Cheater Detection Mechanism ...

[sean69]

Four cards: 3, 8, red and brown.

Which card(s) must be turned over to show that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?


Any response which identifies a card which need not be inverted, or a response which fails to identify a card which needs to be inverted are both incorrect responses.






Enjoy.

 

[onyxfemme]

What??????????????????

 

[grownazzblakman]

Trick question.
Not enough info to make a conclusive decision, imo.

But my answer is...
To determine a 'pattern'...You must flip the #8 plus any other card. Doesn't matter.

The 8 is the only 'even' card shown face up.
But it's only 'half' of the answer.
Flip any other card and there's the other half of the pattern.

 

[Smartmouf]

You have to flip all four....

"the opposite side of an even card is red"

We're asked to see whether this is true or not by flipping any amount of the cards shown.

Whats sad is after some deliberations I realize the answer is already given.

Trick question.
Not enough info to make a conclusive decision, imo.

But my answer is...
To determine a 'pattern'...You must flip the #8 plus any other card. Doesn't matter.

The 8 is the only 'even' card shown face up.
But it's only 'half' of the answer.
Flip any other card and there's the other half of the pattern.

You're sorta correct but you're not finished. You have to find a patter with the even and the red card, but then you have see if it holds true with the odd and brown card.


How does this detect cheaters tho?

 

[grownazzblakman]

You have to flip all four....

I guess we both wrong.

You can't flip all four.
(at least) One card doesn't need to be flipped at all.
If you flip one that doesn't need to be flipped... it's a wrong answer.

There may be a few correct combos...
- leave the red. flip the other 3. (that's it)
- flip the 8 and brown cards only. (if the 8 is red + the brown is odd. that's it.)
- flip the 3 alone. (if the back is brown. that's it.)
- flip the brown card alone. (if the face is an odd number. that's it)
- flip the 3 and 8 alone. (if the 3 is brown and the 8 is red. that's it.)
- flip the red card alone. (if the face is even. that's it.)

Any response which identifies a card which need not be inverted, or a response which fails to identify a card which needs to be inverted are both incorrect responses.

 

[SamSneed]

What??????????????????

c/what?????????????????

 

[Smartmouf]

have to flip the 8 and the brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

kinda obvious after reading why

 

[sean69]

have to flip the 8 and the brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

kinda obvious after reading why

Damn, you "cheated". You fucked up the whole experiment.
I was more interested in the responses from folks after the solution to the puzzle was explained.

Damn son

Fuck!

Anyway...






The Wason Selection Task is used to investigate the psychology of reasoning and was developed to vindicate the field of Evolutionary Psychology (EP), which proposes [as one of it's underlying principles] that human psychology consists of a large number of functionally specialized and complex brain mechanisms that have evolved , causally, through the process of selection - akin to the natural selection of Darwinian evolution.

Each brain mechanisms ("cognitive modules") are sensitive to particular forms of contextual input, (and input from the environment) that get combined, coordinated, and integrated with each other to produce manifest adaptive behavior. As displayed in the responses to this logic puzzle in this thread (not including the dude that cheated).

The "Cheater Detection Mechanism" is only one of the several types of cognitive modules. Language acquisition and incest avoidance are a couple others.

The question was:

Which card(s) must be turned over to show that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?

The puzzle was intended to highlight the adaptive contextual ambiguity generated by the "if"/"then" conditionals in the question. The "if/then" material conditional in the classical logic sense and the natural language conditional in the natural language sense.



You could say that these modules ultimately evolve into what Richard Dawkings calls Memes - ideologies, rituals, cultural practices and fads, etc.


In another context, basically all of this lends itself to the "computational theory of the mind" - that the brain works like an AI computer that operates off input from it's environment and elicits adaptive responses.