This may
sound like a
joke at first, but it's in
fact an interesting
logical puzzle based on a story by
Raymond Smullyan.
A
man walks into a
bar, sees a
woman that he'd like to know and asks her,
"Will you
promise to give me a
photograph of yourself if I make a
true statement?"
Feeling this to be a
flattering and
benign request, she promises. The man then states,
"You will neither give me a photograph nor will you
sleep with me."
Here's the
dilemma: the woman can't give the man a photograph of herself, since if she were to do so, his statement would be false and she would have
broken her promise to give him a photo only if he made a
true statement.
Therefore, she must not give him a photograph
under any circumstances. But if she also
refuses to
sleep with him, his statement becomes true, and this would require her to give him the photo. The only way she can satisfy her promise is to sleep with him so that the statement becomes false. The woman's seemingly
innocuous promise
ensnares her.
Fortunately or
unfortunately, I suspect that the
class of people for whom this
seduction technique would prove effective is probably rather small. Nevertheless, it might make an interesting
premise for a
Star Trek episode, or perhaps form a part of a
logician's dating
manual.
-
John Allen Paulos