So, I've got a riddle

cuz why the hell not? (yea it's not mine - obviously; if I were that intelligent, I'd be sitting in Harvard)

The riddle is:

Suppose you woke up in a room with two doors, and two men sitting in front of you. You know that one of the two doors lead to heaven and the other to hell but you don't know which one leads to which. One of the men in front of you is an angel, the other a demon. The angel will always tell the truth. The demon will always lie. But you don't know which of the men is an angel or a demon. You can only ask one question to one of them and then you must proceed through a door.

Assuming you want to go to heaven, what question will you ask?

There's the second level of this riddle which supersedes only one man in place of two but you don't know if he's an angel or a demon. What question will you ask in this case to get to heaven?

This just reminds me that David Bowie isn't with us anymore and now I feel all sad. :-(

He's probably facing this question right now. Help him figure out the answer!

@and1salttape:

@br0kenrabbit: THAT'S CHEATING!

Ok, what about the second level?

I'm sorry I've watched that movie a jillion times. It's good.

Are you who I think you are?

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A) Yes

B) No

C) Cannot be determined

I love faith ... ahm fate ^^

lol, the game The Cat Lady had that exact same riddle

the answer was: "What door would the other one point to me?"

I think I solved the second level in a way. I would ask him this:

"If only liars belong in Hell and if I were to tell you that you belong to wherever the right door leads, would I be lying?"

If the answer is "No" then Heaven is through the "right" door. If the answer is "Yes" then heaven is through the "left" door.

Or considering that angels live in Heaven while Demons live in Hell apparently, you could omit the "If only liars belong in Hell" part.

Seems to work if exhaustion isn't making me think it does.

Ummm...let's see.

R is right door

So, no. It fails. The answers are diagonal. You'll receive different answers from both. Point is to get only the same answer from both.

I know the answer to the second level, wanna hear?

PS I just realized that my table is nonsensical. There was no need for the 'conclusion' column. But yeah, the answers are different. So on that point, it's correct.

C) realistically.

But logically:

Jack -> Anne

Anne -> George

Therefore, Jack -> George

In which case, A).

I may still be wrong but I think it works for the demon too :-/

Let's say Hell is through the right door. I ask the demon whether I would be lying If I said he belongs to the right door (hell). The true answer is that, NO I wouldn't be lying since he does actually belong to hell (the right door). But since the demon is a liar, he would say YES instead.

Let's say Hell is through the left door. I ask the demon whether I would be lying if I said he belongs to the right door (this time heaven). The true answer is that, YES I would be lying since he does not belong to heaven. But since the demon is a liar, he would say NO instead.

:-|

The problem here is that, in case you're a liar (or otherwise), you'll get different answers from both the angel and the demon. Which would lead you to identify them which you obviously cannot.

Here a hint: You have to think of a question to which both will reply with the same answer. This is the trick to solving both levels of this riddle.

@and1salttape: there's no real way to know if jack is actually looking at George

Well, you picked an incredibly well known riddle. It has been used in multiple movies and stories, with Labyrinth being the most famous use in US media, probably.

-Byshop

Hence the dichotomy of realistic and logical approaches.

It was the first time I heard of it though...

.. .. still, the second level?

Marrige riddle stuff

Logically and realistically, C is the wrong answer

But logically, you can't say jack is looking at George, so that reasoning wouldn't be correct from a logical perspective either

OK then let me reiterate and then you can point me to the part of my argument that falls apart:

Let's say Hell is through the right door. I ask the demon whether I would be lying if I said he belongs to the right door (hell). The true answer is that, NO I wouldn't be lying since he does actually belong to hell (the right door). But since the demon is a liar, he would say YES instead.

Let's say Hell is through the right door. I ask the angel whether I would be lying if I said he belongs to the right door (hell). The true answer is that, YES I would be lying since he does not belong to hell (the right door). And since the angel is truthful, he would say YES.

Let's say Hell is through the left door. I ask the demon whether I would be lying if I said he belongs to the right door (this time heaven). The true answer is that, YES I would be lying since he does not belong to heaven. But since the demon is a liar, he would say NO instead.

Let's say Hell is through the left door. I ask the angel whether I would be lying if I said he belongs to the right door (this time heaven). The true answer is that, NO I would not be lying since he does actually belong to heaven (the right door, since Hell is to the left now). And since the angel is truthful, he would say NO.

So you've got what I described. NO means Heaven is through the right door whether I'm dealing with an angel or a demon. It seems to not matter. YES means Heaven is through the left door. Again whether he's an angel or not, doesn't matter.

Logically, it seems that angel and demon are interchangeable really when you ask this question. Let's just say I asked them whether I was telling the truth instead of asking them whether I was lying to make things simpler to understand (asking them about lying instead of telling the truth was unnecessarily confusing). So I'm asking this question now:

"Would I be telling the truth If I said you belong to the right door?"

Angel belongs to heaven and they tell the truth so if heaven is on the right side you'll get a T. If it's on the left side you'll get an F.

Demons belong to Hell but they also lie. So if Hell is on the right side, you'll get an F and if Hell is on the left side you'll get a T.

Now Hell being on the right side means heaven is on the left side. That's F for both angel and demon. Hell being on the left side means Heaven is on the right side. That's T for both angel and demon.

Now I asked about "Lying" instead of "telling the truth." So T is F and F is T. That means Heaven is on the left side for T which is YES. And it's on the right side for F which is NO.

@alim298: your answer seems to be correct

@alim298: I just thought with a clearer head. Yes your answer is correct but your explanation is too long winded @_@

Nice solution. The answer I reached however was:

If someone were to ask you which door is hell, which door would you point at?

Yeah, only invalid logical reasoning can lead to that conclusion. So we're down to realistic solution in which case C) seems to be the only correct answer. Anne's marital status is unspecified. So you can't say B) tho.

@and1salttape: you can give a valid logical reason that leads to a non c answer

The married riddle answer is

A-----it's true that you can't determine if Anne is married or unmarried, but she is either one of the two. If she is unmarried, then Jack would be the married person looking at an unmarried person. If she is married, then Anne would be the married person looking at the unmarried person.

Shit.

No no no you all get that wrong... i say WRONG!

If Jack is playing basketball with anne and george scores 3 points 3 times... and jack is ahead anne 3 points then how many chocolates did anne eat? XD

@br0kenrabbit: damn now I gotta watch that movie.

What a fine woman Jennifer Connelly grew up to be.

IKR? And you should watch the movie. It's a good movie. Now...

...let's all sing along!

the problem is, why are there two doors ... if one leads to hell and one to heaven, what is the place these doors are located at ?

in reality there is only one door and it only leads to heaven ... it can lead to hell as well, but from a humans point of view, this will remain for ever speculation

what defines hell and what makes heaven?

in this universe, on this planet life cannot exist or persist without constantly consuming the things the world around it is made of ... you breath, you consume O2 and create CO2 ... you walk, you pressure the ground and distort the air ... you eat, you break up other living things to feed yourself on its ingredients ...

its pretty much like hell I would say as you cant do anything, not even live, in this world without constantly comitting sins ... its the curse of being 'pro.active' and 'be.able' of creation wich means 'manifestation'

in heaven none of these horrible activeties are needed to persist ... this form of existence may appear like 'a sleep' but like in teh real world, sleep is the nessessary counterpart to a phase of activity ...

hell is transformation, heaven is transcendence ...

almost every mythological book that is used to base a form of relegion upon is in reality an attempt to describe this relationship and the knowledge about what one can do to get from the one world to the other ...

relegion has simplyfied this by describing this knowlwedge only as rituals wich are to be followed but not to be understood ...

the devil number is 6 6 6 ... wich leads to the believe the devil can appear in 72 transformations

while the manifested world is made up of 7 circles wich are as well made up of seven circles wich leads to 49 transformations that are needed before 'nirwana' is reached ...

B)

@hitomo: Woah! I never thought of it that way. Phenomenal answer!

@dave123321: Thank you. Yes it is correct.

Yeah, I could have explained it in much simpler terms but I was exhausted. I'm all well now though.

@alim298: Brilliant answer nonetheless.

Are you like a master at chess or something? cuz you really do think in layers - many layers.

No, I'm not good at playing chess.. In fact I think I'm terrible because I keep forgetting my own plans lol. But thank you for the compliment nevertheless but I should say your answer was much more brilliant because it didn't follow any traditional logical statements. Mine can actually be written down (which is what I did) but yours takes some real genius to think up.

In my short career in chess, I've learnt that chess just isn't about planning. Maybe the first two-three moves are according to the plan but the rest all require you to improvise unless you're a certified genius with a 160 < IQ who can predict the whole game from the third move your opponent plays.

lol I actually only reached the answer once I stopped thinking. A friend sent me that riddle and I couldn't figure out the first level (probably because I kept thinking); for the second level which was supposedly harder, I thought for 10 minutes, and then I said 'screw it'. It was 2:30 AM so I closed my eyes, started dwelling on some old, bad and sad, memories and the answer just flashed in my mind. Safe to say my subconscious mind is smarter than my conscious one.

Just flip a coin. So whats the answer ? You do have an answer to this riddle right ? @and1salttape PM me the answer man, i'm so curious ! Or post it after all these guesses. Is there a right answer ?

The answer to the first level is in br0kenrabbit's post. That video has the answer.

The answer to the second level has thus far only been given by alim298. His answer is:

"If only liars belong in Hell and if I were to tell you that you belong to wherever the right door leads, would I be lying?"

My answer to the second level is:

"If someone were to ask you which door is hell, which door would you point at?"

Both answers are correct.

Why would the devil tell the truth ? I dont' get it man.

why should he lie, hes the f*cking devil ...

If we go by Alim's answer, then assuming that the right door is heaven, the angel will say 'no' as the angel is not a liar and so belongs to heaven.
The devil too will say 'no' because the devil, who is a liar, belongs to hell and since the right door is heaven and Alim would be lying in that case, the devil will say, 'no, you aren't lying'. Therefore, you get the same answer.

If we go by mine then the angel will truthfully point at the hell's door and the devil, who will if asked which door is hell will point at heaven, will now point at hell because he's a liar. So, same answer.

Note also that the answers to the second level are also answers for the first one but the answer for the first one is exclusive to the first. Therefore, if you've figured the second level out, you've essentially figured out the first one.

Oh i see. Now answer this one, since your into these riddles. Why does a mirror reverse reflect your image right to left, but not up and down ? I've been waiting on an answer to this for quite some time.

@LexLas: That doesn't seem like a riddle but a physics question.

Well, a simple answer would be: Put your two hands one over the other. That's how reflection works.

Ask him what my name is. >=3

I win.

Which door can you tell me is the door to Heaven?

Ok then, which door will you go through?

The devil will lie. The angel will not. How would you know if the person lied or not?

I stay with them. and have a looooooooooooooooooooooong chat.

If you asked the angel, he will tell the truth in that the demon will lie, and show you the door to Hell. If you asked the demon, he will lie by showing you the door to Hell, because the angel would show you to door to heaven.

Your question is: Which door can you tell me is the door to heaven?

If I asked the angel, he'll point towards heaven. If I asked the demon, he'll point to hell. This question can be reworded to, ''Which door is heaven?".

Maybe I got the wording wrong here I forgot to add one thing, how about this one:

"If I asked the demon which door leads to heaven, which one would he tell me?"