Re: Riddles (was: Lateral Thinking)

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Jan 02 2001 - 21:33:55 MST


At 11:02 PM 2/01/01 -0500, Eliezer tweaked my reply:

>> I misfired again, failing to appreciate that the `I' in the
>> `riddle' DENOTES the riddle, not the riddler:
>> If so, the *name to be spoken* is `This riddle',

>Yes, 'this riddle' would be a valid guess, though the answer per se is
>technically the text of the riddle itself. [...]
>The symbol 'I' in the riddle denotes the *answer*,
>as has always been traditional, not the
>riddle or the riddler.

This is turning into some kind of Strange Loop. :)

The announced point of the exercise was to *burst free of the traditional*
(while, presumably, honoring it). My reply above is a limit case: the
answer, untraditionally, is the riddle itself. (The text of the riddle, if
you wish to be pedantic, but that is what a riddle *is*, unless you are a
Platonist.)

I think we have attained an identity in our responses, despite the
appearance of differences.

Damien Broderick



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