My friend told me this complex story. Everyone in it is either a knight, knave, or liar (more than one person can have the same status). Knights always tell truths, liars always lie, and knaves always alternate every statement.

Everyone knew the status of everyone else except for my friend (he knew nothing at first). If anyone lied about what someone said, they didn’t lie about who, when, or whether they said it; they only lied about what the person said. The story goes as follows.

Aaron and Bill were talking to me.
Aaron told me what he was.
At this point, I could tell what Aaron was.
Bill told me one thing that he wasn’t.
Aaron told me that Cassie was a knight.
I then could figure out what Cassie was.
Bill told me that Cassie was a knave.
I thought about this for a minute.
I soon found that the previous thing Bill said allowed me to know for sure what the last of the three people were.

What type is everyone? The puzzle is solvable.

When I was solving this, I came to the conclusion that the friend was a knight. First of all, all the stuff in the intro is true. There isn't any break between the story and the who "these people told me this" part.

Second of all, I think if this was reworded without the "for sure" part, it would be better. When I solved this, I found out that the people were what they were "for sure" because everything checked out in the end; what they were before that part didn't contradict what they were now. Such a listener to the actual story may have thought the same thing.

Also, remember that the title isn't a statement in the puzzle. It could even be directly misleading, so I didn't know that I was supposed to take it into consideration.

Posted by Gamer on 2004-02-21 21:35:49