Many paths at the crossroads

Mark talked about this. How do you know which is the correct way? Sometimes it isn't clear which is the narrow path.

There used to be an old logic puzzle about the island of liars and truth-tellers where you have two paths to choose from and you are only allowed to ask one question - but you don't know which tribe your responder belongs too.

When you've worked out or been told that one - and it crops up all over the place so I'm not revealing it here - you get asked what appears to be a harder puzzle which is how you choose correctly with multiple (in mathematical terms, n) options.

Actually this one is easier. In fact it's blindingly simple, but after the first puzzle you look for something too complicated. You do it by elimination (and that doesn't quite give the solution away if you want to think about it).


In real life it's sometimes difficult to eliminate multiple options at one go. Yet sometimes you can. But you need to know how many options there are - a much more difficult question. In any case, one at a time still works; it just takes a bit of effort.

This one is going to run and run. Not like me!