The Greek Philosophers

4. The Greek Philosophers

One day three Greek philosophers settled under the shade of an olive tree, opened a bottle of Retsina, and began a lengthy discussion of the Fundamental Ontological Question: Why does anything exist?

After a while, they began to ramble. Then, one by one, they fell asleep.

While the men slept, three owls, one above each philosopher, completed their digestive process, dropped a present on each philosopher's forehead, the flew off with a noisy "hoot."

Perhaps the hoot awakened the philosophers. As soon as they looked at each other, all three began, simultaneously, to laugh. Then, one of them abruptly stopped laughing. Why?

Added 1 January 2007

Show Hint Show Solution

Hint:

The one who stopped laughing, asked himself what the other philosophers were seeing that made them laugh.

Solution:

If he (the smartest philosopher) had nothing on his head, then he realized that the second smartest philosopher would have quickly worked out that the third smartest was laughing only at the second smartest philosopher, and thus the second smartest philosopher would have stopped laughing.

Comments (6)

Anonymous 17 April 2012

I believe the second smartest philosopher would stop first, as they would realize that the smartest philosopher is a faster thinker. If the second smartest philosopher knows that the smartest philosopher hasn't stopped laughing, they can conclude that they also have a poop on their head.

Anonymous 27 May 2012

The most intelligent stops laughing shortly after the second most intelligent stops laughing as well because he realized that the first would only have stopped laughing if he had something on his head.

Anonymous 29 August 2012

The Greek Philosophers must have answered that one of them died, because according to Greek mythology, if an owl hoots, it's a sign of death.

Anonymous 1 March 2015

The philosopher puzzle should clarify that there is a difference in intelligence among the three philosophers. The smartest philosopher figures it out.

Anonymous 18 May 2015

The question states that all three had a message dropped on their heads, so the given solution is not valid. Could the solution be rephrased to make sense, please, before I pull my hair out.

Anonymous 22 July 2015

The reasoning about the philosophers seems unclear. Could you clarify why they wouldn't just laugh at one another?

Logic Puzzles

Rate this puzzle

How difficult is this puzzle?

Comments (6)

Add a Comment or Suggest an Answer