Puzzle

[Gavster]

I've started reading 'The Intelligence Trap' and it has this puzzle near the beginning, which is a little bit mind-bending. Curious how many of you clever lot can get it!

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?

[Pete_]

Chatgpt is useless at this

[Mito Man]

What am I missing
Can't determine it.

[DeskJockey]

Spoiler

I can't see how that can be determined. We don't know Anne's marital status, and you can guess or assume all the things that we're not told, you don't know. I'm sure someone will shortly tell me why I'm wrong.

[IanF]

J > A. If A is married then no, if not then yes.
But if A=not married, then above line is true and if A=yes married, then A>G proves the statement.

So yes

[mik]

Balls - I zipped down the page to proclaim “YES” only to find that Ian beat me.

Anne is Married - then Yes - Anne is looking at George

Anne is not married - then yes - Jack is looking at Anne

[Jobbo]

What Ian said though I don’t follow his symbols.

There are two possibilities: Anne is either married or unmarried.

If she is unmarried then Jack looking at her meets the criterion.
If she is married then her looking at George meets it.
So either way someone married is looking at someone unmarried, just not the same people.

[DeskJockey]

My prediction held. I was told I'm wrong by multiple people!

[nuttinnew]

I got it wrong, I think I know why and wonder what the book has to say about it - sounds like I'll have to make a purchase. Still, fo' shame.
It's a good interesting topic, thanks for posting

It brings up a question up I'm looking for an answer for; how do I know if I'm stupid? (I know, you'll all tell me...). Maybe "how do I know how stupid I am?" is better wording, maybe not knowing how to phrase the question is a good clue

[Gavster]

@Jobbo explained it perfectly. Many people assume that because we cannot guess Anne's marriage status, we also cannot determine the answer to the question. If we step back from that assumption, we can realise there are only two states of marriage that Anne can exist in, and both of those states provide an answer to the question.

Many very intelligent people get it wrong because they have tunnel vision about their knowledge. That's what the book is about, how people who win nobel prizes can also end up promoting conspiracy theories - excelling in one very specific area of knowledge is also linked with being a bit stupid or naive in other areas. People who score higher on 'cognitive reflection' are better at interrogating their own assumptions and answering questions like this.

[Mito Man]

Sounds like the old jack of all trades master of none chestnut.

[Gavster]

Sounds like the old jack of all trades master of none chestnut.

“a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

[ZedLeg]

ime people who are unusually expert in a very specific thing are prone to dunning kruger.

[drcarlos]

I found myself in a meeting having a similar quandary to this. The other people didn't get there could be multiple answers to the same question based on a condition (well actually ibfurthe complicated things by adding a third variable in the equation) further back in the problem that I didn't have the current answer to. Answering them with a 'depends on', I might as well have been.speaking in tongues.

[Mito Man]

Apply this to politics and you can see where it all goes wrong. I suppose the cabinet ministers all have their advisors who are hopefully experts in their field but then the actual ministers who have the last say get swapped around all too often into different positions and then stupid things start happening.