Thanks. aka 20 questions. Practically, this will likely yield the same results. Remember I'm still struggling with phrasing: I have no idea how akinator is i

Thanks. aka 20 questions. Practically, this will likely yield the same results. Remember I'm still struggling with phrasing: I have no idea how akinator is implemented. 20 questions is traditionally a drill down decision tree. From their blurb, I infer that akinator divines its own decision tree, vs user supplied questions. Clever. Instead of finding a needle in a haystack, the big data strategy is to progressively remove all the hay until the needle is revealed. Like the big data equiv of Sherlock Holmes' deduction (logic). "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever left, however improbable, must be the truth." Again, am not an academic, philosopher. I don't know what to call this strategy. It's not logic, reasoning. It's brute force. Test every single possibility to find the matches. In other words, it's a database query. Ok, maybe I'm just confusing myself here.