Speaker: Prof. Hans van Ditmarsch (CNRS, France)

Moderator: Associate Professor Jie Fan (Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences; School of Humanities, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Time: Friday, November 8, 2024, 15:00 - 17:00

Venue: Lecture Hall, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (4th Floor, South Building, Building 4, Software Park, No. 4 Zhongguancun South Street)

Organizers: Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences; School of Humanities, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

报告摘要：I would like to present in this talk some logic riddles and some of their history. The following riddle that came to me by way of the well-known computer scientist Moshe Vardi, was spreading like wildfire while I was teaching at the logic summer school ESSLLI 2003 in Vienna: "A group of 100 prisoners, all together in the prison dining area, are told that they will be all put in isolation cells and then will be interrogated one by one in a room containing a light with an on/off switch. The prisoners may communicate with one another by toggling the light-switch (and that is the only way in which they can communicate). The light is initially switched off. There is no fixed order of interrogation, or interval between interrogations, and the same prisoner will be interrogated again at any stage. When interrogated, a prisoner can either do nothing, or toggle the light-switch, or announce that all prisoners have been interrogated. If that announcement is true, the prisoners will (all) be set free, but if it is false, they will all be executed. While still in the dining room, and before the prisoners go to their isolation cells (forever), can the prisoners agree on a protocol that will set them free?" I will, obviously, present a solution. But I will mainly address such puzzles of knowledge in general. There are many others, such as the 'Muddy Children Puzzle' (also known as the 'Wisemen Puzzle' or the 'Hats Problem') of which the history goes back (at least) two centuries, 'Surprise Examination', 'Monty Hall', etc. They often involve a (seemingly) paradoxical aspect making agents knowledgeable by announcements of their ignorance. More information on such puzzles is found on http://personal.us.es/hvd/lightbulb.html.  This website also refers to the book entitled 'One Hundred Prisoners and a Light Bulb', co-authored by me and Barteld Kooi (Groningen), and that is available in Dutch, English, Chinese, Japanese. There is a strong relation between such puzzles and the area in logic known as 'dynamic epistemic logic'.

主讲人简介：Hans van Ditmarsch is a senior researcher at CNRS, France. He is based at IRIT in Toulouse. He has previously been based at the Open University of the Netherlands, the University of Groningen, the University of Otago, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Sevilla, and CNRS (the University of Lorraine / LORIA). He has also been an associated researcher at Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India, for many years. His PhD is from the University of Groningen. His research is on the dynamics of knowledge and belief, information-based security protocols, modal logics, and combinatorics. He has frequently taught at ESSLLI summer schools, and he was an organizer or chair of events such as LOFT, M4M, ESSLLI, Tools for Teaching Logic, and LORI. He has been an editor of the Journal of Philosophical Logic. He is an author of the textbook and monograph Dynamic Epistemic Logic, an editor of the Handbook of Epistemic Logic, and an author of the logic puzzles book One Hundred Prisoners and a Light Bulb. He has been the recipient of an ERC (European Research Council) starting grant Epistemic Protocol Synthesis.

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