Mind puzzle

[Guest S***dst***]

Lateral and Logical Thinking

 

 

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal.

 

So the cunning moneylender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty moneybag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

 

1. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.

 

2. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.

 

3. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

 

Standing on a pebble-strewn path in the farmer's field, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

 

Now, imagine that you were standing in the field that day. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her? Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

 

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

 

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the moneylender as a cheat.

 

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

 

Take a moment to ponder over this story. Experts use it to make people appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chose any of the above logical choices.

 

What would you recommend to the girl do? Well, here is what she did ...

 

She put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles. "Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

 

Since the remaining pebble was black, they had to assume that she had picked the white one. And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

 

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution, which you can find if you stretch your mind. If logic isn't working, try lateral thinking.

 

Lateral thinking is a creative exercise. Practice it every day.

[CristyCurves 169032]

Good post,interesting,clever,thanks for taking the time to post it,I didn't get the answer,although,I suspected she would sneak another pebble in her hand and switch them,sadly I'm just not clever enough to have clued in to get the right answer,oh well,fun anyway.

[Secrets of Victoria 7208]

The simplest answers are sometimes the hardest ones to find.

Most of us skip over the obvious solution to try for some complicated mess that will never work, missing the blatantly obvious answer in the first place.

 

I really liked this posting.

[NotchJohnson 214120]

A long long time ago my father who I admire a lot did something of the sort. He owned a business with 12 employees, the ministry of labor showed up one day and could not find anything of wrong doing so they told him that he needed 1 bathroom for every 10 employees. Being that he only had one bathroom he solved the problem real quick by calling in the last 2 employee hired in front of the inspector and told them to punch out and not to come back to work. The government employee closed is book and told him to forget about his visit.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

The moneylender could respond, "I should have your father thrown in jail right now, because our agreement specified that's what would happen if you didn't complete your pick. But that's all right my dear - instead, I'll generously allow you to pick another stone from the bag."

 

Or the moneylender could say, "We had agreed to let providence decide. It's obvious that providence disapproved of your original draw, since it made you drop the stone before your pick was completed. Therefore, we now know that the true choice of providence is the stone that remains in the bag."

 

Or, the moneylender could just say "That's all right, no harm done, let's try that again". Since it's so easy to get rid of stones, he could then drop his remaining stone in the path just like the daughter did to the first stone. Then he could begin the same process all over again, picking up two more black stones to begin.

 

Then it would be the daughter's turn to make the next move in the battle of wits and sleight-of-hand ...

 

 

(p.s. the original problem is from Edward de Bono's New Think, 1967)

[drlove 37204]

Or if it had come to that, the daughter could have replied, (turning to the money lender), " Since I dropped the first pebble, I want to make this fair. Kindly reach into your bag, pick a pebble and throw it onto the ground. The remaining pebble will show which one you picked. Of course, the pebble inside the bag would be black, so one would have to assume that the money lender had chosen the white pebble.