Philosophy 251

Writing Assignment #5

General Information for Completing Writing Assignments:

(i) Each assignment is worth up to ten points. You will get one point for providing the correct answer and up to nine points for clearly and concisely justifying whatever answer you give. Note, that the emphasis is on justifying your solution regardless of whether it is correct or not. (Imagine that you are writing a solution that is to appear in a magazine in which the problem was presented in an earlier issue. Hence, you need to clearly and fully explain why the answer is the way it is, such that the readers will understand exactly why the answer is the way it is.) Below are some questions that I will ask when evaluating your assignments.

  1. Is the answer clearly stated and identified as the answer?
  2. Is the answer answering the question asked?
  3. Does the student justify the answer actually given?
  4. Does the student fail to account for (or contradict) a relevant fact from the problem?
  5. Does the student make any assumptions not warranted by the problem?
  6. Does the student contradict him/herself in the answer or justification?
  7. Would the justification be understandable to someone who has read the problem, but does not know the answer?

(ii) All assignments must be your own individual and independent work and be pledged. By 'your own individual and independent work' I understand that the student will not have discussed the assignment with any other individual or looked at any other individual's solution prior to the assignment being handed in.

(iii) All assignments are to be done on separate sheets of paper. Each sheet of paper must have your name on it.

(iv) Late assignments receive no credit.


The Statement


As you are diligently working on you logic homework, a devious and malevolent alien (oddly reminiscent of Marvin the Martian) freezes you, from the neck down, with his instantaneous stupefaction device, kidnaps you and puts you, still stupefied, in a strange room. The room has three buttons. The alien informs you that pushing button #1 triggers his disintegrator ray and kills you. Pushing button #2 unstupefies you and transports you back to Earth and freedom. Pushing button #3 triggers his instant vaporizer and kills you. The alien will let you make one and only one statement. If the statement is true, then the alien will choose which button he shall push. If the statement is false, then he will destroy you with his nefarious imploder gun. (If the statement is somehow both true and false or neither, then he pushes buttons #1 and #3 simultaneously.)


Is there any statement you could make such that, given the alien's own rules, the alien must push button #2? Justify your answer.

Due: Monday, April 3, at the beginning of class.

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