Nearly Hanging

A prisoner is told, “If you tell a lie we will hang you; if you tell the truth we will shoot you.”

What can he say to save himself?

You will hang me. If they hang him, then the statement was true and they could only hang him for telling a lie. If they shoot him, then it makes the statement a lie and they were only to shoot him for telling the truth. An alternate solution is to say, “You will not shoot me,” leading to the same quandary for the killers.

Posted in Brain Teasers

 

12 Comments on "Nearly Hanging"


Bob says
December 16, 2014 @ 08:31

The answer is: you will hang me


Quake says
March 6, 2015 @ 00:12

A smart killer could get around it
If he says you will not shoot me the killers could shoot him in the leg or arm making it a lie and they could hang him to die
And if he says you will ahng me the killers could slowly hang him witoutkilling him and shoot him dead since it became true


Quake says
March 6, 2015 @ 00:24

A more fittng answer might be “you will hang me for the truth and you will shoot me for the truth”
Or add not to the statement or changing the words truth to lie
Eitherway making the statement both true and false in itself with no way to satisfy it


Tamir says
March 5, 2017 @ 12:46

If the executioner is a student of logic, and if the condition for remaining silent is a third punishment (e.g. starving to death), there is no way to escape this predicament with your life.

If you say ‘You will hang me!’, then the executioner will simply hang you and shoot your body afterwards, as the two actions are not mutually exclusive. The statement can both be logically punished/interpreted as a truth, since you WILL be hanged, and a falsehood, as no one specified that you would ONLY be hanged (the same reason why ordering a hamburger doesn’t rule out being served a hamburger with Coke and fries).

The same reasoning applies to the reverse statement (it’s false because they’ll shoot you, yet true because that’s not all of your punishment), thus leaving you no loophole to escape from under these circumstances. Unless you can guarantee that your captors are obligated to punish you via a single method (hang OR shoot you), or will give you a choice of methods that completely exclude each other (e.g. banishing you to the North or South Pole for life in one piece), perhaps the smartest move would be not getting caught in the first place.


Lemon says
September 13, 2018 @ 06:08

Um no Quake… getting shot in the leg is still getting shot. They didn’t specify I will shoot you dead or hang you dead. Even a little bit of hanging or shooting constitutes as hanging or shooting. The only reasonable answer is the future statement which is neither yet true or false and will only become so through the actions of those giving the options.


Dennis B. says
February 12, 2019 @ 12:05

He could also just say, “I am lying.” Do they shoot him or do they hang him for this? They can’t do either.


Scarlet says
March 23, 2019 @ 10:59

He simply can ask any kind of question;like “how is the weather?” that way there wouldn’t be any kind of truth or lie!!


Avery says
September 10, 2019 @ 13:01

How about saying “Whether I am hanged or shot, I will live”……..


Mr. Shenanigans says
October 1, 2019 @ 15:30

This answer is incorrect. “You will hang me” isn’t a lie or truth. It’s just a guess as to what the executioners will do.

Is the argument that any time I tell someone my guess as to what they will do next that I am potentially lying? That’s not even grammatically accurate.

In short: I don’t buy it. This riddle is flawed.


paulo says
January 8, 2020 @ 23:51

well our teacher in philosophy went up and put this in our 3rd periodical test with a soldier as a base and required to say a statement that is neither a truth and a lie and i freaking wrote “I am soldier with a miniature atomic bomb in my body that will automatically explode upon my death do you guyz think my answer can get into the system?


Tanmayi says
May 16, 2020 @ 12:46

My answer is just a simple one, it may be true or not I don’t mind it. Now coming to answer, if the Prisoner doesn’t tell or speak anything which is truth or false he may not be punished.


Dom says
October 1, 2020 @ 20:53

He says nothing.


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