You go to an island trying to find gold. Every inhabitant is either a knight or a liar. You meet two inhabitants, A and B.

A:Either B is a knight or there is gold on this island.
B:Either A is a liar or there is gold on this island.

What are A and B, and is there gold on the island?

the problem seems to be more complicated than I originally thought, unless i am over-complicating it!

Here is how I see it:

In order for a given statement to be true, it must be true in it's entirety (i.e. there can be no part of the statement that is false)

However, it only takes one part of a statement to be false, for the entire thing to be considered a false statement overall.

The complication occurs in that there can be many different ways for the same statement to be made false, even though part of it may be true.

For example take the statement from A and assume it is true:
A: 'Either B is a knight or there is gold on this island' = True

The statement contains two parts and can be made false in different ways:

' Either B is a liar or there is gold on this island' = False
' Either B is a knight or there is no gold on this island' = False

thoughts?

Posted by alex on 2015-08-21 15:51:18