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Logic Test

R

ryan

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What in the fictional city of X is shorter than the tallest building in X but taller than the second tallest building in X.

Can you answer this, why or why not?

Hint:

assume that I have made no grammatical errors.

 
I suppose first one has to choosebetween inductive or reductive reasoning. Or maybe logic being immaterial is not constrained in the brain and being non local according to the many worlds interpretation really isn't logical to begin with. Making the dichotomy of inductive versus deductive purely the superposition of random macro Newtonian states manifested at thequantum atomic scale states.


And this leads to the question as to whether logic itself is a property of reality. Is logic quantized orinfinitely divisible?


In other words the primary question isit logical to be logical? Is being logical really being logical?


As mathematical number lines areinfinitely divisible, then logic must also be infinitely divisible.This being the case then true or false can never be determined.


Given the mind is non physical and non local any city imagined as fictional is in fact real. Therefore the hypothesis that city x is fictional is logically false to begin with.


Thus the answer to the question is anything in city x that is shorter than the tallest building andtaller than the second tallest building.


However a problem arises with thedefinition of taller. Taller in reference to what? In xyz coordinates two buildings may have the same z dimensions, but what if one is built on a hill?


And at the quantum atomic level surfaces of materials are not exactly planar. The atoms and electrons are in motion. Therefore the z dimension of a building can only bedescribed by a probabilistic wave function.


So from a quantum view we can never say for certain one building is taller than another. This is known as theShregingers Bat Paradox within the Many Buildings Interpretation. Does the building really exist until a bat hits it with SONAR?
 
Yes, I can give an answer, not necessarily THE answer, since I don't know what all exists in the fictional city of X. But I can imagine there is a building that is the tallest, height is maybe 30 feet, and a building that is the second tallest, height maybe 20 feet. Then I can imagine there are other things in the city, such as trees and poles, and that some of them are shorter than 30 feet, but taller than 20 feet.

So, I can answer that in the fictional city of X of my imagination, the things that are shorter than the tallest building but taller than the second tallest building are some trees and poles.

It could be the case though that this fictional city of X contains no trees or poles or anything else besides buildings. If the fictional city of X is further described as containing only buildings, then I would answer that there are no things in the city that are shorter than the tallest building but taller than the second tallest building.

In this, I am assuming that height is measured from the bottom of a thing to the top of the thing, such that a giant could pick up all the buildings and other things (if any) in the city and line them up in a row from tallest to shortest on a horizontal surface and easily compare their heights.
 
rosy tetra said:
Yes, I can give an answer, not necessarily THE answer, since I don't know what all exists in the fictional city of X. But I can imagine there is a building that is the tallest, height is maybe 30 feet, and a building that is the second tallest, height maybe 20 feet. Then I can imagine there are other things in the city, such as trees and poles, and that some of them are shorter than 30 feet, but taller than 20 feet.
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Agreed, or it could be a city of underground buildings with one building sticking up and there's a giraffe wandering through.
 
rosy tetra said:
Yes, I can give an answer, not necessarily THE answer, since I don't know what all exists in the fictional city of X. But I can imagine there is a building that is the tallest, height is maybe 30 feet, and a building that is the second tallest, height maybe 20 feet. Then I can imagine there are other things in the city, such as trees and poles, and that some of them are shorter than 30 feet, but taller than 20 feet.

So, I can answer that in the fictional city of X of my imagination, the things that are shorter than the tallest building but taller than the second tallest building are some trees and poles.

It could be the case though that this fictional city of X contains no trees or poles or anything else besides buildings. If the fictional city of X is further described as containing only buildings, then I would answer that there are no things in the city that are shorter than the tallest building but taller than the second tallest building.

In this, I am assuming that height is measured from the bottom of a thing to the top of the thing, such that a giant could pick up all the buildings and other things (if any) in the city and line them up in a row from tallest to shortest on a horizontal surface and easily compare their heights.
Click to expand...

No, sorry, like steve_bnk you are paying too much attention to the content. The content is a distraction.
 
Are you looking for something like this?

No. I cannot answer this, because it is not a question, but a statement.
 
Ha! I've become so accustomed to casual misuse of punctuation on the Internet that now I often overlook unexpected usage.
 
pfft. The answer is clearly the shadow of the tallest building at precisely Y time of day.

The sentence uses an interrogative pronoun. The subject of the sentence is "What". That creates a question even if you leave off the ? at the end.

Like a Jeopardy "answer".
 
More like the Abbott and Costello routine. Who's on first. What's on second. Those sentences are not questions. Those are the guys' names.
 
Zeluvia said:
pfft. The answer is clearly the shadow of the tallest building at precisely Y time of day.

The sentence uses an interrogative pronoun. The subject of the sentence is "What". That creates a question even if you leave off the ? at the end.

Like a Jeopardy "answer".
Click to expand...

The shadow of something doesn't bear an exact relationship with the object. The tall building next to a cliff will cast a shorter shadow than the short one next to a canyon.
 
Zeluvia said:
pfft. The answer is clearly the shadow of the tallest building at precisely Y time of day.
Click to expand...
Why wouldn't the shadow be just as tall as the building?

The answer is clearly the part of the tallest building that doesn't contain the top K meters, for all 0 < K < Z, where Z is the difference between the heights of the two tallest buildings.
 
But we know what is shorter than the tallest building and taller than the second tallest building, don't we?
 
Zeluvia said:
pfft. The answer is clearly the shadow of the tallest building at precisely Y time of day.
Click to expand...
If X is a fictional city then you cannot assume that shadows are produced by a sun. It maybe fixed spotlights just above the tallest and second tallest buildings, creating fixed shadows much shorter than either building.

PS. And a shadow (on the ground) may be shorter but is not taller than anything. It may be longer, though, but that wasn't the non-question.

Zeluvia said:
The sentence uses an interrogative pronoun. The subject of the sentence is "What". That creates a question even if you leave off the ? at the end.
Click to expand...
Yes, I agree.

And ryan is a particularly sloppy writer so nobody would pay attention to a missing interrogation mark.
EB
 
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rosy tetra said:
It could be the case though that this fictional city of X contains no trees or poles or anything else besides buildings. If the fictional city of X is further described as containing only buildings, then I would answer that there are no things in the city that are shorter than the tallest building but taller than the second tallest building.
Click to expand...
I'd say that the average hight of the two tallest buildings is definitely shorter than the tallest building and taller than the second tallest building. So "what" is the average hight of the two tallest buildings. Can't be more precise than that.

So, unless averages be specified differently in that fictional city, this is the answer to the non-question.
EB
 
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