will always expect it", turned into the fact he couldn't be hanged in his mind. He stopped expecting to be hanged, bc he thought it is impossible anyways. The only way he would have come out of this, is if he kept the mindset he got from the conclusion, but therefof he had to think in paradox bc nobody can expect not to be hanged by expecting to be hanged
I think the deduction itself is what would make a hanging on friday surprising.
That’s why it’s unexpected... the judge expected him to think this way, so the judge just hung him on a random day.
Why do you assume what the judge was expecting?
Nowhere in the paradox are we informed of what the judge thought.
You're using head canon.
Nope. That doesn’t solve it at all. The prisoner didn’t simply believe that he wouldn’t be surprised; he PROVED that he COULDN’T be surprised. So the fact that he’s surprised creates a paradox. No one’s questioning how he was surprised-that part’s obvious-they’re questioning what went wrong with his proof.
The problem with this paradox is that the prisoner's logic is just saying "I'm gonna be hanged today" everyday. That doesn't mean not being surprised, that is just cheating. If i told you "I'm gonna shoot you someday before the day of your natural death" you can't just go everyday for the rest of your life saying "today he's gonna shoot me". It would still be a surprise anyways.
If you told me "I'm going to shoot you someday before the day of your natural death" I would be like "well shit, everyday from now on I'll be scared, expecting that today could be the day".
If you told me "I'm going to shoot you On A Day You Won't Expect before the day of your natural death" I would be like "well shit, everyday from now on I'll be scared, expecting today could be the day.. oh wait, I don't have to expect it anymore since you won't shoot me on a day I'll be expecting it."
@@lethargictroll6788 then you wouldn't be expecting it anymore and it would be a surprise when i do it.
@@Kelmat_ that's just restating the paradox. We were already given the information the prisoner wouldn't expect the day he was to be hung.
Nathaniel Hester the word surprise in here means you aren’t certain that you gonna get hang/killed or not, while if you’re not surprised means you’re already certain that you know if you get hang/killed or not. to be certain you will need some sort of proof/logic (just like what the prisoners in the video/paradox), thinking that you will get killed every single day, may means you won’t be surprised in real life, but in our hypothetical world it’s mean you still unsure because you don’t really know when you gonna get killed (since you have no proof/logic to think that way/defended what you think) . If we really want to answer the question to this paradox with a real life answer, then there could be a lot of explanation/other alternatives answer like the prisoner doesn’t know the real day is, so when he thought it’s weekends it’s actually weekdays (maybe they give a fake calendar or something), the judge lie, the prisoners have amnesia, etc. but we trying to answer it with a logical answer not a real life one
@@lethargictroll6788 you are either expecting it or you aren't. If you expect it to the point of being confident it won't happen, you are not expecting it anymore. Any decision you make will make any day valid for the kill.
Maybe you could think of it like this: Before the prisoner has experienced any days of the week, all the days he could be executed on are equally likely to each other. As he experiences more and more days of the week, the odds of it being the following days increase, all being as likely as each other. The most surprising thing is when it's unexpected. The most unlikely day would be Monday and the most likely day would be Friday since as he experiences the days of the week the odds increase. Picking the most unlikely day probably isn't the most surprising since it would be too obvious, and the same goes for picking the most likely day, so the most surprising day would be Wednesday because it's not the least likely day or the most likely day, its the most neutral day in likeliness, making it the most surprising/unexpected.
The mistake lies with the deduction of the prisoner.
For the prisoner, on the 0th day, the probability of him being hanged is 20% each day. As the days pass by, probability increases to 25, 33, 50 and 100 for the following days.
1.) Case 1: When the judge takes the prisoner's deduction in consideration.
The judge states that the prisoner will be surprisingly hanged. So when the prisoner deduces that he won't be hanged, he is ensuring the probability of being hanged each day is the same which is 0, i.e. he is making sure he will be surprised. The only day the prisoner cannot be hanged is Friday(coz probability of being hanged will reach 100%). Which will not be surprising for both the judge and the prisoner.
2)Case 2: The judge doesn't take the prisoner's deduction in consideration.
He still won't be hanged on a friday(theoretically probability of being hanged will reach 100%).
For the rest of the days, the judge is unaware of the prisoner's omissions and deductions. Also the prisoner fails to take into account that the judge has not taken his deductions into consideration. If the prisoner realises this, then he won't be able to reach a conclusion anyway coz he will be stuck in a loop.
Either all days are possible or none. By the same logic you ruled out Friday, you would have to rule out all the other days recursively.
If friday is impossible then all days are impossible.
@@Gidid56 You can't rule out Friday until Thursday. On Wednesday, Friday is not ruled out, since it is not currently Thursday. Any one day is possible, and there is no paradox here.
“Friday is already ruled out so if it hasn’t happened by Wednesday then Thursday can be ruled out”. Problem is to rule out Friday as a surprise you’d have to get to Thursday. Flaw detection...
that's what i thought!
perfect
But you already know Wednesday night that if it were Friday it wouldn't be a surprise so it won't be Friday. Which means they only have one option to hang you, which is Thursday, so they're unable to surprise you if it's true that the date can't be determined based on the judges statement.
This is like when you're taking an exam, and you begin to think "too hard" about a single word in the question asked, and the professor tells you you're overthinking it.
Yap
Prisoner : I have deduced that i cant be hanged
Executioner : Comes on wednesday
Prisoner : *suprised pikachu face*
I'm a programmer and I have a similar real-life paradox: unexpected estimate. I always know that my work will take twice as long as my estimate. So, I always double my estimate and it always turns out to take twice longer than even that
Remind me to never hire you for anything then. Lol.
Logical school:
Epistemological school: I'm you, but with more syllables
"epistemological school"
Well that just sounds like 'logical school' with extra steps
The only way that you can be sure the hanging will not take place on a Friday is if you have not been hanged by Thursday, but from the prisoner’s perspective he has not made it to that point, so technically Friday can’t be concluded as fact at the time the prisoner is sentenced. By Wednesday evening, the prisoner does not technically know if he will be hanged Thursday or Friday because at the time there are still two possible options, Friday not being an option only occurs with the prerequisite it is Thursday, which never happens if he is hanged on Wednesday.
Or as many others have said, the prisoner thought he wouldn’t be hanged and he was, surprising him. In my mind either way works
The only surprise is how naive the prisoner is when thinking he will escape his sentence.
Prisoner: I can't be hung on a weeksay, as that wouldn't be a surprise.
Executioner: *Knocks on Saturday*
Prisoner: deduced not being hanged
Judge: oh boy, you're in for a big surprise
I first saw this paradox presented as part of a far longer story (I think by Asimov). The conclusion which was come to in that story is really simple: The judge "lied" (or at least, got it wrong). The judge should have excluded the last day from the surprise aspect of the execution. Once you understand that people aren't perfect and even a judge can make a mistake, there is no paradox after all.
The word "surprise" is the root of the paradox, cuz the moment you deduce that its not gonna be a surprise, the more surprising it becomes...
Notice how the prisoner thinks he’s safe because he won’t be surprised. He believes that they won’t act because he won’t be surprised. Then what does “Being surprised” really mean. The thing is that the thoughts of what being surprised is constantly changing between the judge and the prisoner. The prisoner thinks that if I don’t feel surprised then my death won’t come. While the judge knows that whether he was surprised or not he was still going to die.
*Think* - If the prisoner truly thought that there was no way Friday would be his death day then them actually doing it on Friday surprises him contradicting that he wasn’t going to be surprised.
In the end it’s simple through one view. Through a simple minded view. The obvious flaw is that the prisoner is using logic for a non logical situation.
*He’s going to die no matter what*
*The guys don’t care if he’s surprised*
*All the judge implies is that he doesn’t know the date so it’s a “surprise”*
Please don’t hate it’s my theory.
Chad Flores I like it dude
I agree completely. This isn't a paradox, it's a mentally deluded prisoner playing mind games with himself, and no matter what he thinks, his death is inevitable.
Exactly
It's funny how you can invent a paradox from vague definitions, isn't it. Humans are the most intelligent idiots.
That was my immediate thought but then when he started dissecting it and showing old blokes with pondering faces I began to thought I wasn't being very bright. Thank you, you've reassured me I'm not being naive.
Funny how UA-cam recommends this right after Epstein dies
Haha I was just thinking that, too.
Must be The recent heavy searches of suicide in prison
I can't.belive.hes dead
What if he faked his death to start anew with a new identity
Funny how that was a big story 10 months ago.
"You will be hanged at noon on a week day during next week with 80% chance of it being a suprise".
Paradox fixed
"Haha you're being hanged today"
"But today is Friday and it was supposed to be a surprise."
"I guess I was wrong bye-bye."
Basically “it must be Friday, so it can’t be Friday.” The prisoner shoots himself in the foot by trying to ‘eliminate’ any of the options. Once you declare that a day is eliminated you open yourself up to being surprised. He should have just gone “Well, Monday it is then.” And when the executioner comes in, explain that he wasn’t surprised, so he can’t be hanged. Then just repeat that every day until they get pissed iff with him and release him.
An easier way to put it would be:
"X equals one because X doesn't equal one"
There's the paradox.
Whatever the prisioner says doesn't matter because if he believes that would keep him safe then it would still be surprising for him to be hanged.
I think the real core issue is how literally he took the word “Surprised”
Wow this is scary that academics can't understand something so simple.
Let me simplify the story for you:
Say the judge meets the prisoner at 11:00 AM of a Thursday and tells him that he will be taken to the execution room at noon of that same day or noon of the next day. He further declares that the execution will be surprising to the prisoner otherwise the prisoner will be set free. The prisoner looks at his watch, there's 55 minutes till noon so he has some time to think. So he goes like this:
"it's okay. I can get away from this. The only way to survive is not to get surprised. I know that if I get lucky and stay alive till evening I will be set free because my execution day will then have to be tomorrow and that will not be a surprise. Tonight, I can bang on my cell's door and let the guard know that I'm certain that my execution will be tomorrow hence it's not a surprise. I will be set free immediately. However, it's still 11:05 AM and I haven't survived today yet. What can I do now? Can I bang on the door and claim to know when my execution day is? No I can't. Because I will in fact know it's Friday only if I actually survive the next hour. But now? Now I don't know. It can either be today or tomorrow. If I banged on the door and claimed to know that my execution day is today, I would get an answer that it's in fact tomorrow. Therefore I'd lose my only chance to claim knowledge (which would turn out to be false). Having false knowledge is equivalent to being uncertain. Being uncertain is another expression for being surprised. Alternatively, if I banged on the door and claimed to know that my execution day is tomorrow, I'd be simply told that it's rather today, thus being uncertain, aka surprised. Finally, if I keep my mouth shut, the door will certainly open in a few minutes and I'll be taken to the execution room. I'm positive that that will happen but I can't announce that I actually know because if I do, I'd be proven wrong on the spot."
Final result: the prisoner in the original story doesn't know shit and his logic is flawed. A sound logic is presented above by a smart prisoner who proudly accepted his death, despite the fact that he only had two potential days for his execution, not five.
How tf does this have no comments?
You can’t apply a philosophical paradox to a real life scenario. In the paradox all he had to do was “know” which day he was being hung. He didn’t have to tell anyone. Like you said he’s positive that it will happen today (Thursday) so it couldn’t happen Thursday because he was positive that it was. Claiming the knowledge out loud was never part of the deal. That was one of the worst explanations I’ve heard.
@@神林しマイケル it does now ;)
@@willsalamy5675 The concept of claiming knowledge is stemmed from the concept of being "surprised" which is a crucial concept in this paradox. If claiming knowledge is not necessary then determining whether the prisoner is actually surprised or not is also unnecessary, which would then render the entire paradox unnecessary/totally subjective to solve.
Yazan Kioumgi your right it’s obviously an abstract situation. But he was not surprised to be hung on Thursday, he KNEW he was gonna be hung on Thursday, yet he was still hung. But he was told that it would be a surprise, and it wasn’t.
I think that: because the prisoner thinks that there is no possible suprise, therefore no way to be hanged, the suprise would be greater than if the prisoner never tried to work it out.
If the prisoner never tried to work it out, they would have come to terms with the suprise hanging, it would only be a matter of when.
But, because the prisoner tried to work out the day of the suprise hanging, which lead to the thought of no hanging, the when became an if, so it was a greater suprise.
In a way, it could be reverse psychology, or a false sense of security. It is possible that this was the judges plan all along.
Let's see why:
When: the prisoner would want to escape as quick as possible before noon of Monday, just in case.
If: the prisoner would feel no rush to escape, as they believe that the hanging won't take place. On Tuesday, the prisoner would feel pretty confident that they were right, so they would stay in the cell.
Does that make sense? Who else agrees?
This was exactly my thought process, I don't even see the paradox, the surprise aspect wasn't lost throughout the story, the judge was correct.
you explained exactly what i was thinking
Well if the prisoner considers surprise is impossible,he could remind himself that there is no way they could hang him
,right?
So he will be relaxed, and when it actually happens,it is a total Pearl Harbour case as you said...
But he could(and i think he should)not fall for this trap in the first place:By consolidating himself that he can not be hanged bcuz there is actually no surprise element(judge informs him that he will be hanged, sooner or later)he is actually falling in to a trap of comform.(He kinda thinks,they will not hang him)So when they actually came to his cell to take him, he will still be surprised,altrough he considers every possibility.I think that's a very lame logic.Imo:the best thing that he can do is to constantly remind himself and the jailors that he always expects them to take him away for his own nemesis,so no matter what,he would never be surprised.
I think the reall dilemma here is a psychological one:If he feels he is safe,he will be surprised and fucked, but if the feels the angst and potential danger, he cannot be surprised than.(to conclude,this paradox is a very dumb one imo;no one sane in rl would be relaxed when a judge gave him/her death penalty. This is a dumb, rhetoric,unrealistic puzzle...)
there is essentially no paradox if the prisoner's expecting NOT to be hanged, as he excluded all possible dates for this to happen, hence he's surprised by the date of his hanging.
Shouldn't we discuss definition of surprise, as it is more confusing than the paradox itself
Yeah it's more related to being bound by linguistics than anything imo
Me: Wait I'm so confused why did he eliminate Friday in the first place?
This guy: It just works
because friday is the final day of the week so he knows that if he hasnt been hanged yet, it would have to take place that day
@@applef1uffy no ik I just wanted to make a King Crimson meme
Beber Blanqueador oh sry I’m an idiot
@@applef1uffy No you're not, I thought it was a Todd Howard meme.
@@sammybutler3027 Damn, you've confused me even further. I was thinking of the artist and not the stand. So instead of a Todd Howard meme, instead of a King Crimson meme, it's actually a JoJo meme.
What I like about these paradox videos is that I start watching them so sure I am focused so that I can understand the whole thing, but eventually at some point I get lost, somehow restart the video and get lost again. That’s my paradox 😂
Nope. **climbs back out the rabbit hole in which I fell**
Peace! ✌️
Sayori, get over here. We have some explaining to do.
Why did you help contribute to making this video?
Poor Sayori :(
@ Yes, you contributed to making this video. Explain now.
@@YuriDokiDoki I was just looking up paradoxes, and there's this one I want to tell UA-camrs about. It is the Hanging Paradox. I wanted to tell UA-camrs about it because I liked paradoxes and...
@ That doesn't cut it, you picked this paradox because it was about hanging.
@ >:V