The Hardest Logic

Puzzle Ever

The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever is a logic

puzzle so called by American philosopher
and logician George Boolos and published
in The Harvard Review of Philosophy in
1996.[1] Boolos' article includes multiple
ways of solving the problem. A translation
in Italian was published earlier in the
newspaper La Repubblica, under the title
L'indovinello più difficile del mondo.

It is stated as follows:

Three gods A, B, and C are

called, in no particular order,
True, False, and Random. True
always speaks truly, False
always speaks falsely, but
whether Random speaks truly or
falsely is a completely random
matter. Your task is to
determine the identities of A, B,
and C by asking three yes-no
 questions; each question must
be put to exactly one god. The
gods understand English, but
will answer all questions in their
own language, in which the
words for yes and no are da and
ja, in some order. You do not
know which word means which.

Boolos provides the following

clarifications:[2] a single god may be asked
more than one question, questions are
permitted to depend on the answers to
earlier questions, and the nature of
Random's response should be thought of
as depending on the flip of a fair coin
hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down
heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.[3]

History
Boolos credits the logician Raymond
Smullyan as the originator of the puzzle
and John McCarthy with adding the
difficulty of not knowing what da and ja
mean. Related puzzles can be found
throughout Smullyan's writings. For
example, in What is the Name of This
Book?,[4] he describes a Haitian island
where half the inhabitants are zombies
(who always lie) and half are humans (who
always tell the truth). He explains that "the
situation is enormously complicated by
the fact that although all the natives
understand English perfectly, an ancient
taboo of the island forbids them ever to
use non-native words in their speech.
Hence whenever you ask them a yes-no
question, they reply Bal or Da—one of
which means yes and the other no. The
trouble is that we do not know which of
Bal or Da means yes and which means no."
There are other related puzzles in The
Riddle of Scheherazade.[5][6]
The puzzle is based on Knights and
Knaves puzzles. One setting for this puzzle
is a fictional island inhabited only by
knights and knaves, where knights always
tell the truth and knaves always lie. A
visitor to the island must ask a number of
yes/no questions in order to discover what
he needs to know (the specifics of which
vary between different versions of the
puzzle). One version of these puzzles was
popularized by a scene in the 1986 fantasy
film Labyrinth. There are two doors with
two guards. One guard lies and one guard
does not. One door leads to the castle and
the other leads to 'certain death'. The
puzzle is to find out which door leads to
the castle by asking one of the guards one
question. In the movie, the protagonist
Sarah, does this by asking, "Would he [the
other guard] tell me that this door leads to
the castle?"

The solution
Boolos provided his solution in the same
article in which he introduced the puzzle.
Boolos states that the "first move is to find
a god that you can be certain is not
Random, and hence is either True or
False".[2] There are many different
questions that will achieve this result. One
strategy is to use complicated logical
connectives in your questions (either
biconditionals or some equivalent
construction).

Boolos' question was to ask A:

Does da mean yes if and only if you are

True, if and only if B is Random?[2]

Equivalently:

Are an odd number of the following

statements true: you are False, da
means yes, B is Random?

It was observed by Roberts (2001) and

independently by Rabern and Rabern
(2008) that the puzzle's solution can be
simplified by using certain
counterfactuals.[5][7] The key to this
solution is that, for any yes/no question Q,
asking either True or False the question

If I asked you Q, would you say ja?

results in the answer ja if the truthful

answer to Q is yes, and the answer da if
the truthful answer to Q is no (Rabern and
Rabern (2008) call this result the
embedded question lemma). The reason
this works can be seen by studying the
logical form of the expected answer to the
question. This logical form (Boolean
expression) is developed below ('Q' is true
if the answer to Q is 'yes', 'God' is true if the
god to whom the question is asked is
acting as a truth-teller and 'Ja' is true if the
meaning of Ja is 'yes'):

1. How a god would choose to answer

Q is given by the negation of the
exclusive disjunction between Q and
God (if the answer to Q and the
nature of the god are opposite, the
answer given by the god is bound to
be 'no', while if they are the same, it is
bound to be 'yes'):
¬ ( Q ⊕ God)
2. Whether the answer given by the god
would be Ja or not is given again by
the negation of the exclusive
 disjunction between the previous
result and Ja
¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja )
3. The result of step two gives the
truthful answer to the question: 'If I
ask you Q, would you say ja'? What
would be the answer the God will give
can be ascertained by using
reasoning similar to that used in step
1
¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja ) ) ⊕
God )
4. Finally, to find out if this answer will
be Ja or Da, (yet another) negation of
 the exclusive disjunction of Ja with
the result of step 3 will be required
¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( ( ¬ ( Q ⊕ God) ) ⊕ Ja
) ) ⊕ God ) ) ⊕ Ja )

This final expression evaluates to true if

the answer is Ja, and false otherwise. The
eight cases are worked out below (1
represents true, and 0 false):

Q God Ja Step
Step 1 Step 3 Step 4
True if True if god True if 2
answer to behaves meaning of (God's (God's answer to (Is it
(Is it
answer to Q) counterfactual) Ja?)
Q is 'yes' as truth-teller Ja is 'yes' Ja?)

0 0 0 1 0 1 0

0 0 1 1 1 0 0

0 1 0 0 1 1 0

0 1 1 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 1 0 1

1 0 1 0 0 1 1

1 1 0 1 0 0 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Comparing the first and last columns
makes it plain to see that the answer is Ja
only when the answer to the question is
'yes'. The same results apply if the
question asked were instead: 'If I asked
you Q, would you say Da'? because the
evaluation of the counterfactual does not
depend superficially on meanings of Ja
and Da. Each of the eight cases are
equivalently reasoned out below in words:

Assume that ja means yes and da

means no.
1. True is asked and responds with ja.
Since he is telling the truth, the
 truthful answer to Q is ja, which
means yes.
2. True is asked and responds with da.
Since he is telling the truth, the
truthful answer to Q is da, which
means no.
3. False is asked and responds with ja.
Since he is lying, it follows that if you
asked him Q, he would instead
answer da. He would be lying, so the
truthful answer to Q is ja, which
means yes.
4. False is asked and responds with da.
Since he is lying, it follows that if you
asked him Q, he would in fact answer
 ja. He would be lying, so the truthful
answer to Q is da, which means no.
Assume ja means no and da means yes.
1. True is asked and responds with ja.
Since he is telling the truth, the
truthful answer to Q is da, which
means yes.
2. True is asked and responds with da.
Since he is telling the truth, the
truthful answer to Q is ja, which
means no.
3. False is asked and responds with ja.
Since he is lying, it follows that if you
asked him Q, he would in fact answer
 ja. He would be lying, so the truthful
answer to Q is da, which means yes.
4. False is asked and responds with da.
Since he is lying, it follows that if you
asked him Q, he would instead
answer da. He would be lying, so the
truthful answer to Q is ja, which
means no.

Regardless of whether the asked god is

lying or not and regardless of which word
means yes and which no, you can
determine if the truthful answer to Q is yes
or no.

The solution below constructs its three

questions using the lemma described
above.[5]

Q1: Ask god B, "If I asked you 'Is A

Random?', would you say ja?". If B
answers ja, either B is Random (and is
answering randomly), or B is not
Random and the answer indicates that A
is indeed Random. Either way, C is not
Random. If B answers da, either B is
Random (and is answering randomly), or
B is not Random and the answer
indicates that A is not Random. Either
way, you know the identity of a god who
is not Random.
Q2: Go to the god who was identified as
not being Random by the previous
question (either A or C), and ask him: "If
I asked you 'Are you False?', would you
say ja?". Since he is not Random, an
answer of da indicates that he is True
and an answer of ja indicates that he is
False.
Q3: Ask the same god the question: "If I
asked you 'Is B Random?', would you say
ja?". If the answer is ja, B is Random; if
the answer is da, the god you have not
yet spoken to is Random. The remaining
god can be identified by elimination.
 Case 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A True True False Random False Random True

B False Random True True Random False False

C Random False Random False True True Random

Da Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Ja No No No No No No Yes

Is A indeed Random? No No No Yes No Yes No

How would English Yes Either No Yes Either No Yes

B answer
"Is A Their
Da Either Ja Da Either Ja Ja
Random?" language

B's
response English Yes Either Yes No Either No No
to
Question 1
—"If I
Either Either
asked you
Their
'Is A Da Da Ja Ja Da
language
Random',
would you Da Ja Da Ja
say ja?"

Thus __ (hereafter
called X) is not A A C A C A C C A
Random.

Is X indeed False? No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No

How would English No No No No No No No No No

X answer
"Are you Their
Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Da
False?" language

X's
response English Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes No
to
Question 2
 —"If I Their Da Da Ja Ja Ja Ja Da Da Da
asked you language
'Are you
False?',
would you
say ja?"

Thus X is __. True True False False False False True True True

Is B indeed Random? No Yes No No Yes No No

How would English No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No No

X answer
"Is B Their
Ja Da Ja Da Da Ja Da Ja Da
Random?" language

X's English Yes No No Yes Yes No No Yes No

response
to
Question 3
—"If I
Their
asked you Da Ja Ja Da Da Ja Ja Da Da
language
'Is B
Random?',
would you
say ja?"

Thus __ is Random. C B B C A B B A C

Thus by
Letter B C A B B C A B B
elimination,
(Letter) is
Name False False True True True True False False False
(Name).

Random's behavior
Boolos' third clarifying remark explains
Random's behavior as follows:[5]

Whether Random speaks truly or not

should be thought of as depending on
the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if
the coin comes down heads, he speaks
truly; if tails, falsely.

This does not state if the coin flip is for

each question, or each "session", that is
the entire series of questions. If
interpreted as being a single random
selection which lasts for the duration of
the session, Rabern and Rabern show that
the puzzle could be solved in only two
questions;[5] this is because the
counterfactual had been designed such
that regardless of whether the answerer
(in this case Random) was as a truth-teller
or a false-teller, the truthful answer to Q
would be clear.

Another possible interpretation of

Random's behaviour when faced with the
counterfactual is that he answers the
question in its totality after flipping the
coin in his head, but figures out the answer
to Q in his previous state of mind, while
the question is being asked. Once again,
this makes asking Random the
counterfactual useless. If this is the case,
a small change to the question above
yields a question which will always elicit a
meaningful answer from Random. The
change is as follows:

If I asked you Q in your current mental

state, would you say ja?[5]

This effectively extracts the truth-teller and

liar personalities from Random and forces
him to be only one of them. By doing so
the puzzle becomes completely trivial, that
is, truthful answers can be easily obtained.
However, it assumes that Random has
decided to lie or tell the truth prior to
determining the correct answer to the
question – something not stated by the
puzzle or the clarifying remark.
Ask god A, "If I asked you 'Are you
Random?' in your current mental state,
would you say ja?"
1. If A answers ja, A is Random: Ask
god B, "If I asked you 'Are you
True?', would you say ja?"
If B answers ja, B is True and C
is False.
If B answers da, B is False and
C is True. In both cases, the
puzzle is solved.
2. If A answers da, A is not Random:
Ask god A, "If I asked you 'Are you
True?', would you say ja?"
If A answers ja, A is True.
 If A answers da, A is False.
3. Ask god A, "If I asked you 'Is B
Random?', would you say ja?"
If A answers ja, B is Random,
and C is the opposite of A.
If A answers da, C is Random,
and B is the opposite of A.

One can elegantly obtain truthful answers

in the course of solving the original
problem as clarified by Boolos ("if the coin
comes down heads, he speaks truly; if
tails, falsely") without relying on any
purportedly unstated assumptions, by
making a further change to the question:
 If I asked you Q, and if you were
answering as truthfully as you are
answering this question, would you say
ja?

Here, the only assumption is that Random,

in answering the question, is either
answering truthfully ("speaks truthfully")
OR is answering falsely ("speaks falsely")
which are explicitly part of the
clarifications of Boolos. The original
unmodified problem (with Boolos'
clarifications) in this way can be seen to
be the "Hardest Logical Puzzle Ever" with
the most elegant and uncomplicated
looking solution.
Rabern and Rabern (2008) suggest making
an amendment to Boolos' original puzzle
so that Random is actually random. The
modification is to replace Boolos' third
clarifying remark with the following:[5]

Whether Random says ja or da should

be thought of as depending on the flip of
a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin
comes down heads, he says ja; if tails,
he says da.

With this modification, the puzzle's

solution demands the more careful god-
interrogation given at the top of The
Solution section.
 Unanswerable questions
and exploding god-heads
In A simple solution to the hardest logic
puzzle ever,[5] B. Rabern and L. Rabern
offer a variant of the puzzle: a god,
confronted with a paradox, will say neither
ja nor da and instead not answer at all. For
example, if the question "Are you going to
answer this question with the word that
means no in your language?" is put to True,
he cannot answer truthfully. (The paper
represents this as his head exploding,
"...they are infallible gods! They have but
one recourse – their heads explode.")
Allowing the "exploding head" case gives
yet another solution of the puzzle and
introduces the possibility of solving the
puzzle (modified and original) in just two
questions rather than three. In support of a
two-question solution to the puzzle, the
authors solve a similar simpler puzzle
using just two questions.

Three gods A, B, and C are called, in

some order, Zephyr, Eurus, and Aeolus.
The gods always speak truly. Your task
is to determine the identities of A, B, and
C by asking yes-no questions; each
question must be put to exactly one
god. The gods understand English and
will answer in English.
Note that this puzzle is trivially solved with
three questions. Furthermore, to solve the
puzzle in two questions, the following
lemma is proved.

Tempered Liar Lemma. If we ask A "Is it

the case that {[(you are going to answer
'no' to this question) AND (B is Zephyr)]
OR (B is Eurus)}?", a response of 'yes'
indicates that B is Eurus, a response of
'no' indicates that B is Aeolus, and an
exploding head indicates that B is
Zephyr. Hence we can determine the
identity of B in one question.

Using this lemma it is simple to solve the

puzzle in two questions. Rabern and
Rabern (2008) use a similar trick
(tempering the liar's paradox) to solve the
original puzzle in just two questions.
Uzquiano (2010) uses these techniques to
provide a two question solution to the
amended puzzle.[8][9] Two question
solutions to both the original and
amended puzzle take advantage of the
fact that some gods have an inability to
answer certain questions. Neither True nor
False can provide an answer to the
following question.

Would you answer the same as Random

would to the question 'Is Dushanbe in
Kirghizia?'?
Since the amended Random answers in a
truly random manner, neither True nor
False can predict whether Random would
answer ja or da to the question of whether
Dushanbe is in Kirghizia. Given this
ignorance they will be unable to tell the
truth or lie – they will therefore remain
silent. Random, however, who spouts
random nonsense, will have no problem
spouting off either ja or da. Uzquiano
(2010) exploits this asymmetry to provide
a two question solution to the modified
puzzle. Yet, one might assume that the
gods have an "oracular ability to predict
Random's answers even before the coin
flip in Random’s brain?"[8] In this case, a
two question solution is still available by
using self-referential questions of the style
employed in Rabern and Rabern (2008).

Would you answer ja to the question of

whether you would answer da to this
question?

Here again neither True nor False are able

to answer this question given their
commitments of truth-telling and lying,
respectively. They are forced to answer ja
just in case the answer they are
committed to give is da and this they
cannot do. Just as before they will suffer a
head explosion. In contrast, Random will
mindlessly spout his nonsense and
randomly answer ja or da. Uzquiano (2010)
also uses this asymmetry to provide a two
question solution to the modified
puzzle.[8][9] However, Uzquiano's own
modification to the puzzle, which
eliminates this asymmetry by allowing
Random to either answer "ja", "da", or
remain silent, cannot be solved in fewer
than three questions.[10]

References
1. George Boolos, 'The Hardest Logic
Puzzle Ever'. The Harvard Review of
Philosophy, Volume 6 (1996), pp.62-65
 https://doi.org/10.5840/harvardreview
1996615 .
2. Boolos, George (1996). "The hardest
logic puzzle ever" (PDF). The Harvard
Review of Philosophy. 6: 62–65.
doi:10.5840/harvardreview1996615 .
3. Note that the Random god in Boolos'
puzzle is a god who acts randomly as
either a truth-teller or a liar. This is
different from a god who answers 'yes'
or 'no' randomly. One usual trick in
solving many logic puzzles is to
design a (perhaps composite)
question that forces both a truth-teller
and a liar to answer 'yes'. For such a
 question, a person who randomly
chooses to be a truth-teller or a liar is
still forced to answer 'yes', but a
person who answers randomly may
answer 'yes' or 'no'.
4. Smullyan, Raymond (1978). What is
the Name of This Book?. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
pp. 149–156.
5. Rabern, B.; Rabern, L. (2008). "A simple
solution to the hardest logic puzzle
ever" (PDF). Analysis. 68 (298): 105.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-
8284.2007.00723.x .
6. Smullyan, Raymond (1997). The Riddle
of Scheherazade. New York: A. A.
Knopf, Inc.
7. Roberts, T. S. (2001). "Some Thoughts
about the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever".
Journal of Philosophical Logic. 30 (6):
609–612.
doi:10.1023/a:1013344220298 .
8. Uzquiano, G. (2009). "How to solve the
hardest logic puzzle ever in two
questions". Analysis. 70: 39–44.
doi:10.1093/analys/anp140 .
9. Rabern, Brian and Rabern, Landon. "In
defense of the two question solution
 to the hardest logic puzzle ever" .
dropbox.com
10. Wheeler, G.; Barahona, P. (2011). "Why
the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever Cannot
Be Solved in Less than Three
Questions" (PDF). Journal of
Philosophical Logic. 41 (2): 493.
doi:10.1007/s10992-011-9181-7 .

External links
Richard Webb. Three gods, three
questions: The Hardest Logic Puzzle
Ever. (New Scientist, Volume 216,
Issues 2896–2897, 22–29 December
2012, Pages 50–52.)
 Tom Ellis. Even harder than the hardest
logic puzzle ever.
Stefan Wintein. Playing with Truth.
Walter Carnielli. Contrafactuais,
contradição e o enigma lógico mais
difícil do mundo. Revista Omnia
Lumina. (in Portuguese)
Jamie Condliffe. The Hardest Logic
Puzzle Ever (and How to Solve It).
The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever
(Googlesites page)

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