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If I said, "you will be hung tomorrow, and it will be a surprise." That statement can not be true.

So the prisoner reasons: if it is thursday night, then being hung on a friday would not a be surprise. So I will not be hung on friday.

Then there is a kind of induction which further rules out each successive day. I think the thursday night argument is correct, but the induction argument is wrong.

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I understand that, but I think the definition of surprise is too ambiguous to really make the inference. I think that surprise could just simply mean he doesnt know when it will happen- so it could happen at any day at noon. Does he have to be legitimately SURPRISED that he is being hung? It really just seems to me that the person on death row is delusional if he makes the inference that it cant be any day because it has to be a "surprise"

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