The 2013 Winners Questions

The Context

Near the end of the 2013 puzzle, after solvers retrived the messeages from posters around the world, they combined them using Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to decrypt the messeage which was:

p7amjopgric7dfdi.onion

This was the fifth onion on the 2013 puzzle.

Here is how test looked: http://imgur.com/a/YFA1a

Upon entering their emails into the website, the solvers were given a set of test questions, and requested not to publish them. There were 19 questions in total, with three different types.

It has been noted that the abstractness of these questions is very similar to the questions that Google supposedly asks its interviewees for serious roles at the company. They can supposedly be used to determine a person's personality and type.

Each question in the test was timed to prevent one from externally researching questions, and the questions chosen were in a random order from the above pool.

For the full context visit the puzzle page.

The First Type

The first type of question gave a statement and then a multitude of answers, which were:

• True
• False
• Indeterminate
• Meaningless
• Self-Referential
• Game Rule
• Strange Loop
• None of the above

These statements were the following:

There is no truth

What you are is more important than what you do

You cannot step into the same river twice

Observation changes the thing being observed

This sentence is false

I am the voice* inside my head (You undoubtedly just thought "I don't have a voice inside my head." That is the voice the question is referring to)

Disregarding color blindness, any arbitrary color looks the same to all people

If A is not true, then it must be:

1 = 0.9 recurring

People who only study material after a test do better than those who do not study at all

Grass is only green due to a relationship between the grass, the light and your mind

All things are true

We get hundreds of millions of sensations coming into our minds at any moment. Our brain cannot process them all so it categorises these signals according to our belief systems. This is why we find evidence to support our beliefs and rarely notice evidence to the contrary.

Origin

The set of answers was originally devised by counterculture figure Robert Anton Wilson (better known as the co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy of novels and a founder of pseudo-religion Discordianism), and described in his 1986 book The New Inquisition (1987, Falcon Press). Wilson initially challenges the reader to evaluate propositions like "God has spoken to me" as either true or false, to demonstrate the limits of Aristotelian thought. To account for the complexity of human thought and language, he gradually expands the set of answers to include:

• self-referential: a personal truth, e.g. "Marilyn Monroe was the most beautiful woman of her time"
• indeterminate: neither true nor false, e.g. "There is a tenth planet in our solar system, beyond Pluto" (when the book was written, this couldn't be verified nor refuted)
• meaningless: grammatically correct but impossible to evaluate as a logical proposition, e.g. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"
• game rule: an axiom, true by definition in a certain system, e.g. "The Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals"
• strange loop: a paradox, e.g. "The following sentence is true. The preceeding sentence is false". Wilson borrows the term from Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach (used by Cicada the next year in a book code).

Cicada's use of Wilson's logical system was first noted by Wilson fan Tom Jackson, in early January 2014, on his blog; in turn, Jackson credits another fan, Liam Harnett, with the discovery. On January 31st, 2014, an anonymous user editing Wikipedia through an open proxy added Robert Anton Wilson to the philosophical sources of inspiration for Cicada 3301 (the article has since been rewritten, removing any reference to Wilson).

The Second Type

The second type of question included an input box with a question. These questions were:

What does the word 'it' refer to in this sentence: It is dark outside?

The mathematical operation known as addition is modeled after what?

Explain, in your own words, what mathematical operation is relied upon for the security of Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme?

Name similarities between the concept and reality of the 'News Feed' on Facebook?

In the programming language of your choice, write a function that returns the value 3301.

The Third Type

The final type of question only appeared once, and it had different radio buttons to the first type. This question was:

Two people are standing by a lake. One says, "That's a lovely reflection in the water." The other says "I see no reflection, but it's a fascinating assortment of fish, plants and rocks within the water."

Which one is lying?

The answers to this question were:

• The one who sees the reflection
• The one who sees the fish
• Neither
• Both

The relevance of the questions to our current progress

It is very apparent that a lot of question have a lot of themes in common with the Liber Primus, moreover, some questions are directly appearing in the LP.

For example:

I am the voice* inside my head (You undoubtedly just thought "I don't have a voice inside my head." That is the voice the question is referring to)

Is the opposite point of view in the conversation between the master and the student in the Koan (107.jpg)

and

There is no truth

Is connected to the theme of subjective thruth spread throughout the LP in various ways, for example 229.jpg

Discussion About The Questions

In this section we'll discuss about possible answers to the questions and compile answers from the Discord.

this section is divided into questions for maximum coherence of reading.

• If you want to sumbit your question write them in the page's comments or send them in the cicada solvers Discord server

Important note: In order to keep the answers as authentic with regard to "each question in the test was timed to prevent one from externally researching questions", answers which answerd in time limit (with no prior digesting.) will be more close to the source and will be marked in RED.

Question #1 - There is no truth

1. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

~anon

By necessity, false. It is at least necessary that the statement “This statement is true,” is in fact true. Truth must exist by necessity in this way. Particular truths are not necessary true. But if anything exists at all, even if everything is an illusion, it is necessary to say that at least “Something truly exists.” or else, “There truly are illusions of real things.” If nothing is at it seems to be, and we know nothing as it really is, we must at least say although it is unknowable to us, “There are true things.” Something must be true. This is necessary. But if we look at it, it is much more reasonable and requires far less assumptions to say what we perceive to be is indeed more likely true than not. It is more reasonable to presume truths that require the least number of assumption. This is ‘Ockham’s Razor’. That the simpler answer, that requires the least number of assumptions for it to be true, is indeed more likely true. It is much harder to do the mental gynamistic necessity and burdensome assumptions to come to the tenet that “This statement is the only true idea.” than to merely rest on the assumption that the senses are more or less reliable. It is more reasonable to presume the simpler tenet: There is truth. Final answer - False

Question #2 - What you are is more important than what you do

~anon

What you do contributes to what you are. However, what you are is much greater than what you do. Final answer - Game Rule

Question #3 - You cannot step into the same river twice

~anon

Depends on your definition of "river". This is discussed fantastically here: (https://aeon.co/ideas/can-you-step-in-the-same-river-twice-wittgenstein-v-heraclitus). Final answer - Indeterminate

Question #4 - Observation changes the thing being observed

~anon

Sometimes, An example of when observation causes change is the Heisenbug. An example of when observation doesn't cause change would be if I observed the rain falling from inside my house, that has no impact the rain falling, Final answer - Indeterminate

Question #5 - This sentence is false

~anon

Liar paradox. Final answer - Strange Loop

Question #6 - I am the voice* inside my head

~anon

Mostly the voices in your head are produced by psychological mechanisms. Identifying with those voices is one of the basic mistakes that humans make which prevent them from recognizing true self. Final answer - False

Question #7 - any arbitrary color looks the same to all people

~anon

Humans percieve color differently. One cool example of why I see color differently to my friend is because he is a tetrachromat. Final answer - False

Question #8 - If A is not true, then it must be:

~anom

Contraposition. Final answer - None of the Above

Question #9 - 1 = 0.9 recurring

~anon

Assuming question is expressed in regular number base/system form. Final answer - True

Question #10 - People who only study material after a test do better than those who do not study at all

~anon

Depends on definition of "do better". Final answer - Indeterminate

Question 11 - Grass is only green due to a relationship between the grass, the light and your mind

~anon

Yep, this is how color perception works - green is not "in" grass. The surface of the grass is reflecting the wavelengths we see as green and absorbing all the rest. Final answer - True

Question 12 - All things are true

~anon

All things have elements of truth, but not all things are true. Final answer - False

Question 13 - We get hundreds of millions of sensations

~anon
brain can't process them all so it categorizes these signals according to our belief systems. This is why we find evidence to support our beliefs and rarely notice evidence to the contrary.

Question 14 - What does the word 'it' refer to in this sentence: It is dark outside?

~anon

"It" is a dummy pronoun. In this sentence, it is a placeholder for the word "dark." The true meaning of the sentence is "Dark(ness) is (exists) outside." But English doesn't look kindly on Latinate constructions, so the speaker conjures an imaginary "it" (a pronoun, or stand-in for a noun) and says "it" is dark, without intending to mean that there is an actual entity that is dark.

Question 15 - The mathematical operation known as addition is modeled after what?

~anon

Counting

Question 16 - Explain Shamir Secret Sharing Scheme?

~anon

You can fit a unique polynomial of degree n − 1 to any set of n points that lie on the polynomial

Question #17 - Name similarities between the concept and reality of the 'News Feed' on Facebook?

~anon

It is dependent on the observer. It can be tweaked to induce emotions such as happiness and sadness. It can expose us to new and challenging ideas. It can insulate people into ideological bubbles.

Question #18 - Write a function that returns a function that returns the value 3301

~anon

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/487172149/

Question #19 - Two people are standing by a lake

~anon

A seemingly meaningless question with not enough evidence to support or negate any answer. Personally, I think neither are lying as they are both seeing the lake from different positions and there is no reason for either of their positions to be incorrect. Final answer - Neither