THINKING OUTSIDE of the BOX

[Victoria Steele]

There are exceptions to every conclusion. I hadn't read your post David. You are a fine exception to my rant above. And its tea for me , thank you very much .... Earl Grey. Victoria

[wdavidb]

Bravo Victoria.......bravo!

[wdavidb]

Victoria, missed your post while I was busy here.

So tea it is, earl grey indeed.

[Trickfox]

Here is the solution:

Fire the desk clerk. Throw out the cash register, and install credit card access to the rooms.

Kevin's KISS is THE solution.

As for Elizabeth's point:

The riddle exists to embarass mathematicians and scientists who are unable to explain away complexities to people who are unable to understand anything more that cardinal arithmetic.

That of course personally brings me right back to the fundamental problem that I'm "stuck on" called "The prolegomena to cardinal Arithmetic".

You see nearly a year ago when I first posted in this forum. I was trying to understand first order logic and peano symbols because it became obvious that mathematics ultimately fails. Aritmetic, and Algebra actually becomes useless at a certain point. Elizabeth is trying to point this out.

[quote]You base your argument on “Ifsâ€

[Victoria Steele]

Its OK Trickfox. <g> I think that Elizabeth is probably too much of a lady to throw things and I am ill equiped to fare well in pissing contests. So a draw is fine with us, I am sure. Victoria

[Victoria Steele]

This is a friendly last shot. Trickfox you mentioned the use of the word "If"

"If you count a dogs tail as a leg"
and Einsteins " If you DECIDE"

Are you seeing the thing that is common to these? Its a matter of choice. Counting a dogs tail as a leg, deciding that the Universe is a friendly place. All a matter of action and choice ...... "If you do it"...

better by a whole lot than "If Only"

Looking forward to the next match Victoria

[kevin.b]

In The UK , we converted to pounds divided by 100, when we converted to decimal.
Before this we had to think in twelves because there were 12 pennies to each shilling and twenty shillings to the pound.240.
Now there are only 100.
To make it simpler they said, simpler to loose bits in a slieght of hand.
Everything I detect, is easier to understand if you stop thinking in this decimal linear way.
Once I realised this and found the sequence that was actually driving nature, then I began to get an handle on things.
Thinking out of the box sums it up, we are or have been trapped in a box.
0 and 1 join and become 1, 1 and 1 join and become 2, 2 and 1 join and become 3 , add infernitum, but they are basically still 0 and 1.
Kevin
ps;- this post is coming to you on radio 1.618, also on .618 and the dj is uncle fibonacci talking golden ratio.

[Mikado14]

There is no solution to this problem, despite the fact that everyone got what they thought they got and everyone was happy with the arrangement. So in fact the missing dollar is an illusion, as there is no missing dollar. If there is a slight of hand trick involved it is simply making it appear that there is $1 not accounted for when in fact all the dollars are accounted for.

The trick is in the fact that the cowboys got $3 back, one dollar each and the clerk kept $2. Which is why you end up with them saying they paid $9 each for the room which is $27, plus the three they got back makes $30

The fact that they gave the clerk $2 has nothing to do with it, as this is where the slight of hand comes in. In total they only paid $25 which ended up in the hands of the motel manager.

It was the dividing up of the 5 $1 bills that throws you off, as it was up to them how it was going to be divided up.

I believe that is what Paul and I were saying. It's amazing that when you reword something that it is defined as logical and we are being macho.

That is why concepts never get built.

Everyone here is calling it an anomoly, well, here is a news flash. There are anamolies in a lot of things.

That is why God created potentiometers. (inside joke among Electronics engineers and techs).

If Dr. Brown discovered anamolies than so be it. You can accept those anamolies or you can try to discover the "why". Your choice, but mine will always be to try to understand. Mysteries and anamolies are unknowns, be an ostrich or be an explorer. My money goes to Dr. Brown being an explorer otherwise, why would there have been a Dr. Kitselman or DeWitt floating around.

Remember the words of the late Obi Wan Kenobi: " Whose more foolish, the fool or the fool that follows?"

I stand with Paul, by the way Paul, I really don't like the Village People, What say you?

Mikado

[grinder]

I don't mean to start all of the cowboy-thirty-doller-five dollar-back-where'd-the dollar-go discussion all over again but I have been thinking pretty hard about this. And Elizabeth, it may be my male ego here, but I think I have figured it and what you are talking about. So,
would you tell me if I am right?

The thirty dollars is accounted for. It was handed to the desk clerk.
Mikado is right. The STRANGENESS STARTS when the management decides TO GIVE MONEY BACK.

Now, there is an AGENT in all of this. the desk clerk ....WHO BY HIS VERY PRESENCE, sets up the coming anomaly.

In the real world the cowboys overpaid. The management decides to refund five single dollar bills. The money is given to the desk clerk to transport. WHICH HE QUITE PROPERLY DOES. Like David said. Everybody is happy. Who is going to complain? The five dollar refund is quite properly accounted for. Everything is there. That world is complete and sound.

Its just when you look at it from another angle that you realize that the math actually breaks down and can't compute .... all because of the presence of this single agent. If he hadn't been involved, all would work smoothly. The anomally would disappear. But he is there.

The five dollars is still accounted for. No matter how you look at it, how you divide it, the cowboys have paid 25.00 now for their room. The five dollars has been properly identified and handed back.

Now, as the agent of all of this walks down the hall with his two dollars ... the math suddenly breaks down. You can not dispute that the cowboys now have personally a return on their 30.00 payment. Can you. Its right there. Doesn't matter who is holding it. They paid thirty, they personally have three back. That means that they have paid TWENTYSEVEN DOLLARS for the room. The other two dollars is with the clerk. If you count that ...... they have paid .....TWENTY NINE DOLLARS.

Breaking things apart is just a subterfuge of our own minds because we cannot accept that something completely strange has just happened.

And its all because of that clerk.

And Elizabeth, suddenly, I see the Caroline Group. grinder

[Mikado14]

Are you guys all friggin nuts?

hmmm, can I get back to you on that <g>

Look at what you all are trying to do? Hell with the fact that each cowboy got a single dollar bill back. Hell with the fact that the clerk has his two dollars. (the reality of it, you say is that each ACTUALLY had dollars and cents each, so neatly divided. Thats the REALITY you say.

No Victoria, the reality is that there is a dollar unaccounted for on the surface. That is only one dimension.

You all are representing EXACTLY what happened to Dr. Brown when he tried to explain some of his more exotic developments. He called it "anomalous behaviour" I think. And he ran into EXACTLY the kind of actions you all have displayed here. "There is a solution to this and by damned this is going to be it !".... (even if it doesnt really follow the elegant simplicity of the original problem.) You see though if you follow the simplicity you also run into the anomaly. And tht just won't do. will it?.....

And Dr. Brown apparently spent his life attempting, or maybe even succeeded, to find the root cause of the anamolies. Did he not spend so much time monitoring sidereal radiation? Why did he not just accept it and not persue it?

You guys are all so sure that there is a solution to this problem! If you mash the figures around long enough of course you can MAKE anything conform. But thats not what the reality of this thing is.

There is no ACTUAL solution. That riddle is used as a test of perspective, I have seen it before, it has been around a very long time and it was 3 salesmen when I heard it. It is used to determine the type of individual that you are, Concrete sequential or random abstract, and it is only one of many that are used.

My question is, who comes up with these and who says they are right?

In the end, no one is right or wrong, it is what you the individual gets out of it.

Just my opinion, not correct, not wrong, just a personal opinion.

Mikado

[Paul S.]

..to this pissing contest, and this, I think, is it:

You all are representing EXACTLY what happened to Dr. Brown when he tried to explain some of his more exotic developments. He called it "anomalous behaviour" I think. And he ran into EXACTLY the kind of actions you all have displayed here.

I confess that your statement here gave me pause when I first read it this morning. But then I realized that not even Dr. Brown would want genuinely "anomalous behavior" to be confused with a parlor trick.

If there is any point to this exercise, it is to illustrate that not all parlor tricks are indeed "anomalous behavior," and that in any instance, it is worth exercising the necessary mental faculties to discern the difference.

So I persist in my original assessment of Elizabeth's "riddle": the "anomalous behavior" in this anecdote is not a "disappearing dollar." It's lousy accounting -- starting with the cowboy's erroneous statement that he only paid "$9." That's the sleight of hand here.

I submit that genuinely "anomalous behavior" -- conduct that defies and challenges existing laws of physics, for example -- will be much more interesting than three cowboys in a hotel room who can't add and subtract. And I'm willing to bet 4 years of research that Dr. Brown would have felt exactly the same way.

Anyway, that's my 2cents. With which I have just doubled the "black projects" budget.

--PS

[grinder]

Well, I sort of expected that little problem was old because when Elizabeth started it she said that she had "chosen" cowboys ... but it was up to us.

A perception test huh? An old test? I wonder then if it was one of the things that might have been thrown at Morgan? I wonder how he would have answered?

Quoting partially from " The Good Shepherd" I would say he might have said " You cowboys are not too bright. Management either, cause I just walked off with the dollar that you guys will never miss. You have a "stranger" in your house, operating right under your noses and you don't even see him.

That about right Elizabeth? grinder

[grinder]

Parlor trick? I am surprised at that comment Paul. grinder

[Victoria Steele]

Paul!

Show me again where you find "faulty accounting" in this little tale? Specifically? I would let this go, but I think that you are right. There are lessons to be learned here. Victoria

[twigsnapper]

Sometimes Paul, it might be wise to slow a minute and read your own words.

"I submit that genuinely "anomalous behavior" -- conduct that defies and challenges existing laws of physics, for example -- will be much more interesting than three cowboys in a hotel room who can't add and subtract. And I'm willing to bet 4 years of research that Dr. Brown would have felt exactly the same way. "


Are you so sure that you want to do that? twigsnapper