On Thursday, September 20, 2001 at 8:52:20 AM UTC-7, Marnix Klooster wrote:
> jdus...@yuma.Princeton.EDU (Jonathan G. Dushoff) wrote in message
> news:<9nvvmk$nmo$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>...
> > Marnix Klooster <mklo...@baan.nl> wrote:
> >
> > : "Fact 5. Given any male inhabitant X, if Bernardo is a follower of Alfredo
> > : and X, then the barber is a follower of X alone."
> >
> > > Thanks! That means my notes of the problem were correct, and that
> > > this problem is inconsistent (whether or not you allow X=Y and
> > > X=Z in the definitions of 'follower'). (See my other post in this
> > > thread, and http://www.geocities.com/mklooster/calc/tmam-3-7.html,
> > > for a proof.)
> >
> > I haven't found a complete list of the facts, but I am guessing that the
> > intended meaning is "the barber is a follower of X", and that the
> > "alone" was added as a misguided attempt at emphasizing the fact that
> > "follower of X" is a _stronger_ condition than "follower of X and Y".
> > Does this interpretation make the problem work?
> Hello Jonathan,
> You're completely correct; I hadn't thought of this interpretation.
> (Although looking back at my old notes, I had noticed that the word
> "alone" was superfluous.) I was looking for a deeper meaning in that
> word, which there wasn't. Ah, those formal mathematicians. They even
> try to interpret plain English as logic :-)
> I've updated the page that I mentioned above to reflect the correct
> interpretation, and the corresponding proof.
> Groetjes,
> <><
> Marnix
> --
> Marnix Klooster
> self emailAddress: 'ln.naab@retsoolkm' reverse

ths is a lovely thread... in the past, i think i've posted stuff here about things (topics) related to Smullyan

e.g. about his books, his book covers, his being childhood-friends with R. Feynman.

a Mockingbird is (Lamda x.xx)... so when you mock a mockingbird, you get a quine.