A native, either a knight or a liar, once pointed to a man sitting below a tree and told me "If asked, that man would say I'm not the same type as he is."
What can you deduce about the native or the man?
(In reply to
Puzzle Answer by K Sengupta)
We will confine the constraints of the puzzle to knights and liars and will NOT consider other types like knaves, rebels etc.
Also, we will suppose that the man under the tree is NOT mute and the puzzle proposer is NOT lying.
Let us denote the native speaking to the puzzle proposer as N and the man sitting below the tree as T.
Then, the words that N spoke must be true as he has spoken truthfully as a knight and lied about his intent to speak falsely as a liar.
Based on N's true statement the following possibilities exist:
o T is a knight, so that N is a liar
o T is a liar, so that N finding the same type as T is also a liar.
Consequently, the native is a liar and, the man under the tree can be a knight or a liar.
Explanation for Puzzle Answer
