Author Topic: Zendo, play by forum (Read 197930 times)

Simon · « **on:** August 25, 2014, 01:33:33 AM »

Let's play Zendo via forum!

Look near the end of this thread for the game in progress.

Rules of Zendo

Guess the secret rule about which koans have the buddha nature.

A koan is a nonempty finite string of letters A-Z. At the start of the game, the master thinks of a secret rule, then posts a white koan (that has the buddha nature) and a black koan (that doesn't have the buddha nature).

To play, post some more koans, and/or guess what the rule is. The master will mark everybody's koans white or black, so everybody can get new information on what the secret rule might be. To answer your rule guesses, the master will post a counterexample koan whenever there exists a new koan that would be marked differently according to your rule and the master's rule.

There is no penalty for posting many koans or guessing often. Play as often as you like. Don't wait for the master to post, you can post right after other players. You can join running games on the fly!

Finer details of rules

The secret rule defines a subset of the koanspace. The koanspace is the set of nonempty finite strings over the alphabet A-Z, so it cannot depend on post number, poster name, etc. It may depend on certain outside knowledge, such as level names, as long as an equivalent rule could be defined without outside knowledge: "AKHTBN iff it is one of the following finite list: JUSTDIG, ONLYFLOATERSMAYSURVIVETHIS, [...,] RENDEZVOUSATTHEMOUNTAIN."

To win, you must post an equivalent rule to the secret rule. Rules are equivalent iff for each koan, both rules mark it the same, i.e., there is no counterexample koan. You do not have to find the master's exact wording.

The null koan, i.e., the empty string, is customarily disallowed. The reason comes from the offline game: The empty koan would look like a stray marking stone on the table.

Background info

The designer's homepage.
Tips for the master (= round host) by the designer. Basic tenet: If you think your rule is too easy, then it's just right.
We've played some Zendo with words on IRC.

-- Simon

Simon · « **Reply #1 on:** August 25, 2014, 01:37:25 AM »

New game of Zendo

Initial white koan: LEMMINGS (this follows the secret rule)
Initial black koan: CHEAPO (this doesn't follow the rule)

Post more koans or guesses about the rule.

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #2 on:** August 25, 2014, 01:49:20 AM »

Guesses based on likely not quite right logic:

DIGGER (guessing white)
LIX (guessing black)
PSYGNOSIS (...?)

Simon · « **Reply #3 on:** August 25, 2014, 01:53:27 AM »

DIGGER white! (guessing white, correct intuition)
LIX black! (guessing black, even more so)
PSYGNOSIS white!

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #4 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:06:52 AM »

Rule get (confirmed on IRC):

The string has the Buddha nature iff it has two or more of the same character.

Next round:

The string INSANE gets a white token (follows the rule)
The string STEVE gets a black token (does not follow the rule)

Simon · « **Reply #5 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:11:20 AM »

ZSTEVE
ZZSTEVE
INSANZ
INSAZZ

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #6 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:12:47 AM »

Quote from: Simon on 2014-08-24 20:11:20

ZSTEVE
ZZSTEVE
INSANZ
INSAZZ

-- Simon

All receive black tokens (do not follow the rule).

Simon · « **Reply #7 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:16:39 AM »

A
INSANEINSANE
ZINSANEZ
YISTHEREATREE

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #8 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:21:11 AM »

Quote from: Simon on 2014-08-24 20:16:39

A
INSANEINSANE
ZINSANEZ
YISTHEREATREE

-- Simon

A and INSANEINSANE get a white token, as they follow the rule. ZINSANEZ and YISTHEREATREE get black tokens and do not follow this rule.

I suspect you probably know what the rule could be from your guesses.

Simon · « **Reply #9 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:25:17 AM »

A koan has the buddha nature iff the first letter is a vowel (AEIOU) and the last letter is a vovel.

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #10 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:29:53 AM »

Quote from: Simon on 2014-08-24 20:25:17

A koan has the buddha nature iff the first letter is a vowel (AEIOU) and the last letter is a vovel.

-- Simon

This is not a correct guess. INEXPLICABLE follows this rule but gets a black marker, as it doesn't have the Buddha nature.

Simon · « **Reply #11 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:46:32 AM »

Here's some more koans, wild shots into the blue, maybe enticing others to join!

AEI
AEIOU
IMEMBLICABLE
ASIMPLEONE
IVERYLONGVERYLONGE
TESTTESTAEI
TESTTESTAEIO
TESTTESTAEIOU

-- Simon

chaos_defrost · « **Reply #12 on:** August 25, 2014, 02:53:27 AM »

AEI and AEIOU have the Buddha nature and get a white token.
IMEMBLICABLE, ASIMPLEONE, and IVERYLONGVERYLONGE do not and get a black token.

EDIT: TESTTESTAEI does not have the Buddha nature (black/wrong) but TESTTESTAEIO and TESTTESTAEIOU do (white/right).

Simon · « **Reply #13 on:** August 25, 2014, 03:02:26 AM »

AKHTBN iff it consists of 50 % vowels (AEIOU) or more.

This was confirmed in IRC by Steve, so I offer anyone to master now. :-)

YISTHEREATREE was posted only with the start-vowel-end-vowel rule in mind, testing whether Y would be a vowel for that, and then it worked just as well towards the new rule without intention.

-- Simon

geoo · « **Reply #14 on:** August 25, 2014, 08:59:07 AM »

New game of Zendo

Initial white koan: SIMON (this follows the secret rule)
Initial black koan: GEOO (this doesn't follow the rule)

Ramon · « **Reply #15 on:** August 25, 2014, 11:38:43 AM »

Let's continue the koan trend

RAMON

Simon · « **Reply #16 on:** August 25, 2014, 12:14:28 PM »

SIMOON
GEON
CCX

-- Simon

ccexplore · « **Reply #17 on:** August 25, 2014, 07:08:50 PM »

IMONS
S
I
M
O
N

==================

In general, what (if any) are the restrictions on what the secret rule may be based on? For example I assume given the exact same koan (ie. the arrangement and choice of letters) , its Buddha nature is constant regardless of, for example, the number of posts that have transpired? Can the secret rule be based on "outside knowledge" like "appear in the title of a level in Lemmings" or similar? etc.

geoo · « **Reply #18 on:** August 25, 2014, 08:43:15 PM »

RAMON - black
SIMOON - white
GEON - black
CCX - white
IMONS - white
S - white
I - white
M - white
O - white
N - white

Simon · « **Reply #19 on:** August 26, 2014, 01:22:15 AM »

MON
OON
ON
GOON
E
EON

ccexplore: The rule defines a subset of the koanspace. The koanspace is the set of nonempty finite strings over the alphabet A-Z, so it cannot depend on post number, poster name, etc. It may depend on certain outside knowledge, such as level names, as long as an equivalent rule could be defined without it: "AKHTBN iff it is one of the following finite list: JUSTDIG, ONLYFLOATERSMAYSURVIVETHIS, [...,] RENDEZVOUSATTHEMOUNTAIN."

-- Simon

geoo · « **Reply #20 on:** August 26, 2014, 10:38:36 AM »

MON - white
OON - white
ON - white
GOON - black
E - white
EON - white

ccexplore · « **Reply #21 on:** August 26, 2014, 07:37:33 PM »

ACEFHIKLMNOSTVWXYZ
J
U
RIMON
SAMON
NOOG

mobius · « **Reply #22 on:** August 26, 2014, 09:41:45 PM »

Apologies for not being up on the rules but as mentioned I'm super busy.

Is the rule based on something like consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel. ?
Y

ccexplore · « **Reply #23 on:** August 26, 2014, 10:29:53 PM »

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-08-26 13:37:33

ACEFHIKLMNOSTVWXYZ

Actually on 2nd thought, given my current guesses, I'm afraid I have to ask to also include each individual letter in the above string as a guess as well. So my list of guesses now include "A", "C", "E", "F", etc. in addition to what I posted before.

geoo · « **Reply #24 on:** August 26, 2014, 10:41:03 PM »

ACEFHIKLMNOSTVWXYZ - black
J - black
U - white
RIMON - black
SAMON - white
NOOG - black
A, C, E, H, I, K, M, N, O, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z - white
F, L - black

Ramon · « **Reply #25 on:** August 26, 2014, 11:54:15 PM »

I'm assuming "R" will be black?

ccexplore · « **Reply #26 on:** August 27, 2014, 12:43:15 AM »

Okay, let me shoot for guessing the rule (and if that fails, back to finishing the individual single letters

):

AKHTBN iff each letter written in uppercase exhibits either flip or rotational symmetry. More directly, iff none of the letters are members of the set {F, G, J, L, P, Q, R}.

[letters exhibiting flip symmetry with vertical axis: A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y
letters exhibiting flip symmetry with horizontal axis: B, C, D, E, H, I, K, O, X
letters exhibiting rotational symmetry: H, I, N, O, S, X, Z]

[in case people are curious: my initial guess (disproven with F and L) was forbidding letters written in uppercase that contains both straight as well as curved parts, though already that leaves J and U somewhat ambiguous. Expanding guess to individual letters was needed to see if it only matters that the forbidden letter is the first letter in the word (disproven with NOOG).]

ccexplore · « **Reply #27 on:** August 28, 2014, 03:07:48 AM »

On Simon's suggestion, we'll start a new round w/o waiting for geoo's response. If my guess for geoo's rule proved to be wrong we will pause this new round and go back to geoo's. Or who knows, maybe this round will be over before geoo resurfaces (esp as Simon suggest to err on the easier side...)

Initial white koan: WHITE (this follows the secret rule)
Initial black koan: BLACK (this doesn't follow the rule)

Simon · « **Reply #28 on:** August 28, 2014, 05:02:51 AM »

ETIHW
HIE
SLACK
TROUT

-- Simon

ccexplore · « **Reply #29 on:** August 28, 2014, 07:22:51 AM »

ETIHW - white
HIE - white
SLACK - black
TROUT - white

Simon · « **Reply #30 on:** August 28, 2014, 07:38:27 AM »

ACK
TRACK
TRALE
WHILE

-- Simon

ccexplore · « **Reply #31 on:** August 28, 2014, 08:50:06 AM »

ACK - black
TRACK - black
TRALE - white
WHILE - white

Clam · « **Reply #32 on:** August 28, 2014, 09:32:45 AM »

BLAC
BLAK
BLA
KCALB

geoo · « **Reply #33 on:** August 28, 2014, 11:46:33 AM »

Yeah, ccx is correct about my rule. Sorry for not responding, internet was out here at the institute.

EDIT: Got an idea: Koan has buddha-nature iff the number of vowels in it is even.

If not:
K
C
X
TACK
TAC
TAK
TAE
TC
TK

ccexplore · « **Reply #34 on:** August 28, 2014, 12:39:39 PM »

BLAC - white [thus counterexample to geoo's rule-guess]
BLAK - white
BLA - black
KCALB - black
K - white
C - white
X - white
TACK - white
TAC - black
TAK - black
TAE - white
TC - black
TK - black

geoo · « **Reply #35 on:** August 28, 2014, 02:59:26 PM »

Ok so, then, number of consonants is odd?

(A bit of a coincidence that all the koans until my guess had odd length, thus making my two guesses equivalent until then...)

ccexplore · « **Reply #36 on:** August 28, 2014, 03:32:57 PM »

Yep, you got it.

(I did initially consider using primality instead of parity, but hey, err on the easier side right?)

Simon's guesses were indeed all odd-length, though some of Clam's weren't, except I wasn't able to reply to his before you posted.

mobius · « **Reply #37 on:** August 28, 2014, 04:49:07 PM »

can I start a new round? [I'll be better as master than a guesser]

Initial white koan: STOOGE (this follows the secret rule)
Initial black koan: GATES (this doesn't follow the rule)

mobius · « **Reply #38 on:** August 28, 2014, 07:02:51 PM »

geoo's guesses from IRC:

spoon - black
koan - white
tooges - white
oogest - white
ogesto - white
egoots - white
atesg - black
tesga - black

Simon · « **Reply #39 on:** August 28, 2014, 10:30:02 PM »

BUDDHA
BUDHA
KOANS
STOGE
OO
O

-- Simon

mobius · « **Reply #40 on:** August 28, 2014, 10:32:13 PM »

BUDDHA - black
BUDHA - black
KOANS - black
STOGE - black
OO - black
O - black

Minim · « **Reply #41 on:** August 28, 2014, 10:34:31 PM »

OK, I'll have a guess too.

AL
GOO
CONE
AVOID
PANAMA
LULLABY
RAINBOWS

mobius · « **Reply #42 on:** August 28, 2014, 11:26:34 PM »

AL - white
GOO - black
CONE - white
AVOID - black
PANAMA - white
LULLABY - black
RAINBOWS - black

Simon · « **Reply #43 on:** August 29, 2014, 04:08:40 AM »

RAINBOW
KAN
BUDDHAS
AARDVARK
SOUP

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #44 on:** August 29, 2014, 06:31:55 AM »

This game sort of reminds me of Mastermind, only a bit more complicated than that, having to guess the rule.

I think I know the rule now: Number of consonants must equal number of vowels in the word, so even a blank answer would make a white koan.

mobius · « **Reply #45 on:** August 29, 2014, 05:20:40 PM »

minimac is winner!

Not sure on blank answer though. I didn't know making a blank answer was possible, but you're right I guess.

I said the same thing about Mastermind yesterday on IRC

. I love that game; but very challenging.

Simon · « **Reply #46 on:** August 29, 2014, 05:49:48 PM »

Very nice, I was merely considering single letters.

minimac may master the next game if he wishes.

The empty koan is customarily disallowed. Having some interest in set theory, disallowing the empty koan feels unnatural, but the offline game has a practical reason for it: The marked empty koan looks like a stray marking stone on the table.

Nonetheless, rules could always be evaluated for the empty koan. "The first letter has property E" evaluated for the empty koan, is false for any formula E. "All letters have property E" is true.

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #47 on:** August 29, 2014, 08:26:35 PM »

OK, let's start a new game. Examples are this time based on Welsh cities.

Initial white koan: NEWPORT (this follows the secret rule)
Initial black koan: CARDIFF (this doesn't follow the rule)

Post more koans or guesses about the rule.

Clam · « **Reply #48 on:** August 29, 2014, 09:15:58 PM »

CLAM
CCEXPLORE
GEOO
MINIMAC
INSANESTEVE

Minim · « **Reply #49 on:** August 29, 2014, 10:22:33 PM »

CLAM - white
CCEXPLORE - black
GEOO - white
MINIMAC - black
INSANESTEVE - black

Simon · « **Reply #50 on:** August 29, 2014, 10:45:01 PM »

CLAMPLORE
GEOOPLORE
CE
NWPRT

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #51 on:** August 29, 2014, 10:48:55 PM »

CLAMPLORE - black
GEOOPLORE - white
CE - white
NWPRT - white

Clam · « **Reply #52 on:** August 29, 2014, 11:02:38 PM »

CLAMCLAM
GEOOGEOO
CCEXCLAM
CCEXGEOO

Clam · « **Reply #53 on:** August 29, 2014, 11:41:25 PM »

Throwing out a guess because it's night where minimac is (I think):

AKHTBN iff it contains at most four letters (not necessarily distinct) from the first half of the alphabet.

Minim · « **Reply #54 on:** August 30, 2014, 05:24:08 AM »

Good guess; I'm afraid it was not the rule I was looking for, here are some more koans.

CLAMCLAM - black
GEOOGEOO - black
CCEXCLAM - black
CCEXGEOO - black

Simon · « **Reply #55 on:** August 30, 2014, 06:19:55 AM »

I guess that AKHTBN iff each consonant appears at most once in the koan.

STUPOR
RIDDLE
RIPPLE
PHILIPPINES
THEQUICKBROWNFOXJUMPS

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #56 on:** August 30, 2014, 07:26:06 AM »

Absolutely correct! As for the koans...

STUPOR - White
RIDDLE - Black
RIPPLE - Black
PHILIPPINES - Black
THEQUICKBROWNFOXJUMPS - White

Simon · « **Reply #57 on:** August 30, 2014, 02:07:28 PM »

Alright, good one. :-) New game:

BROWN - white
BLACK - black

-- Simon

Simon · « **Reply #58 on:** August 30, 2014, 06:39:28 PM »

From IRC:

WURST - black
BLAC - black
BLA - black
WHITE - black
BROWNBROWN - black
NWORB - black
RBWON - black
OWNB - black

BROW - white
BRO - white
BR - white
B - white
BL - white
BROWNROWNROWN - white
XYZ - white
AXYZ - white
A - white
AX - white
X - white

-- Simon

mobius · « **Reply #59 on:** August 30, 2014, 06:57:20 PM »

a koan has the buddha nature if and only if the letters in it go from left to right; in Alphabetic order

guesses:

YUTS
ZOON
LIGED
FEUTI
LIKELIKE
LIKELIKELIKE

Simon · « **Reply #60 on:** August 30, 2014, 07:02:48 PM »

Quote from: möbius on 2014-08-30 12:57:20

a koan has the buddha nature if and only if the letters in it go from left to right; in Alphabetic order

BROWNROWNROWN (white) is a counterexample. This was added to my IRC post above while you were writing.

YUTS - black
ZOON - black
LIGED - black
FEUTI - black
LIKELIKE - black
LIKELIKELIKE - black

-- Simon

mobius · « **Reply #61 on:** August 30, 2014, 07:06:13 PM »

C
D
E
Q
LOOK
LOOO
VFGFHF

Simon · « **Reply #62 on:** August 30, 2014, 07:08:49 PM »

C, D, E, Q: all white
LOOK: black
LOOO: white
VFGFHF: black

And from IRC:
WUUT - black
TUUW - white

-- Simon

mobius · « **Reply #63 on:** August 30, 2014, 07:50:03 PM »

AB
ABAB
ABABA
AABBAA

ABBCCCDDDD
BAAAB
BAB
BABA

Proxima · « **Reply #64 on:** August 30, 2014, 08:09:46 PM »

Bouncing on mobius' idea (which may be going completely in the wrong direction) I shall guess:

A koan has the buddha-nature if its first letter is the same as or alphabetically earlier than each of its other letters.

Simon · « **Reply #65 on:** August 30, 2014, 08:29:50 PM »

AB - white
ABAB - black
ABABA - black
AABBAA - black

ABBCCCDDDD - white
BAAAB - black
BAB - black
BABA - black

Quote from: Proxima

A koan has the buddha-nature if its first letter is the same as or alphabetically earlier than each of its other letters.

This is not correct. There is one existing disproving koan: BROWNBROWN, marked black, which would be white according to this guess.

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #66 on:** August 30, 2014, 09:00:13 PM »

Let's go for some more common words rather than freaky letter codes.

TEA
COFFEE
SUGAR
WINE
BEER
CHARCOAL
IGLOO

Simon · « **Reply #67 on:** August 30, 2014, 09:07:27 PM »

TEA - black
COFFEE - white
SUGAR - black
WINE - black
BEER - white
CHARCOAL - black
IGLOO - black

Tea and charcoal is about the only thing that colored appropriately here. <_<

-- Simon

Proxima · « **Reply #68 on:** August 30, 2014, 09:25:23 PM »

Ok then, I guess that a koan has the buddha-nature if its first letter is alphabetically earlier than each of its other letters.

Simon · « **Reply #69 on:** August 30, 2014, 09:29:20 PM »

Quote from: Proxima on 2014-08-30 15:25:23

a koan has the buddha-nature if its first letter is alphabetically earlier than each of its other letters.

You are enlightened. Well done!

You may host a next round immediately.

-- Simon

mobius · « **Reply #70 on:** August 30, 2014, 09:37:04 PM »

Quote from: Proxima on 2014-08-30 15:25:23

Ok then, I guess that a koan has the buddha-nature if its first letter is alphabetically earlier than each of its other letters.

DOH! I actually thought of this but for some reason immediately thought; "no, that can't be it"

good job, and good rule. Simple yet stumped everyone for a while

Proxima · « **Reply #71 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:15:50 PM »

Okay

In this round, BUDDHA has the buddha-nature
and NATURE does not have the buddha-nature.

Simon · « **Reply #72 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:38:34 PM »

BUDDHANATURE
NATURALSCIENCES
NUT
BUD
BUDWEISER
RHAPSODY
DUB

-- Simon

Ramon · « **Reply #73 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:49:32 PM »

will a BUDDHIST have the Budhda-Nature?

NaOH · « **Reply #74 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:56:23 PM »

Proxima · « **Reply #75 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:56:50 PM »

Having buddha-nature:

BUDDHANATURE
NATURALSCIENCES
BUD
BUDWEISER
BUDDHIST

Lacking buddha-nature:

NUT
RHAPSODY
DUB
HCL

NaOH · « **Reply #76 on:** August 30, 2014, 11:58:41 PM »

AIRBUD

Simon · « **Reply #77 on:** August 31, 2014, 12:06:43 AM »

DUBLIN
DUBBERNATURE
NUDE
BUT
HCLACID

Proxima · « **Reply #78 on:** August 31, 2014, 12:09:46 AM »

Having buddha-nature:

AIRBUD
DUBLIN
DUBBERNATURE
BUT

Lacking buddha-nature:

NUDE
HCLACID

Simon · « **Reply #79 on:** August 31, 2014, 12:18:53 AM »

NATURAL
NURTURE
NURTURED
NUTRIENT

Everything I was considering so far is thrown overboard again by NATURE being black...

-- Simon

Timballisto · « **Reply #80 on:** August 31, 2014, 04:11:09 AM »

STATICUS

Minim · « **Reply #81 on:** August 31, 2014, 08:22:54 AM »

I
DONT
GET
THIS
ITS
TOTALLY
MISUNDERSTANDABLE

Proxima · « **Reply #82 on:** August 31, 2014, 12:49:36 PM »

Having buddha-nature:

DONT
MISUNDERSTANDABLE

Lacking buddha-nature:

NATURAL
NURTURE
NURTURED
NUTRIENT
STATICUS
I
GET
THIS
ITS
TOTALLY

mobius · « **Reply #83 on:** August 31, 2014, 01:31:25 PM »

BUDDHABUDDHA
AHDDUB
BUDDXD
BUDDAHS
IO
IOIO
CALL
KLPX
KLPXOIUE
ORANGE
JUICE

------

throwing out an accusation which is most-likely wrong; a koan has the Buddha-nature if it contains letters that are present in "BUDDHA" but must be in the order of which they appear in BUDDHA.

Proxima · « **Reply #84 on:** August 31, 2014, 01:48:42 PM »

Having buddha-nature:

BUDDHABUDDHA
AHDDUB (this disproves your guess)
BUDDXD
BUDDAHS
CALL

Lacking buddha-nature:

IO
IOIO
KLPX
KLPXOIUE
ORANGE
JUICE

ccexplore · « **Reply #85 on:** August 31, 2014, 02:22:09 PM »

TNOD
TUB
STI
SIHT

mobius · « **Reply #86 on:** August 31, 2014, 07:19:36 PM »

BUDDHABUDDHABUDDHABUDDHA
BETTER
BUTTER
CALLLL
HADUBD
BUDE
NUTCRACKER

Proxima · « **Reply #87 on:** August 31, 2014, 07:53:42 PM »

Having buddha-nature:

BUDDHABUDDHABUDDHABUDDHA (and in fact any koan consisting of n repetitions of "BUDDHA"

)
BETTER
BUTTER
CALLLL
BUDE

Lacking buddha-nature:

TNOD
TUB
STI
SIHT
HADUBD
NUTCRACKER

Simon · « **Reply #88 on:** August 31, 2014, 08:31:00 PM »

let the funcion id() turn letters into numbers: id(A) = 1, id(B) = 2, ..., id(Z) = 26.

AKHTBN iff the length of the koan is >= id(first letter of the koan).

-- Simon

Proxima · « **Reply #89 on:** August 31, 2014, 09:16:20 PM »

Thou hast attained enlightenment

Simon · « **Reply #90 on:** August 31, 2014, 09:46:10 PM »

Nice one. :-)

I offer anyone to host a game, I'll be away for 2-3 days after a couple hours.

-- Simon

Minim · « **Reply #91 on:** August 31, 2014, 09:57:01 PM »

Wow, that previous koan was difficult to understand, and it was probably made harder by all the similar wordings that everyone else made.

Maybe we were getting closer when I found out that MISUNDERSTANDABLE had the buddha nature. Anyway, now that we know the answer, I'd definitely be experimenting that one using other interesting words.

Simon · « **Reply #92 on:** August 31, 2014, 10:03:13 PM »

Yes, NATURALSCIENCES and MISUNDERSTANDABLE were the last piece here. Earlier ideas were always explaining 90 percent of cases, but not these.

-- Simon

ccexplore · « **Reply #93 on:** September 01, 2014, 03:01:40 AM »

okay, maybe an easier round:

Initial white koan: WHITE
Initial black koan: BLACK

Minim · « **Reply #94 on:** September 01, 2014, 06:19:43 AM »

OK, if this is a colour round, shall we do all the other colours too?

RED
ORANGE
YELLOW
LIME
GREEN
TURQUOISE
BLUE
INDIGO
VIOLET
PINK

ccexplore · « **Reply #95 on:** September 01, 2014, 09:37:15 AM »

I actually came up (for my earlier round) with quite a few different ideas based on black and white, and was too lazy now to come up with other ideas using other words. $:-\$ Anyhow:

has Buddha nature:

ORANGE
GREEN
TURQUOISE
BLUE
INDIGO
VIOLET

lacks Buddha nature:

RED
YELLOW
LIME
PINK

Clam · « **Reply #96 on:** September 01, 2014, 10:59:59 AM »

TEAL
MAGENTA
CYAN
GOLD
GREY
GRAY
MAROON

ccexplore · « **Reply #97 on:** September 01, 2014, 11:51:01 AM »

Buddha:
CYAN
GRAY
MAROON

Not Buddha:
TEAL
MAGENTA
GOLD
GREY

mobius · « **Reply #98 on:** September 01, 2014, 12:51:35 PM »

FORTRESS
SET
AB
C
AKAK
QUICK
QUIT

ccexplore · « **Reply #99 on:** September 01, 2014, 03:09:03 PM »

Buddha:
FORTRESS
SET
AB
QUICK
QUIT

Not Buddha:
C
AKAK

Clam · « **Reply #100 on:** September 01, 2014, 09:15:35 PM »

GRIY
GROY
GRUY

ccexplore · « **Reply #101 on:** September 01, 2014, 11:50:39 PM »

Quote from: Clam on 2014-09-01 15:15:35

GRIY
GROY
GRUY

all black (lacks Buddha nature)

Proxima · « **Reply #102 on:** September 02, 2014, 12:10:00 AM »

GRANGE
GRUE
QUACK

ccexplore · « **Reply #103 on:** September 02, 2014, 01:46:55 AM »

GRANGE and QUACK has Buddha nature
GRUE does not

Timballisto · « **Reply #104 on:** September 02, 2014, 04:42:57 AM »

DIRIGIBLE

ccexplore · « **Reply #105 on:** September 02, 2014, 05:14:30 AM »

DIRIGIBLE has Buddha nature.

Minim · « **Reply #106 on:** September 02, 2014, 06:52:36 AM »

ccxplore said this was a slightly easier round, but at the moment he's lying. Looks like we're getting nowhere already. Let's try and remind ourselves all the ones that have a buddha nature already to see if we can get any closer. I've put them in alphabetical order.
AB
BLUE
CYAN
DIRIGIBLE
FORTRESS
GRANGE
GRAY
GREEN
INDIGO
MAROON
ORANGE
QUACK
QUICK
QUIT
SET
TURQUOISE
VIOLET
WHITE

I'll try a few more longer words
ESTABLISHMENT
HORRIFICALLY
UNDERNEATH
BEREAVEMENT
NEGOTIATIONABLE

ccexplore · « **Reply #107 on:** September 02, 2014, 07:59:37 AM »

Quote from: minimac on 2014-09-02 00:52:36

ccxplore said this was a slightly easier round, but at the moment he's lying. Looks like we're getting nowhere already.

Yeah sorry, I suspected soon after I posted the initial koans that I probably misjudged the difficulty, but do not have a good way to simplify it without already affecting the initial koans.

I guess if desired I can give a hint (in the form of koans) or we can just start a whole new round.

Anyway, your latest koans are all black (non-Buddha).

ESTABLISHMENT
HORRIFICALLY
UNDERNEATH
BEREAVEMENT
NEGOTIATIONABLE

To be fair, with the exception of Proxima's koans (and a pair of Clam's koans, perhaps somewhat by accident), so far it doesn't seem like people are being all that systematic with their koans.

Proxima · « **Reply #108 on:** September 02, 2014, 01:40:10 PM »

Quote from: minimac on 2014-09-02 00:52:36

Let's try and remind ourselves all the ones that have a buddha nature already to see if we can get any closer. I've put them in alphabetical order.

For this kind of thing, it's as important to keep track of the ones that lack buddha-nature. Knowing that GRAY has buddha-nature doesn't tell us much by itself, but that GRAY does and GREY does not is much more significant.

"Fancy being more interesting in things that don't have buddha-nature than in things that do!" -- Achilles, in Gödel, Escher, Bach

AKAK
BEREAVEMENT
BLACK
C
ESTABLISHMENT
GOLD
GREY
GRIY
GROY
GRUE
GRUY
HORRIFICALLY
LIME
MAGENTA
NEGOTIATIONABLE
PINK
RED
TEAL
UNDERNEATH
YELLOW

* * *

Next set of guesses:

FRAY
GRAM
NEGOTIABLE
TALLOW
UNDERCITY

ccexplore · « **Reply #109 on:** September 02, 2014, 02:30:07 PM »

Buddha:
FRAY
GRAM

non-Buddha:
NEGOTIABLE
TALLOW
UNDERCITY

Proxima · « **Reply #110 on:** September 02, 2014, 04:37:43 PM »

FREY
FRY
GRY
TRAM
TRAY
TRY

Nepster · « **Reply #111 on:** September 02, 2014, 07:09:12 PM »

YGRA
AYGR
GARY
NEGOTIABLEQ

ccexplore · « **Reply #112 on:** September 02, 2014, 08:28:14 PM »

Buddha:
TRY
YGRA
AYGR
GARY

non-Buddha:
FREY
FRY
GRY
TRAM
TRAY
NEGOTIABLEQ

----------------

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-02 01:59:37

I guess if desired I can give a hint (in the form of koans)

It occurred to me that in lieu of just me giving out koans for free (which isn't exactly how the game works), people can instead post guesses of the rule, even if it is obviously incorrect due to failing on already tried koans. I would have discretion over what counterexample response to post, and for hinting purposes I can make the counterexample much more helpful/revealing than normal. All of that would work completely within the rules of the game.

Ramon · « **Reply #113 on:** September 02, 2014, 09:04:10 PM »

FGSFDS

Nepster · « **Reply #114 on:** September 02, 2014, 10:06:15 PM »

GRBY
GRAAY
GRAYGRAY
GRAYGREY
GREYGREY

Proxima · « **Reply #115 on:** September 02, 2014, 10:29:04 PM »

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-02 14:28:14

It occurred to me that in lieu of just me giving out koans for free (which isn't exactly how the game works), people can instead post guesses of the rule, even if it is obviously incorrect due to failing on already tried koans. I would have discretion over what counterexample response to post, and for hinting purposes I can make the counterexample much more helpful/revealing than normal. All of that would work completely within the rules of the game.

Ah, but we can request a hint within the rules of the game: guess "A koan has the buddha-nature if and only if it is one of the following: {list of all known "white" koans}". But that's cumbersome to type out. So I think a shortcut should be formalised by adding a rule that the players can ask for a hint in the form of a new koan of the master's choice. Not that I'm doing that now; the latest sets of koans should provide a good amount of new information.

ccexplore · « **Reply #116 on:** September 03, 2014, 12:53:23 AM »

Buddha:
GRBY
GRAAY
GRAYGRAY
GRAYGREY

not Buddha:
FGSFDS
GREYGREY

Proxima · « **Reply #117 on:** September 03, 2014, 04:59:51 PM »

RAY
REY
RYE
RUBY

ccexplore · « **Reply #118 on:** September 03, 2014, 08:46:55 PM »

Buddha:
RAY
RUBY

not Buddha:
REY
RYE

Nepster · « **Reply #119 on:** September 03, 2014, 09:58:21 PM »

Three more koans:
QJRGLPFAB
ABZ
ABNS

ccexplore · « **Reply #120 on:** September 04, 2014, 07:33:50 AM »

QJRGLPFAB, ABZ, ABNS all have Buddha-nature

------------

Let's do this: if no one posts guesses (koans or rules) for over 24 hours after the latest response from master, consider this round abandoned and someone can start a new round?

Minim · « **Reply #121 on:** September 04, 2014, 09:18:22 AM »

I like this idea. And then after the 24 hours expire the master may reveal the answer.
What we know so far is that most of the koans tend to be short lettered words. TURQUOISE and DIRIGIBLE were the longest. I still have no idea so this is my last set of koans to try. (Don't know if this is helpful

, maybe I should be writing the letters of the alphabet as koan guesses instead)

NEWPORT
CARDIFF
SWANSEA
GLASGOW
BRISTOL
NORWICH
PRESTON
SALFORD
CHESTER

ccexplore · « **Reply #122 on:** September 04, 2014, 02:09:58 PM »

Buddha:
CARDIFF
GLASGOW
PRESTON
SALFORD
CHESTER

not Buddha:
NEWPORT
SWANSEA
BRISTOL
NORWICH

Ramon · « **Reply #123 on:** September 04, 2014, 02:18:28 PM »

GREYGRAY
ABK
ABAKAK
QACK
QQ
X
AX
EX

Nepster · « **Reply #124 on:** September 04, 2014, 05:55:25 PM »

No new koans right now, but a discussion about properties of the Buddha-nature. Given the tested koans so far, the following three rules seem to hold:
R1: The Buddha-nature does not depend on the order of the letters in the koan.
R2: The Buddha-nature only depends on whether a letter occurs in the koan, but not how often it occurs.
R3: Letters that have neither vertical nor horizontal mirror symmetry (i.e. FGJLNPQRSZ) have no impact at all on the Buddha-nature.
I am fairly sure of R1 and R3, but I wouldn't bet on R2 as we have only few test strings for this one.

Here a list of all koans testet so far, after ordering the letters alphabetically and removing all non-symmetric ones.

EDIT: List removed because of disproved rules.

Proxima · « **Reply #125 on:** September 04, 2014, 06:03:04 PM »

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-04 01:33:50

Let's do this: if no one posts guesses (koans or rules) for over 24 hours after the latest response from master, consider this round abandoned and someone can start a new round?

I don't know why you think that because it's taking a while to reach the answer, we're not having fun. We are Lemmings fans, after all.

We can have a rule that if a majority of active players want to end the round, the master reveals the answer, but I strongly object to the idea that the round could be ended prematurely just because someone was busy and didn't get round to posting within 24 hours -- especially when this is the first really good puzzle we've had in this game.

Anyway, as we've reached a new page, here's another recap of koans so far. White on the left, black on the right.

Code: [Select]

AB                  AKAK
ABNZ                BEREAVEMENT
ABZ                 BLACK
AYGR                BRISTOL
BLUE                C
CARDIFF              ESTABLISHMENT
CHESTER              FGSFDS
CYAN                FREY
DIRIGIBLE           FRY
FORTRESS            GOLD
FRAY                 GREY
GARY                GREYGREY
GLASGOW             GRIY
GRAAY               GROY
GRAM                GRUE
GRANGE              GRUY
GRAY                GRY
GRAYGRAY            HORRIFICALLY
GRAYGREY            LIME
GRBY                 MAGENTA
GREEN               NEGOTIABLE
INDIGO             NEGOTIABLEQ
MAROON              NEGOTIONABLE
ORANGE              NEWPORT
PRESTON             NORWICH
QJRGLPFAB           PINK
QUACK               RED
QUICK               REY
QUIT               RYE
RAY                 SWANSEA
RUBY                 TEAL
SALFORD             TRAY
SET
TRY
TURQUOISE
VIOLET
WHITE
YGRA

EDIT: Nepster posted at the same time as me. His idea of ordering each koan alphabetically is interesting and may be helpful (since it does seem to be the case that this rule isn't affected by internal order -- all the anagrams of GRAY we tested all had buddha-nature). But I don't like the idea of removing information -- your rule R3 may turn out to be right, but at the moment it's only a guess. I doubt that symmetry is really the key to this rule, since GRAY has buddha-nature but GRUY does not.

* * *

New guesses:

FOLD
OLD
FORD
FORT
GGRAY
GGREY
G
A
E
R
Y
GAY
GEY
GRA
GRE
LET
NEGOTIBLE
NEGOTIAABLE
NEGOTIABLEA

Proxima · « **Reply #126 on:** September 04, 2014, 09:34:10 PM »

May as well share some of my thoughts about the possible nature of the rule.

I was thinking along similar lines to Nepster -- the GRAY/GRY, FRAY/FRY and TRAY/TRY pairs suggest that A is a significant letter whose addition changes a string's buddha-nature, while F, G and Q are insignificant. However, GRAAY also has buddha-nature, so adding a second A is not significant. That suggests that the rule could take the form "A koan has the buddha-nature if it contains an even number of distinct significant letters" (for some set of significant letters yet to be determined).

However, it's impossible for a rule of this form to work. I would have to be both a significant letter (because of QUICK/QUACK) and insignificant (because of GRAY/GRY/GRIY). It could be a similar but more complex rule -- but ccexplore thought we would get this one easily, so I don't think it can be. I think these thoughts must be along the wrong lines altogether

Timballisto · « **Reply #127 on:** September 04, 2014, 11:26:00 PM »

HINDENBURG

ccexplore · « **Reply #128 on:** September 05, 2014, 01:10:20 AM »

Quote from: Proxima on 2014-09-04 12:03:04

I don't know why you think that because it's taking a while to reach the answer, we're not having fun. We are Lemmings fans, after all.

We can have a rule that if a majority of active players want to end the round, the master reveals the answer, but I strongly object to the idea that the round could be ended prematurely just because someone was busy and didn't get round to posting within 24 hours -- especially when this is the first really good puzzle we've had in this game.

Okay, it's all up to you guys, majority sounds fine to me. I merely want to make sure I don't end up killing the thread.

Quote from: Proxima on 2014-09-04 15:34:10

but ccexplore thought we would get this one easily

Please ignore that, as I'm pretty sure my brain totally farted when I thought that would be the case.

I now would say this is clearly harder than any of the previous rounds, due at least in part to the crazy way the rule came about (even though it is still fairly straightforward to describe verbally in a sentence or two, maybe).

Even ignoring all the guesses, I myself have quickly recognized how unreasonable it is for me to think this rule would be easier. On hindsight I should've eliminate one part of the rule so it is truly easier, but doing so would affect the initial koans as well. On the previous round I mastered, I already started considering which classes of rules are intrinsically more difficult to deduce/induce/recognize patterns for, yet I totally failed to take that into consideration when I started this round.

==========================

"koan has..." True:

GREYGRAY
QACK
AX
FORT
GGRAY
A
GAY
GRA
LET

"koan has..." False:

ABK
ABAKAK
NEGOTIBLE
NEGOTIAABLE
NEGOTIABLEA
HINDENBURG
QQ
X
EX
FOLD
OLD
FORD
GGREY
G
E
R
Y
GEY
GRE

Ramon · « **Reply #129 on:** September 05, 2014, 10:55:15 AM »

ACK
AK

ccexplore · « **Reply #130 on:** September 05, 2014, 10:57:15 AM »

^ Both koans have the Buddha nature.

Proxima · « **Reply #131 on:** September 05, 2014, 12:19:29 PM »

ANEGOTIBLE
NEGOTILE
HINDENURG
ALE

Nepster · « **Reply #132 on:** September 05, 2014, 05:45:38 PM »

I removed the list in my previous post as the koans AK and E disproved at least some of my rules there.

Quote

I doubt that symmetry is really the key to this rule, since GRAY has buddha-nature but GRUY does not.

My thoughts actually went more in the direction of rules like "AKHTBN if if contains two vertically symmetric letters that have distance at least 10 in the alphabet."

Some new koans:
AA
AAA
AAAA
AAAAA
AAAAAA
GRAYL
ABL
TRYL
REDL

@Proxima: I noticed two typos in your list: ABNZ should be ABNS and NEGOTIONABLE should be NEGOTIATIONABLE.

ccexplore · « **Reply #133 on:** September 05, 2014, 07:59:20 PM »

Buddha:

HINDENURG
ALE
AA
AAA
AAAA
AAAAA
AAAAAA
GRAYL
ABL
TRYL

not Buddha:

ANEGOTIBLE
NEGOTILE
REDL

Nepster · « **Reply #134 on:** September 05, 2014, 09:28:19 PM »

XRAY
LITHE
MOLE
HOXI

ccexplore · « **Reply #135 on:** September 05, 2014, 09:57:23 PM »

enlightened:
XRAY
HOXI

unenlightened:
LITHE
MOLE

Timballisto · « **Reply #136 on:** September 06, 2014, 02:16:24 AM »

NONPAREILL

ccexplore · « **Reply #137 on:** September 06, 2014, 02:21:00 AM »

^ lacks Buddha nature

Timballisto · « **Reply #138 on:** September 06, 2014, 02:35:21 AM »

INDISPENSABLE

ccexplore · « **Reply #139 on:** September 06, 2014, 02:38:58 AM »

^ also lacks Buddha nature

Nepster · « **Reply #140 on:** September 06, 2014, 05:22:08 PM »

EE
EEE
AAK
AKK
K
KK

Timballisto · « **Reply #141 on:** September 06, 2014, 05:34:38 PM »

AMALGAMATION

mobius · « **Reply #142 on:** September 06, 2014, 06:31:30 PM »

FOF
OFO
FOOOOF
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF
FOFO
OOF
OFF
OF
FO
HH
III
MMM
ZZZ

ccexplore · « **Reply #143 on:** September 07, 2014, 01:07:08 AM »

Has Buddha-Nature:

AAK
AKK
K
KK
AMALGAMATION
HH

lacks Buddha-Nature:

EE
EEE
FOF
OFO
FOOOOF
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF
FOFO
OOF
OFF
OF
FO
III
MMM
ZZZ

mobius · « **Reply #144 on:** September 07, 2014, 03:51:51 AM »

It seems very interesting to me that "HH" is buddha and not "EE" or "III".
Anybody have any thoughts on numbering the letters from 1 to 26 like Proxima's earlier round? Obviously which letters chosen is directly important. [suppose everyone already knew this]

more guesses:

NFL
NBA
KKK
XLO
ZHX
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ccexplore · « **Reply #145 on:** September 07, 2014, 05:07:46 AM »

Has Buddha-Nature:
NFL
KKK (D'oh!

)
ZHX
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

lacks Buddha-Nature:
NBA
XLO

Clam · « **Reply #146 on:** September 07, 2014, 07:54:33 AM »

I've been following this, but haven't contributed much in the way of koans, probably because others have posted so many already

. But thanks to the large number of koans (and MS Excel!), I'm able to make a guess at the rule with some confidence:

AKHTBN iff it contains one or more of the letters {A, K, H, T, B, N}, and they occur only in that order.

ccexplore · « **Reply #147 on:** September 07, 2014, 10:08:31 AM »

Woo! Go Clam!

'scuse me I mean "thou hast enlightened".

Curious that MS Excel helped out, were you doing some sort of statistical analysis with the frequency of letters or something?

[In case people are still unclear on the ordering condition: for example BLACK disobeys the ordering because the B appears before the A (and also before the K) in the word. LAB is okay since A is before B just like in "AKHTBN"--not having K, H or T in "LAB" is fine, the ordering condition is only on the "blessed" letters that are present in the koan. AAKK would be okay while AKAK would not. AABB good, ABAB bad. And yes, BUDDHA is ironically not okay. $:-\$ ]

==========

In hindsight perhaps I should've forgo the ordering condition, but then again, we previously did a round already (geoo mastered) where Buddha nature is conferred simply by inclusion of a set of blessed letters, so I guess I thought it would be too much of the same, and thought the little twist would be a good idea. Or maybe I should've kept the twist but use a smaller set of blessed letters instead (people were at least eventually picking up on A, B and K, even though everyone also seemed to have forgotten by then that the initial white koan of WHITE has none of those three letters).

And in my defense, generally speaking the way people were going about this often didn't help, with so many long-length koans which are bound to disobey the required ordering. If people did like I did with geoo's round and say, do the 26 single-letter koans, I imagine things would've been much clearer. People were drawing some good theories, but often got hung up by examples where the koans have more special letters than the ones they were suspecting, which ends up confusing people as to why those koans don't seem to fit. Testing out smaller koans might've helped in those cases.

Had someone went the "hint" route and post an obviously incorrect rule guess, I have planned out these fun koans to reveal (amongst other possibilities like literally AKHTBN):

AKIDHELPSTIMBUYNOODLES (white)
TIMHELPSAKIDBUYNOODLES (black)

I also early on wrote a computer program to check people's koans, so if at any point someone bring up whether I could've made a mistake somewhere along the way with so many koans at play, the answer would be a firm "no" (other than copy-paste errors when inputting into computer program, but I had been very careful with that).

=============

Anyway, Clam can do the next round, or call open floor and have someone else do it. Or maybe we can all use a break and play some other forum game instead?

Ramon · « **Reply #148 on:** September 07, 2014, 10:32:02 AM »

Wow, you really stumped us there.

A very interesting rule though, wouldn't have come up with that.

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-07 04:08:31

do the 26 single-letter koans

Personally, I find that really cheap

but it's just me.

Anyhow, people don't have to play Zendo if they don't want to, but those who do could still continue of course

Simon · « **Reply #149 on:** September 07, 2014, 10:42:34 AM »

Quote from: Ramon

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-07 04:08:31
do the 26 single-letter koans

Personally, I find that really cheap but it's just me.

This is a phenomenon of turnless Zendo.

In the turn-based game, you do this per turn: Make a new koan to be marked, possibly earn guessing attempts, and then use as many guessing attemps as you like. It takes several turns to test every 1-element koan, so you should conduct only the most needed ones.

Testing all 1-letter koans should be acceptable, even if it's not 100 % according to the process of the turn-based game. If you deem it unspiritful, it's your right to test only some. I don't want to impose any limit by rules here. :-)

-- Simon

Clam · « **Reply #150 on:** September 07, 2014, 10:50:08 AM »

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-07 04:08:31

Curious that MS Excel helped out, were you doing some sort of statistical analysis with the frequency of letters or something?

Yep

. I suspected (as others did) that there was a set of special letters that all white koans had in common. The existing koans with only one letter type gave an initial list of "white" and "non-white" letters. Then (with an Excel formula) I counted the "white" letters in each white koan, and added other letters not in the "non-white" list until every white koan had one or more. Thanks to the size of the koan list, there was no guessing required, and there was a eureka moment when the letters AKHTBN dropped out

It was the koan AKAK that prompted me to think about the order of the white letters.

---

New round!

Initial white koan: CLAM
Initial black koan: SPAM

Simon · « **Reply #151 on:** September 07, 2014, 10:59:28 AM »

CLIX
CPLUSPLUS
SPROUT
SCHPAM
CLAMSPAMMER

-- Simon

ccexplore · « **Reply #152 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:00:25 AM »

Regarding guessing single-letter koans:

To be fair, even in geoo's round I wasn't really relying on guessing all 26 1-letter koans. I actually had a theory that I initially tested with a single koan containing all the letters that I thought are "good". Only when I wasn't sure whether the letter must be the first letter in the koan is when I apologetically asked for testing individual letters on their own, and even then only the individual letters from my koan (the one with what I thought were all the good letters--as it turned out some weren't because my theory of goodness was slightly off, and the individual letter koans immediately point out the bad ones).

Still, it's good input to know that some people may be aversed to certain classes of guesses, I'll be sure to try taking that into account somehow if I master any future rounds.

============

koans for Clam's round:

CL
SP
AM
MALC
MAPS
AMCL
AMSP

Ramon · « **Reply #153 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:14:58 AM »

CLAMSPAM
SPAMCLAM
CLAMCLAM
SPAMSPAM

Clam · « **Reply #154 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:25:38 AM »

White:
SPROUT
CLAMSPAMMER
MALC
AMCL
CLAMSPAM
SPAMCLAM
CLAMCLAM

Black:
CLIX
CPLUSPLUS
SCHPAM
CL
SP
AM
MAPS
AMSP
SPAMSPAM

Simon · « **Reply #155 on:** September 07, 2014, 12:03:24 PM »

CA
CM
OP
OR
RS

-- Simon

Nepster · « **Reply #156 on:** September 07, 2014, 12:08:00 PM »

I make the following guess at the rule:

AKHTBN iff it contains two consecutive letters of the alphabet.

Proxima · « **Reply #157 on:** September 07, 2014, 02:22:12 PM »

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-07 04:08:31

In hindsight perhaps I should've forgo the ordering condition, but then again, we previously did a round already (geoo mastered) where Buddha nature is conferred simply by inclusion of a set of blessed letters, so I guess I thought it would be too much of the same, and thought the little twist would be a good idea. Or maybe I should've kept the twist but use a smaller set of blessed letters instead (people were at least eventually picking up on A, B and K, even though everyone also seemed to have forgotten by then that the initial white koan of WHITE has none of those three letters).

I'd worked out that T was a significant letter as well

And well done, that was a very nice rule.

Clam · « **Reply #158 on:** September 07, 2014, 07:42:53 PM »

Quote from: Nepster on 2014-09-07 06:08:00

I make the following guess at the rule:

AKHTBN iff it contains two consecutive letters of the alphabet.

Correct

SPROUT was rather a giveaway, wasn't it?

Nepster · « **Reply #159 on:** September 07, 2014, 09:21:35 PM »

Actually CL and AM being both black was more helpful. SPROUT was too different from the other test koans to be of much use for me.

NEW ROUND:

Word with Buddha-nature: YELLOW
Word without Buddha-nature: BLUE

Ramon · « **Reply #160 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:15:30 PM »

YELLOWYELLOW
BLUEBLUE
YELLOWBLUE
BLUEYELLOW
YELLO
YELL
YEL
YE
Y
BLU
BL
B

Nepster · « **Reply #161 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:30:41 PM »

White:
YELLOWYELLOW
YE

Black:
BLUEBLUE
YELLOWBLUE
BLUEYELLOW
YELLO
YELL
YEL
Y
BLU
BL
B

Proxima · « **Reply #162 on:** September 07, 2014, 11:56:38 PM »

RED
GREEN
CYAN
MAGENTA
WHITE
BLACK
BELLOW
WOLLEY
WBLUE

Nepster · « **Reply #163 on:** September 08, 2014, 08:20:26 AM »

White:
WOLLEY
CYAN

Black:
RED
GREEN
MAGENTA
WHITE
BLACK
BELLOW
WBLUE

Clam · « **Reply #164 on:** September 08, 2014, 10:55:38 AM »

YA
YL
YO
YW
YOLO

Proxima · « **Reply #165 on:** September 08, 2014, 12:43:51 PM »

YEW
YBLUE
BLUEY
WOLLE
ELLOW

Nepster · « **Reply #166 on:** September 08, 2014, 04:12:27 PM »

White:
YA
YL

Black:
YO
YW
YOLO
YEW
YBLUE
BLUEY
WOLLE
ELLOW

mobius · « **Reply #167 on:** September 08, 2014, 04:15:45 PM »

L
LL
LOL
MISTER
MISS
MISSSS
MISO
ACK
ACHE

Ramon · « **Reply #168 on:** September 08, 2014, 04:24:41 PM »

WE
ALL
LIVE
IN
A
YELLOWSUBMARINE

Nepster · « **Reply #169 on:** September 08, 2014, 04:40:48 PM »

White:
MISTER
MISS
MISO
WE
IN

Black:
L
LL
LOL
MISSSS
ACK
ACHE
ALL
LIVE
A
YELLOWSUBMARINE

Minim · « **Reply #170 on:** September 09, 2014, 07:01:56 PM »

Let's try a few more longer words. BTW "LEMMINGS" wasn't even submitted as a koan guess yet, so I'll put that in for the name of the forum's sake.

LEMMINGS
CARELESS
CLICKING
COSTS
LIVES
LEMMINGOLOGY
SANCTUARY

Clam · « **Reply #171 on:** September 09, 2014, 08:29:42 PM »

MISTERYELLOW
MISSWHITE
TIMERS
WINE
SUBMARINE

Nepster · « **Reply #172 on:** September 09, 2014, 10:03:47 PM »

White:
MISTERYELLOW
TIMERS
WINE

Black:
LEMMINGS
CARELESS
CLICKING
COSTS
LIVES
LEMMINGOLOGY
SANCTUARY
MISSWHITE
SUBMARINE

Proxima · « **Reply #173 on:** September 10, 2014, 02:05:29 AM »

ZEMMINGS
YAAAAAAAAAAA (eleven As)
YAAAAAAAAAAAA (twelve As)
YOUNG

Nepster · « **Reply #174 on:** September 10, 2014, 08:22:55 AM »

All of them are black:
ZEMMINGS
YAAAAAAAAAAA (eleven As)
YAAAAAAAAAAAA (twelve As)
YOUNG

Minim · « **Reply #175 on:** September 10, 2014, 06:06:48 PM »

This is as hard as ccexplore's rule. I tried adding up the values, but that idea isn't working very well. I'll have a wild guess.

AKHTBN iff 50% or more of the letters in the word are from the second half of the alphabet (N-Z)

If not, I'll submit more koans instead.

NEWPORT
LONDEN
READING
BLACKBURN

Nepster · « **Reply #176 on:** September 10, 2014, 06:58:08 PM »

Quote from: minimac on 2014-09-10 12:06:48

This is as hard as ccexplore's rule.

I expected it to be harder than Clam's round, but definitely easier than ccexplore's rule. But I might have underestimated the difficulty arising from the rarity of white koans.

Quote from: minimac on 2014-09-10 12:06:48

AKHTBN iff 50% or more of the letters in the word are from the second half of the alphabet (N-Z)

No. A counterexample is NONSTOP, which is black. Alternatively the koan COSTS you asked last time would be a counterexample.

White:
LONDEN

Black:
NEWPORT
READING
BLACKBURN

Proxima · « **Reply #177 on:** September 10, 2014, 09:18:02 PM »

YAA
YEE
YY
YYY
YYYYYYYYYYYY (twelve Ys)
LIX

Nepster · « **Reply #178 on:** September 10, 2014, 09:44:24 PM »

All of them are black.

ccexplore · « **Reply #179 on:** September 10, 2014, 11:24:48 PM »

LLOW
M
MI
MIS
MIST
MISTE
STER
YOLLEW
YLOELW

Nepster · « **Reply #180 on:** September 11, 2014, 04:10:31 PM »

White:
LLOW
MIST
YOLLEW
YLOELW

Black:
M
MI
MIS
MISTE
STER

Proxima · « **Reply #181 on:** September 12, 2014, 04:27:54 PM »

A koan is white if it has equal numbers of letters from A to M and from N to Z.

As it's been 24 hours without my guess being adjudicated, and I'm pretty sure it's correct, I'm going to post the next round. If my guess turns out to be wrong, we can stall this round and continue Nepster's.

QUILLSHWAMMY has the buddha-nature.
LIGHTYAGAMI does not have the buddha-nature.

NaOH · « **Reply #182 on:** September 12, 2014, 04:52:20 PM »

Proxima · « **Reply #183 on:** September 12, 2014, 04:53:30 PM »

L has the buddha-nature.

mobius · « **Reply #184 on:** September 12, 2014, 06:16:45 PM »

H
R
TEST
DIGGERIDOO
DIG
HABENERA

Proxima · « **Reply #185 on:** September 12, 2014, 06:18:35 PM »

(list includes some guesses from chat)

White:
H
R
TEST
AYUMISHINOZAKI
YAKUZA
YAKZUA

Black:
DIG
DIGGERIDOO
HABENERA
YAZKRDL

Nepster · « **Reply #186 on:** September 12, 2014, 06:34:34 PM »

Quote from: Proxima on 2014-09-12 10:27:54

A koan is white if it has equal numbers of letters from A to M and from N to Z.

Correct

! And congratulations to minimac as well, who had almost the correct rule some days ago

.

One koan for Proxima's round:
BASH

Proxima · « **Reply #187 on:** September 12, 2014, 06:35:16 PM »

(list includes some guesses from chat)

White:
ADADADA
AOI

Black:
BASH
HM
AOAOAOAO
TARZAN

Minim · « **Reply #188 on:** September 13, 2014, 06:08:57 AM »

BAG
BUG
ART
OUR
RIO
DE
JANEIRO

Proxima · « **Reply #189 on:** September 13, 2014, 12:58:27 PM »

^ Those are all black.

Proxima · « **Reply #190 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:11:24 PM »

Some more guesses from chat:

White:
PRAMIOX

Black:
ASDF
PROXIMA
PRIXAMO
PRAXOMI

mobius · « **Reply #191 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:19:53 PM »

YUGIO
LUFFY
AGA
AGAG
ABCDEFG
GFEDCBA
X

Proxima · « **Reply #192 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:23:13 PM »

White:
AGA
X

Black:
YUGIO
LUFFY
AGAG
ABCDEFG
GFEDCBA

mobius · « **Reply #193 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:27:01 PM »

IBICHIBI
ASOGO
ASOGOJ
ABS
ABBS
TANTAMOUNT
JOHN
XAVIER
APPLE
WATER
WUNORS

Proxima · « **Reply #194 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:28:45 PM »

White:
IBICHIBI
TANTAMOUNT
JOHN
APPLE
WUNORS

Black:
ASOGO
ASOGOJ
ABS
ABBS
XAVIER
WATER

mobius · « **Reply #195 on:** September 13, 2014, 04:52:32 PM »

accusation: akhtbn if numbering the letters of the alphabet from 1-26, each letter corresponds to a number and the letter/numbers added up--the sum must be even.

more guesses:

OCKODUCKU
LETTER
BUNG
S
SSSS
POP
GOAL
STRIFF
BAGGAGE

Proxima · « **Reply #196 on:** September 13, 2014, 05:03:50 PM »

Quote from: möbius on 2014-09-13 10:52:32

accusation: akhtbn if numbering the letters of the alphabet from 1-26, each letter corresponds to a number and the letter/numbers added up--the sum must be even.

This is not correct. A counterexample is INSANESTEVE, which is white even though its alphabetic values sum to 133.

In chat, möbius also guessed that the alphabetic values of the first and last letters must have an even total. This is not correct; a counterexample is SAYUYAGAMI, which is black even though 19 + 9 = 28.

White:
S
SSSS
POP

Black:
OCKODUCKU
LETTER
BUNG
GOAL
STRIFF
BAGGAGE

Minim · « **Reply #197 on:** September 13, 2014, 07:49:01 PM »

Interesting one. Well, with the different natures of PRAMIOX and PROXIMA we know so far that it affects word order, but still have no idea of a guess, especially when all of my previous koans were shown to be all black.

IN
ELY
YORK
LEEDS
OLDHAM
CARDIFF
SOLIHULL
SHEFFIELD
PORTSMOUTH

Proxima · « **Reply #198 on:** September 13, 2014, 07:57:16 PM »

White:
ELY
PORTSMOUTH

Black:
IN
YORK
LEEDS
OLDHAM
CARDIFF
SOLIHULL
SHEFFIELD

Nepster · « **Reply #199 on:** September 14, 2014, 10:00:09 PM »

Some more variations of Proxima:
PROMIXA
PRAXIMO
PROMIAX
APRIMOX
QRAMIOX