This only produces a paradox if you fall for the usual fallacy that “at random” necessarily means “with uniform probability”.
For example, I would pick an answer at random by rolling a fair cubic die and picking a) if it rolls a 1, b) on a 2, d) on a 3 or c) otherwise so for me the answer is c) 50%.
However, as it specifies that you are to pick at random the existence, uniqueness and value of the correct answer depends on the specific distribution you choose.
The answer is not available. The answer is 0 Percent. Each answer, if chosen, would be incorrect. If 0% was an answer, it would be the correct one despite being a 25% chance. Of course, if one 25% was there, that would be the correct answer.
But if you did randomly choose the 0% option, you’d be correct. So if one of the possible answers was 0% the correct answer would be 25%.
But it wouldn’t be correct, so 0% would remain the answer.
@SculptusPoe @FaceDeer *Schrödinger’s cat enters the box*
The point is that it can’t be the answer if it’s an option.
But the teacher can’t mark it wrong, making it right.
Yes, they can. That’s the problem with it being an option.
If they mark it wrong, and all the others, if chosen, are wrong, then your answer was right and they would have to fix their mistake. That wave collapses to there being 0% chance of being right.
Nope.
Great! I’ll hand this to my daughter to annoy her co-students who struggle with probabilitiy ;-)
Thanks for making me laugh all alone in my car before heading in to work. I wish I could give you an award. Cheers!
The question is malformed and the correct answer isn’t listed in the multiple choices. Therefore the correct answer is 0%
If only one of the 4 options said 25% would it still be malformed#
No. The scenario asks you to consider a random scenario, but the solution in that case is a certainty.
Loaded dice
This is a self-referential paradox — a classic logic puzzle designed to be tricky. Let’s break it down:
Step-by-step analysis:
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How many choices? There are 4 possible answers, so if we pick one randomly, the chance of picking any specific one is 1 in 4 = 25%.
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How many answers say “25%”? Two.
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That means the probability of randomly choosing an answer that says “25%” is 2 in 4 = 50%.
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But if the correct answer is 50%, then only one option says “50%” — which is ©. So the probability of picking it at random is 1 in 4 = 25%, contradicting the idea that 50% is correct.
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If the correct answer is 25%, then two options say that — a and d. So the chance of picking one of those at random is 50%, not 25% — again a contradiction.
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Similarly, if 60% is correct (only one option), then the chance of picking it randomly is 25%, which again makes it incorrect.
Conclusion: Any choice leads to a contradiction. This is a self-referential paradox, meaning the question breaks logical consistency. There is no consistent correct answer.
…so like, which one you picking?
E.
Chatgpt ass answer lmao
haha yeah, I knew it at the “let’s break it down:”
I was like… I know this voice…“Conclusion:” was the final nail in the coffin
The motivation to do so confuses me. There’s no karma to farm here.
It’s still providing a correct explanation to people, I guess
Why not? Here upvotes do the same as karma in reddit. Absolutely nothing.
Eh. On Reddit, karma was intended as an indicator of quality and authenticity. It was heavily flawed and abused by bots and propagandists.
Got it right though
The © gave it away
That’s whatever browser or app you’re using. It rendered as © for me… Bracket, c, bracket
Well, parenthesis, and parenthesis, but yes
Parentheses can also be called (round) brackets, especially in the UK
ah, TIL, thanks
Can’t tell if serious because entering ( c ) without the spaces is ©
©
(c):O
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The em dash is a dead giveaway as well
I used to use em dashes all the time and now I find myself rethinking my writing styles because of people like you and it’s obnoxious.
AI has put me off writing lists.
Y’all have got to stop this shit. Real people use real grammar.
I use em dashes all the time, but I don’t put a space on either side—I feel like that’s not the correct way to use one. If it is, I don’t wanna be correct.
I concur with this.
Heyo yee em—comrade
I try to use em dashes when I can, but I think they’re used wrong in the comment above (IIRC they’re not supposed to be surrounded by spaces, but I could be wrong). What tips me off is the unambiguously “LLM” narrative voice and structure (“let’s break it down”, followed by an ordered list). Not that a human can’t type that, but sometimes it seems like ChatGPT is incapable of spitting out words in any other structure.
You’re right, en dashes would have been fine there. Em dashes don’t get spaced—and have specific grammatical uses too.
counter—point ; noone will accuse u of being a Ai if your grammer is shitte in a precise mannor , thou they will gouge ther I:s out when trying to reed it
actually come to think of it, aren’t homophones/alternate spellings a pretty good way to avoid AI stuff? since they have absolutely no concept of the sounds words make. though i suppose it’ll only work until the models get trained on that data…
©
You had to show off, huh
™
The comment - which isn’t edited - uses
(c).Whatever client you use replaces/renders © [bracket c bracket] as ©.
Huh. I think it was just the web version of Lemmy. Weird choice by the Lemmy devs.
dontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutit
I would think that if you truly pick at random, it’s still a 25% chance no matter how you cut it
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The answer is clear
When in doubt, C it out.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
There’s a reason I dropped probability at school.
B.
This is a multiple choice test. Once you eliminate three answers, you pick the fourth answer and move on to the next question. It can’t be A, C, or D, for reasons that I understand. There’s a non-zero chance that it’s B for a reason that I don’t understand.
If there is no correct answer, then there’s no point hemming and hawing about it.
B. Final answer.
Nice logic; poor reading comprehension.
Does better reading comprehension get you a better answer?
No of course not, but the question is more important to the answer than the “correct” answer.
Not in a multiple choice test
This isn’t a test. It’s a logic puzzle.
It’s not a puzzle. It’s just wrong.
“Which of the following is a mammal:
A) rock
B) time
C) verb
D) Enui”Is not a puzzle.
Based on previous guy’s logic: D.
I know A, B, and C are definitely wrong, but I’m not sure I fully understand D. So it’s D and move on.
Reality is I make a note and discuss with the teacher if they don’t notice themselves when tests come back.
Entertaining response but I disagree.
I’m going to say that unless you’re allowed to select more than one answer, the correct answer is 25%. That’s either a or d.
By doing something other than guessing randomly (seeing that 1 in 4 is 25% and that this answer appears twice), you now have a 50% chance of getting the answer correct. However, that doesn’t change the premise that 1 in 4 answers is correct. It’s still 25%, a or d.
That’s an interesting perspective. The odds of correctly guessing any multiple choice question with four answers should be 25%. But that assumes no duplicate answers, so I still say that’s wrong.
I’m going to double down and say that on a real life test, this would likely represent a typo. In such case, I think you could successfully defend a 25% answer while a 60% answer is just right out the window, straight to jail.
The typo makes the answer incorrect. The whole question would need to be thrown out.
Fair enough
But some tests award bonus points if you get the thrown out question right by answering what it should have been!
I love this, it shows how being good at (multiple choice) tests doesn’t mean you’re good at the topic. I’m not good at tests because my country’s education system priorities understanding and problem solving. That’s why we fail at PISA
You chose A, C, and D, so you have a 100% chance.
You think like I do. Bet you test well.
42
Damn hitchhikers.
But what’s the question?
how many roads must a man walk down?
What is six times nine
Close, but nah, it’s the meaning of life
nuh uh, it’s the answer. to life, the universe, everything! Um, but what’s the question?
Pick a number. Any number.
I asked Google to roll a D4 and it rolled a 4. So my answer (correct or not) when following the directions in the question is the fourth one (D).
I would think a b c d so 25% O he made a mistake znd forgot to take the bubble answer out. Now we only can pick between aord b c so it would be 33%
Seems my logic is wrong iff i read the rest
It’s 0%, because 0% isn’t on the list and therefore you have no chance of picking it. It’s the only answer consistent with itself. All other chances cause a kind of paradox-loop.
I agree with 0% but disagree there’s any paradox - every choice is just plain old wrong. Each choice cannot be correct because no percentage reflects the chance of picking that number.
Ordinarily we’d assume the chance is 25% because in most tests there’s only one right choice. But this one evidently could have more than one right choice, if the choice stated twice was correct - which it isn’t. So there’s no basis for supposing that 25% is correct here, which causes the whole paradox to unravel.
Now replace 60% with 0%. Maybe that would count as a proper paradox. But I’d still say the answer is 0%, it’s just wrong in the hypothetical situation posed by the question rather than the actual question.
Completely agree! In this case there is no real paradox, 0% is a perfectly consistent answer.
I think if you replace 60% with 0%, you’d get a proper paradox, because now there is a non-zero chance of picking 0% and it’s no longer consistent with itself. It’s similar to the “This statement is false” paradox, where by assuming something is true, it makes it false and vice versa.
Correct - even if you include the (necessary) option of making up your own answer. If you pick a percentage at random, you have a 0% chance of picking 0%.
Correct, including 0% as a part of the answers would make 0% a wrong answer.
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I see 25% twice so my bet is on 50%.
But 50% only appears once, which would make the answer 25%.
