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[Antioch]

For all your weirdly interesting philosophizing and debating over probably pointless things.


I'll start:

Sally is in a room with two baskets and a marble. She puts the marble in basket 1 and leaves the room.

Ann comes in the room and unbeknown to Sally she moves the marble from basket 1 to basket 2.

Sophie meets Sally and asks where the marble is.

Sally says it is in basket 2.


Is Sally a liar?

[wierd]

Unless Sally is clairvoyant, or Ann old her that she moved it before she could speak with Sophie, yes-- Sally is a liar. The "unbenownst to Sally" requirement strikes down the first, the second may be an omission.

So, DID Ann tell Sally that she moved it, prior to Sally's conversation with Sophie?  If she did not, then Sally is a liar. Telling a lie, is the act of purposefully saying something other than what one knows to be the truth. Sally knows that she put the marble in basket 1. She does not know that Ann moved it. She tells Sophie that it is in basket 2. Sally is willfully telling Ann something she believes to be inaccurate, and is thus telling a lie. It does not matter that the marble is actually in basket 2 now.  Again, the only out is if Ann and Sally talk, and discuss Anne's moving of the marble to basket 2, before Sally talks with Sophie, and tells her it is in basket 2.

[Frumple]

... it depends on why sally said it was in basket two. If it was under the impression the marble was actually in basket one, probably a liar. If it was, say, forgetfulness, or misspeaking, or something of that nature, then probably not. Someone telling sally about it would count there, too, sure, though the method could be a lot of things. Maybe ann updated their facebook status to "putn marb n 2nd bask" or somethin'.

[McTraveller]

It would be more entertaining, although it's based on information not present, to suppose that basket 1 is small and inside basket 2. So Ann just moved the marble from inside basket 1 into basket 2, but the entire time, technically, the marble was inside basket 2...