Terry Goodkind

[coalescent]

There's an interview with Terry Goodkind here (mp3, 1 hour). I've never felt the urge to read one of his books (he writes one of those huge ongoing fantasy sagas that take up whole shelves in bookshops), and after listening to the interview I think it's unlikely that I ever will. On the other hand, it did provide some entertaining soundbites:

6:55 - "The purpose of presenting something in a book is to present normative values, and a normative value shows someone how you should live your life. That's why teenage girls cut their hair like a favourite movie star, why boys dress like their favourite sports figure. They're seeing normative values, and they're imitating it. This ability of human beings to imitate successful behaviour is how they achieve values, how they achieve their goals. So the purpose of a novel, a good novel, should be to present worthwhile values being achieved, and I think that's best accomplished through the use of heroes."

8:50 - "Science fiction as literature is a dead genre. [...] And it wasn't a genre that was killed off by the readers; science fiction is a genre that committed suicide. The thing that I'm going to tell you next, there are examples that will run counter to this, but in general, science fiction as a genre presents a view of mankind as his own worst enemy. It shows him as his own destroyer, as a creature whose own mind is going to be his own doom, and this is anti-life. And people are sick and tired of reading this kind of notion, because what it is is the dark ages view of mankind - as crippled, as ulcerous, as evil, as sinful, as doomed, and his only salvation is in another world. [...] I don't believe mankind is inherently evil."

16:15 - "The war on terrorism is an utter failure to recognise evil - it's an attempt to appease evil. The war on terrorism is a war on a tactic. Imagine in world war II if we'd declared war on poison gas chambers, and we'd said 'look at all these jews dying in poison gas chambers, we have to do stop this, we're going to declare war on poison gas chambers. We're going to find the money of the people who've backed the gas chamber constructors, and we're gonna find the people who imported them and we're going to stop them." In World War II, we rightly declared war on Nazism because it's an evil philosphy that was trying to destroy us. But in this war, we're declaring war on a tactic, like we're saying we're going to outlaw blitzkrieg. Well you can't declare war on a tactic, you must declare war on the philosophy that is using that tactic. And when people are trying to kill us, if we don't respond in the proper way, we will die. If you don't defend yourself, they're not going to pale at the task, they're not going to stop being evil. They're not going to say 'hey, I think we'll stop hating the United States. We're going to let them go and we're not going to try to blow them up and kill them all. Well, they're not going to stop. These are evil people, and unless you realise that there's evil among you and go after it it's going to continue to live and expand among you, and you'll be stuck with it forever. So that's why I'm not subtle when I write about these things."

52:25 - "Ayn Rand is my favourite author; I consider her the greatest philospher since Aristotle."

And now, a logic problem.

One of my colleagues has been wrestling with this all day. I have no idea how hard it actually is - I'm going to have a play this evening, hopefully - but I thought I'd put it here in case anyone else wanted to have a go.

Sports Training logic Test:

There are 5 athletes that live in five sequential houses. For each athlete, there is a distinct (1)NATIONALITY, (2) preferred number of EXERCISES, (3) preferred number of SETS, (4) preferred number of RECOVERY DAYS between sessions, and (5) a distinct PURPOSE for their training.

To help you out, there will be 15 clues presented, which will give you the needed information to determine WHAT IS THE BULGARIANS TRAINING PURPOSE? There are no tricks, only logic involved. Good Luck!

5 NATIONALITIES
(1) CANADIAN
(2) AMERICAN
(3) GERMAN
(4) RUSSIAN
(5) BULGARIAN

5 EXERCISES(number)
(1) 1 exercise preferred
(2) 2 exercises preferred
(3) 3 exercises preferred
(4) 4 exercises preferred
(5) 5 exercises preferred

5 SETS(number)
(1) 2 preferred sets
(2) 4 preferred sets
(3) 6 preferred sets
(4) 8 preferred sets
(5) 10 preferred sets

5 RECOVERY(days)
(1) 1 day of recovery
(2) 2 days of recovery
(3) 3 days of recovery
(4) 4 days of recovery
(5) 5 days of recovery

5 PURPOSES
(1) Olympic Lifter
(2) Powerlifter
(3) Therapy
(4) Recreation
(5) Bodybuilder

15 CLUES:
(1) The German lives in the second house
(2) The Canadian prefers 1 day of recovery
(3) The athlete who performs 8 sets prefers 5 exercises
(4) The olympic lifter lives next to the powerlifter
(5) The therapy client lives next to the athlete who prefers 3 days of recovery
(6) The athlete who implements 3 days of recovery lives next to the bodybuilder
(7) The athlete who performs 6 sets lives next to the athlete who performs 4 sets
(8) The athlete who uses 4 days of recovery lives two houses down from the athlete who uses 3 exercises
(9) The athlete who implements 6 sets prefers 1 exercise
(10) The Russian athlete performs twice as many sets as the German athlete performs exercises
(11) The athlete who uses 2 sets lives next to the olympic lifter
(12) The Canadian lives next to the American
(13) The athlete with 5 days of recovery lives in the 1st house
(14) The athlete who takes 2 days of recovery between workouts lives next to the athlete who engages in 4 exercises per workout
(15) The Bulgarian lives next to the recreational lifter

WHAT IS THE BULGARIANS TRAINING PURPOSE?

Comments

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Re Terry Goodkind (I'll get back to you about the logic problem. Maybe) - I don't think I'll be reading any of his books either, for the simple reason that he believes in evil. These are evil people. *sigh*.

Comments

[applez.livejournal.com]

re: 6.55 - No that isn't a 'normative value' at all, merely someone the teen identifies with and pays homage/respect to by emulating. Only when a critical mass of such emulation is achieved does it become 'normative' ... but then it still isn't a 'value.' If the teen emulates the stated values of that person, only then are they truly providing a model for behaviour. Mind you, this can happen, with people fixated on characters - but rarely is this reflective of that actor/star, and who they really are. Values relate to more than a fashion, but to an entire lifestyle, morals, ethics, decisions, responsibilities, etc. Most teens simply do not adopt that much of their star hero's perceived "values" to make Terry's point work.

re: 8.50 - Clearly he mustn't read much. Moreover, people are 'inherently evil' insofar as they are 'inherently good' as well. To borrow from science-fiction, I'm rather reminded of Kirk's comment that "Sure I could kill you, but I won't today."

As a metric of measurement 'good' and 'evil' aren't anywhere near as useful as degrees of selfishness.

re: 16.15 - Fair point, but no one has truly figured out to eradicate 'hatred' - so tactics are what one has to work with. Indeed, 'tactics' are very much what our new world order is about limiting - whether it's been the original ban on weapons like 'dum-dum' rounds and chemical warfare, to the tactics of terrorism today. Besides, if one's target is the motivations, and willingness to breech conventions, then the US is every bit as guilty. So perhaps his point is that Islam is evil and therefore should be the target - what else is one left to think, deductively-speaking?

re: 52.25 - SMACK!

And on that note, I'm definitely not reading his slop.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

This logic puzzle is quite difficult. I might have found something to do inbetween calls at work tomorrow :)

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I fail on the logic problem - you got a little step-by-step answer? :)

[gagravarr.livejournal.com]

Evil problem....

The clues aren't sufficient to solve it in the usual manner (which is to draw out a half grid, write the different options down each side, and tick and cross the possibilities). I think the only way to solve it is to draw out the grid, get as far as you can, photocopy it a few times then trial a few different options and see what happens

The most annoying thing is that it's trivial to get the bulgarian's training purpose down to one of two things, but almost impossible to solve it from there...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yep. elleblue was wrestling with it all weekend, and came to exactly the same conclusion...

[gagravarr.livejournal.com]

I spent five minutes on it in the office, declared it a little tricky, so printed out a copy to take home

Then spent an hour or so in the garden, and another hour on the train, all without sucess. Kinda tempted to draw out the chart in a spreadsheet, fill in the known info, then pass it about for people to attack...

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

elleblue was wrestling with it all weekend

I gave up after part of Saturday, since I was reliably informed that it's unsociably to sit glaring at a piece of paper when at events such as Caption. Unless the piece of paper has cartoons on, anyway.

There are 120^5 valid possible solutions, and each of the "A is next to B" clues cuts it down by a factor of approximately 15 (since there are 8 possible configurations in the space of 120), but in such a way that you can't usually rule out any of the assignments, so you can't just put a cross on a grid (except in the cases where A and B aren't from the same set of labels, in which case you can rule out "A is B").

Anyway, yes, I agree that it's easy to narrow it down to one of two possibilities. Incorporating the information about sets and numbers of exercises is more tricky. If/when I find a solution, I'll post it on my own journal and leave a note on here :-) If I don't get one, it's going to bug me, so it is tempting to try and brute-force it in order to clear the way for me to get my actual work done..

[squigglyruth.livejournal.com]

There is no one correct answer. The problem must be missing at least one clue, but I would guess more than that, if it's deseigned to be completely solved.

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

Well, I've spotted a mistake in my reasoning above: the "A next to B" conditions each specify about 2/5 of the solution space, not 1/15, because for each of the 8 possible "next-to" configurations, there are still 6 possibly configurations for the other three labels.

The "two doors down from" clue allows 36/120 of the space, and the other six clues each allow 1/5 of the space. Assuming each clue provides only new information (this is the best possible case), we end up with only about 1.2583e-8 of the solution space being allowed. Since there are about 2.4883e10 possible consistent solutions, this means that the clues can't specify exactly one solution.

I don't have a proof for why those remaining solutions can't all specify the same aim for the Bulgarian, though, so I don't yet have a logical argument to say that the problem as stated can't be solved.

Any advances on that? :-)

[squigglyruth.livejournal.com]

I could provide you with at least two different solutions which are true with respect to all the clues.

Try this modification of the problem, designed to allow a full solution whilst preserving complexity: (nb I've modified clues 3 and 15, clarified clue 8, and added three extra clues).


There are 5 athletes who live in five sequential houses (no.s 1,2,3,4,&5: terraced in that order). For each athlete, there is a distinct (1)NATIONALITY, (2) preferred number of EXERCISES, (3) preferred number of SETS, (4) preferred number of RECOVERY DAYS between sessions, and (5) a distinct PURPOSE for their training.

18 clues will allow you to work out the full details of each athlete's training schedule, as well as which number thay live at. WHICH NUMBER DOES THE AMERICAN LIVE AT?

5 NATIONALITIES
(1) CANADIAN
(2) AMERICAN
(3) GERMAN
(4) RUSSIAN
(5) BULGARIAN

5 EXERCISES(number)
(1) 1 exercise preferred
(2) 2 exercises preferred
(3) 3 exercises preferred
(4) 4 exercises preferred
(5) 5 exercises preferred

5 SETS(number)
(1) 2 preferred sets
(2) 4 preferred sets
(3) 6 preferred sets
(4) 8 preferred sets
(5) 10 preferred sets

5 RECOVERY(days)
(1) 1 day of recovery
(2) 2 days of recovery
(3) 3 days of recovery
(4) 4 days of recovery
(5) 5 days of recovery

5 PURPOSES
(1) Olympic Lifter
(2) Powerlifter
(3) Therapy
(4) Recreation
(5) Bodybuilder

18 CLUES:
(1) The German lives in the second house
(2) The Canadian prefers 1 day of recovery
(3) The athlete who performs 8 sets prefers 4 exercises
(4) The olympic lifter lives next to the powerlifter
(5) The therapy client lives next to the athlete who prefers 3 days of recovery
(6) The athlete who implements 3 days of recovery lives next to the bodybuilder
(7) The athlete who performs 6 sets lives next to the athlete who performs 4 sets
(8) The athlete who uses 4 days of recovery lives at a number two higher than the athlete who uses 3 exercises
(9) The athlete who implements 6 sets prefers 1 exercise
(10) The Russian athlete performs twice as many sets as the German athlete performs exercises
(11) The athlete who uses 2 sets lives next to the olympic lifter
(12) The Canadian lives next to the American
(13) The athlete with 5 days of recovery lives in the 1st house
(14) The athlete who takes 2 days of recovery between workouts lives next to the athlete who engages in 4 exercises per workout
(15) The Bulgarian lives at a lower number than the recreational lifter, who is not of north american origin
(16) The powerlifter is Russian
(17) The occupant of house number 4 performs fewer sets than that of house number 5, but more than the Bulgarian
(18) The bodybuilder lives two doors away from the athlete who does 2 exercises

A grid might help in answering it, but isn't necessary, and you'll get more satisfaction if you don't use one.

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

Yep, your version of the problem is much better :-)

I eventually managed to prove there are 62 possible solutions satisfying the original clues, and that no interpretation of the initial clues could cut that down to a set where the Bulgarian definitely had one distinct aim.

I'd wondered if clue 14 could be read differently by assuming that "exercises per workout" = "sets per workout" * exercises, but even that only cuts it down to 16 solutions, half of which have the bulgarian doing one thing, and half the other.

[squigglyruth.livejournal.com]

62 sounds about right. I thought about trying to work it out, but it made my brain hurt.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Dang. Sorry you had to spend so long on it only to have it be insoluble. But thanks, because now I get to tell my colleague. ;-)

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The clues didn't contradict themselves, and it wasn't the case that no possible solutions existed. It can still be puzzled out if there's more than one possible solution, it's just a bit disappointing that having found the set of possible combinations, that end questions still can't be answered.

Where did your colleague originally find the puzzle?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Where did your colleague originally find the puzzle?

Just one of those emails that does the rounds. So I suppose it's not that surprising that there were bits missing. :-/

Advance

[(Anonymous)]

I have a perl program that narrows it down to 22000 choices using some of the rules, then applies the remaining rules to those 22000 answers in a brute-force manner. You get 30 cases where all of the rules are fulfilled, and in these the Bulgarian can have one of two reasons. If anyone wants the code to this, then they are welcome, though I am not going to add more comments to it for you.

David

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

I ended up writing something along the same lines in Matlab as a quick way to test different interpretations of some of the clues. My version is at least partially commented, although less useful to other people unless they've got a copy of Matlab sitting around to run it in..

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

52:25 - "Ayn Rand is my favourite author; I consider her the greatest philospher since Aristotle."

Pffft!

And I'm not the only philosopher to react that way.