How Smart Are You

powered by Jerry Wickey
Key West
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Monday, Feb 24, 2025
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HIGH SCORES

Norman Yoder	8
Sandy	5
Govt Employee	10
Finding Ceilin	8
Andresmjb	10
Jimmy	13
Vipul	12
Jk	14
Jamie	9

69 completed tests

If everyone already knows how to think rationally, then we're screwed ! That means, there really is no better way out of our current and future problems.

The author hopes that few do well on this test, because that means there really is an easy solution, a specialized field of Education.

Let's see how many are happy with their scores.

Assess Your Logic Skill

Can you think through these five problems? No math, no physics, no knowledge of any specialty field is needed. These are general questions which require only fundamental logic unconnected to any specialty field. Answer all five questions to view definitively correct answers. You must answer all five questions plus four true and false to reveal the answers.

Rational thinking is about resolving tasks generally, without employing habit, experience or expertise. The deficiency of relying upon the latter is that the expertise of experience results in the correct resolution 90% of the time, but yields no clue in the 10% that are erroneous. Many of the 90% of correct answers include a warning for caution from experience, but in 10% of cases, the expert walks into an error with no clue of the possibility of error. This is the recipe for disaster, unconscionably so when making decisions which effect the lives of others. Rational decision making is about quantifying the likelihood of error.

Social, political and economics are complex problems involving assessing multiple relationships between many different factors. They are far more complex than these five problems. Anyone with qualified opinions on any of these subjects should have no difficulty maneuvering the simple logical hurdles presented by these five problems. If you are happy with your score, you can publish it in the high score list at the right.

If you are surprised at how difficult these simple problems turn out to be, don't fret. A very common misconception is that we are naturally born with the ability to think logically. Although logic is required to maintain our standard of living, our economy and government, civilization is not a product of the natural world around us. Humans are not born knowing how to think logically. It does not come naturally. It is a learned skill. There are recognized courses of study which teach how to disambiguate any task into sequences of definitive imperatives. (resolve all problems or definitively determine a problem to be intrinsically un-resolvable.)

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Problem One

You have only a 3 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket and a reservoir of water from which to fill the buckets as often as you wish. Consider how the 3 gallon bucket might be filled with only 1 gallon of water measured to exactly the same precision as the volume of each bucket is measured.

Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis can't help you because in "Die Hard, with a vengeance," they were told to find 4 gallons. Besides, the method they used can not be used to solve problems in general. They resolved the task using the same method the experts are using to resolve our current financial crisis. (pick a solution that "feels" right, then test it.)

Imagine asking your doctor, "will this treatment work, doc?" to which he replies with a wink and a nod, "Well... it sounds like a good idea, but we'll find out in two weeks. Won't we?"

While that method works in the movies, in the real world, the solution to every problem is contained within the restatement of the problem in terms of the sixteen fundamental logical operators.

Of all the possible ways, which the problem allows, to fill the three gallon bucket with exactly 1 gallon, and disregarding how many times the buckets are filled from the reservoir, what is the least number of times one must pour from one bucket into the other?

Pouring from one bucket to another is required only once.
Pouring from one bucket to another is required twice.
Pouring from one bucket to another is required three times or more.
The minimum number required can not be determined, because there is always the possibility that someone will think of a better way.

Problem Two

You have a car for sale and are presented with two offers to purchase. Tom offers to pay $900 and take possession today. Sally offers to pay $900 today and take possession today OR pay $500 today, and an additional $500 in a week, totaling $1000, and take possession then.

Given only the information provided, of which of these statements can one be most certain?

The car is worth $900 today.
Sally expects to acquire, but may not actually acquire, additional funds over the coming week.

Problem Three

Don't over think this. It's not about math, geometry or physics. It's about identifying assumptions that get in the way and applying common sense to what's left.

Not all of the following statements exclude all others. Check mark all that are true?

A pulls the ceiling downward with more force than B or C
B pulls the ceiling downward with more force than A or C
C pulls the ceiling downward with more force than A or B
A and C pull the ceiling downward equally
B and C pull the ceiling downward equally
A B and C all pull equally

Problem Four

Some, but not all of the suggested answers to the previous question, exclude other suggested answers. i.e. if "A pulls the ceiling downward with more force than B or C" is true then "A and C pull the ceiling downward equally" could not possibly also be true. Disregarding for the correctness of the answer, how many different combinations of suggested answers are consistent with all other suggestions in that same combination of suggestions?

There are nine possible combinations of suggestions which are consistent with each other
There are twelve possible combinations of suggestions which are consistent with each other
There is only one internally consistent combination of suggestions and that one must also be the correct answer
There are too many to reasonably count
I don't have the first clue how to start listing all the combinations

Problem Five

The answer is an ordered sequence of four colored buttons, each of which could be any of six colors
red ; black ; white ; magenta ; green ; blue

Find the answer sequence for which the three arguments below are all simultaneously true;

Argument 1 contains 2 buttons of the same color and same position as the answer sequence. The other two buttons are not represented in the answer sequence.

Argument 2 contains 1 button of the same color and same position as one button in the answer sequence and 1 button of the same color, but not in the same place as one button in the answer sequence. The other two buttons are not represented in the answer sequence.

Argument 3 contains only 1 button of the same color and same position as one button in the answer sequence. The other three buttons are not represented in the answer sequence.

True / False: There is not enough information to determine the answer sequence
True / False: There is not enough information to determine the number of answer sequences which satisfy all three arguments
True / False: The answer must contain two or two , but not both and
True / False: The answer can not contain two or two , but must contain both, one and one

Only one of the following can be true

No answer sequence or sequences exist which satisfy the conditions of all three arguments
Only one answer sequence satisfies all three arguments
More than one answer sequence satisfies all three arguments
There is not enough information to determine if any answer sequence could satisfy all three arguments

your answers

How Smart Are You?

Five questions which are simple compared to the complexities of politics, economics and society:

Human beings are not born knowing how to think, nor do we learn this instinctively. Our biological and instinctive cognitive skill set is geared to procuring food, to securing relationships with others that help us increase comfort and procure food and to self preservation. This is the only natural function of our brains, to increase the survival rate of each organism.

Most programs of higher education also do not teach thinking. Most present interesting and diverse course subjects, presuming that student picks up the skill of thinking somewhere along the way.

In only a single discipline is the skill of cognitive reason considered a subject in its own right and offers courses dedicated to how information, subjects, issues, and questions can be restated as tasks, then how to determine the task's resolvability or unresolvability, then how to determine what information is required to resolve tasks which are resolvable, then how to resolve tasks which are resolvable and for which the required information is obtainable and also available.

If you resolve tasks poorly, you should refrain from admonishing others to accept your suggestions, until you improve your task resolution proficiency.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD" Book of Isaiah

What do you have to say about it?