That man's father

[bernardo]

There is a famous riddle which says. : ' A man is looking at a portrait and says 'Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son': whose portrait is the man looking at?' The correct answer is, of course, that the man is looking at a portrait of his son, as will be realised by anyone who cares to read the question properly. But I have noticed that whenever this riddle is discussed on the radio or on websites or wherever, there are always very many people who seem convinced that the man is looking at a picture of himself. They continue with this belief in spite of all rational explanation and discussion. Why are so many people so deluded by such a simple puzzle? What is it about this riddle which causes such stubbornness and irrationality?

[bernardo]

Maude: How many times will I have to ask you? Why do you keep saying (incorrectly) that he is looking at himself? Have you read the detailed explanations which have already been given by myself and LordAlmighty? If not, please do so. If so, please do so again, but this time read it *PROPERLY*. By the way, I interpreted "barking" as an abbreviation of "barking mad", not as an abbreviation of "barking up the wrong tree". Please explain WHY you think the man is looking at himself, and while you're at it you might as well explain aslo the relevance of the story of the Medes and Persians.

[Maudlettice]

Are you constipated, LordAlmighty?

[Maudlettice]

Darling Bernie. Please find a Sainsbury's carrier bag, fill it with ice and place it on your head. Then get a friend (or a passer by if you don't have one) to crush it for you with a brick. Swalk.

[bernardo]

To LordAlmighty: I have a theory that Maude is just winding us up. I think that she is only *pretending* to be completely stupid. :-)

[Maudlettice]

Stupid. Moi? In another part of Answerbank, dear Bernie, you boast of being able to nail your belly to the ceiling. Nail your belly to the ceiling! Nail your belly to the ceiling?NAIL YOUR BELLY TO THE CEILING! Oooooooooooh dear Bernie, who is stupid?

[bernardo]

Belly? *BELLY?!? No I didn't. I was referring to the well-known phrase of "nailing jelly to the ceiling" as a metaphor for doing something which is impossible. I never mentioned anything about my belly (or anyone else's, for that matter).

[LordAlmighty]

Yeah thanks for the great explanation Maude.

[LordAlmighty]

great explanation maude

[Maudlettice]

Nailing to the ceiling jelly, your belly, your telly or your wellie is not normal behaviour, dear Bernie. Have a word with your mum (I hope her name's not Nellie, or else she'll end up there as well, presumably). Is Smellie Almighty already up there? Lol.

[Lennon]

Just to add a little extra to the mix - I've always known the riddle as 'brothers and sisters, I have none, but the man I see before me, is my fathers son.' And the answer is - he's looking in a mirror.

[Maudlettice]

It's an only son, Lennon, looking in a mirror or at his own portrait/photograph. Bernadino is totally wrong with the answer he gives in the question, and seems to be doing odd things to his ceiling in embarrassment.

[Bert]

I really enjoyed reading all the answers and comments. It's probably too late to add my two penn'orth, but here goes. Maude's thing about the Medes and Persians is a great big red herring, because, in Greek, one or the other would have been in the accusative (object) case and so the sentence would have had only one meaning, whatever the word order. In fact, I think the "riddle of the oracle" was something like this: the king of the Persians asked if he would win the battle the next day and the oracle answered (something like) "tomorrow you shall see the end of a great empire." He took this to mean he would win, but obviously (and with hindsight) it could have been meant that he would see the end of his own empire. My father used to ask me the riddle when I was very young. He always said that the man was looking at a picture of himself and absolutely refused to accept the logical (correct) answer, no matter how I would go through it step by step.

[androsnick]

I had similar trouble with this riddle 'My Fathers son', partly because when I heard it, the answer was that the man was looking in a mirror and therefor it was himself. Having contemplated the riddle for a while, I now see the answer as his son, then again 10 minutes later it's himself. A bit like looking at the outline of a cube, one minute you are looking inside it, the next you see the outside corner! I am now trying to forget the whole thing as it's doing my head in!!

[ella12866]

I know this is late...but my grandfather told me this when I was about 6. The answer then was himself because he was looking in a mirror that time. I also heard the the one with the picture. The answer is indeed both. I'll explain...if he was looking at a picture of himself and said "this man's father" he would be talking about his own father..so that would indeed make the one in the picture "his father's son". Of course if he is looking at a picture of his son then "this man's father" which would be himself is indeed his own father's son. I think the confusion of the riddle might be that someone is trying to figure out who the person is that is looking at the picture rather than trying to figure out who is in the picture.

[Gregoire]

Dear Bernardo, thanks for the neat thread topic. Thought you might be interested in a scientific study which found that more than 80% of people get the answer to the riddle wrong, whereas only 17% correctly conclude that the picture is of the persons son. The study suggests some sort of "immediate memory overload" may be occuring with those who solve the problem incorrectly. If you are interested, check out the abstract at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/ query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db= PubMed&list_uids=8350742&dopt=Abstract A previous suggestion by ella12866 could also explain some cases: "I think the confusion of the riddle might be that someone is trying to figure out who the person is that is looking at the picture rather than trying to figure out who is in the picture." However (as noted by others in this thread), many people have also been primed with the erroneous answer by sources which they would be less inclined to question or doubt, eg parents, peers, radio and TV programs. In my own case, at the age of about eight, it took me less than a minute to work out that my Dad's explanation must be wrong. But over the years I heard exactly the same riddle and erroneous answer (picture of self/self in mirror) repeated again and again on radio, TV etc. Like you I was perplexed as to why so many people were adamant that the only logical answer could not be the correct one, yet when asked to explain why, could not do so clearly and convincincly and often resorted to ridicule to defend their viewpoint (as well demonstrated within this very thread). I hasten to add that I don't think this necessarily reflects poorly on the intelligence of such people, who quite possibly excel in other areas that are of equal or greater relevance to the survival of the planet (God I hope so, as they are in the majority). I'll be surprised if this thread starts up again. But you never know.

[Gregoire]

By the way, that URL was: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&d b=PubMed&list_uids=8350742&dopt=Abstract

[RedFalconVI]

Alright listen the only way that one could accept the answer as the portrait being of himself is if you accept that 'that man's' is in the third person point-of-view and 'my' is in the first. But it is grammatically incorrect to switch tenses in a single sentence, therefore it is indeed a picture of his son. :)