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You missed the logic here. I'll try again, but it's the third explanation. You need to ponder this. The items A, B, C, and D are all known. (from other sources

by tropo 7y ago

You missed the logic here. I'll try again, but it's the third explanation. You need to ponder this. The items A, B, C, and D are all known. (from other sources of information) They are used as an honesty test. To make the pain stop, the only way out is to reveal E and to correctly reveal A, B, C, and D. Lying isn't going to work, because the fact that E is special is not revealed. It isn't reasonable to guess that E is the unknown.

XorNot 7y ago
If someone is sufficiently uncooperative that you've (foolishly) decided you're going to torture the information out of them, then the information is pretty important. So important they're probably already willing to die to protect it. That's the stakes here when you're at that point: fear of death is not enough motivation, fear of not dying quickly is. In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? Because you think you're going to have broken them by that time? Gotten them suitably fearful of what you'll do next that they don't also just start lying about E? Are you so sure that after whatever horrors you've inflicted their psyche will be intact enough to even give a coherent answer? Keeping in mind, that sleep deprivation and extended interrogation has been shown - repeatedly - to be enough to make otherwise innocent people confess to brutal crimes they did not commit. EDIT: People keep thinking torture is effective because if I broke your fingers with a hammer, you'd give me your car keys. What's actually happening is I'm breaking your fingers one by one with a hammer, and saying I'll stop if you tell me where your family is so I can go murder them all.
- winstonewert 7y ago
  Firstly, I'm 100% against torture and agree its ineffective. But your rejection of the logic here is incorrect. > In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? You seem to be thinking about this in chronological sequence, as if we ask about A then B then C then D then E. If that was the case, then yes, your logic would work. They might have lied about A for a long time, then B for a long time, then C for a long time, then D for a long time, then E for a long time and you'd never know if they were telling the truth about E. But that's not what is being proposed. We ask about A, B, C, D, and E altogether. As in you have conversation and asked them about A, B, C, D, and E before doing any torture. If they lied about A, B, C, or D we torture them. Then we have the same conversation again, and torture them again. Eventually, they start telling the truth about say C. Why C? They are just choosing something at random to tell truth about in hopes of making the pain stop. But nothing changes, we keep torturing them because we know they are still lying about A, B, and D. Eventually they also start telling the truth about A, then E, then B, then D. Then we stop torturing them because they are being honest about everything we can verify. They can escape without divulging the information only if they keep E until last. The key assumption here is that the person being tortured reveals the truth in a random order. It is improbable that they happen to keep the one thing we cannot verify until the end. This is not to say that this procedure would be effective, but its not ineffective for the reason you suggest. On the theory side, the probability of keeping E until the end is 1/5, which isn't that low. On the practical side, this requires that the person being tortured has no idea what you can and can't verify. If, instead, they have some idea of what you can and can't verify, they'll be able to keep the hardest to verify information till the end preventing this scheme from working.

by tropo 7y ago

XorNot 7y ago

If someone is sufficiently uncooperative that you've (foolishly) decided you're going to torture the information out of them, then the information is pretty important. So important they're probably already willing to die to protect it. That's the stakes here when you're at that point: fear of death is not enough motivation, fear of not dying quickly is. In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? Because you think you're going to have broken them by that time? Gotten them suitably fearful of what you'll do next that they don't also just start lying about E? Are you so sure that after whatever horrors you've inflicted their psyche will be intact enough to even give a coherent answer? Keeping in mind, that sleep deprivation and extended interrogation has been shown - repeatedly - to be enough to make otherwise innocent people confess to brutal crimes they did not commit. EDIT: People keep thinking torture is effective because if I broke your fingers with a hammer, you'd give me your car keys. What's actually happening is I'm breaking your fingers one by one with a hammer, and saying I'll stop if you tell me where your family is so I can go murder them all.

winstonewert 7y ago
Firstly, I'm 100% against torture and agree its ineffective. But your rejection of the logic here is incorrect. > In this situation there's no reason the person isn't going to lie for an extended period of time about A, B, C and D. So why wouldn't they then lie about E? You seem to be thinking about this in chronological sequence, as if we ask about A then B then C then D then E. If that was the case, then yes, your logic would work. They might have lied about A for a long time, then B for a long time, then C for a long time, then D for a long time, then E for a long time and you'd never know if they were telling the truth about E. But that's not what is being proposed. We ask about A, B, C, D, and E altogether. As in you have conversation and asked them about A, B, C, D, and E before doing any torture. If they lied about A, B, C, or D we torture them. Then we have the same conversation again, and torture them again. Eventually, they start telling the truth about say C. Why C? They are just choosing something at random to tell truth about in hopes of making the pain stop. But nothing changes, we keep torturing them because we know they are still lying about A, B, and D. Eventually they also start telling the truth about A, then E, then B, then D. Then we stop torturing them because they are being honest about everything we can verify. They can escape without divulging the information only if they keep E until last. The key assumption here is that the person being tortured reveals the truth in a random order. It is improbable that they happen to keep the one thing we cannot verify until the end. This is not to say that this procedure would be effective, but its not ineffective for the reason you suggest. On the theory side, the probability of keeping E until the end is 1/5, which isn't that low. On the practical side, this requires that the person being tortured has no idea what you can and can't verify. If, instead, they have some idea of what you can and can't verify, they'll be able to keep the hardest to verify information till the end preventing this scheme from working.