COUNTERFEIT COIN - VERSION II

If you have played this game at my blog before, you would have learnt that this is a computer programme which is capable of reading your mind by asking four simple, apparantly unrelated, questions. Each of the characters (letters or numbers) represents a coin. So there are 36 coins (26 letters and 10 numbers) represented. One of these 36 coins is counterfeit which has a very slightly different (I do not say "heavier") weight than the genuine one. Using a balance as shown in this programme to compare the weight difference of these coins one can certainly determine which is the counterfeit coin and whether it is heavier or lighter than the genuine one.

For example, if by chance, you pick two coins for comparison with each other and discover that they do not balance, you know immediately that one of them is counterfeit while all the others must be genuine. In the second move or step, by comparing one of these first two coins with any of the genuine ones, you can determine which one of the first two coins is counterfeit and also its relative weight. So, in just two steps you can point out the counterfeit coin as to its identity and relative weight. But, that is a matter of "chance" and not of "certainty".

In a matter of four simple steps or comparisons, this computer programme is able to say for certain which is the counterfeit coin and its relative weight. Can you beat the computer by doing it in less than four steps or in maximum of four steps consistently? That is the challenge.

Further, when you compare the first and second versions of "The Counterfeit Coin" you will discover that the former has what I call "a static intelligence" while the latter has "a dynamic intelligence." Both have artificial intelligence in that they both can rightly and intelligently guess what are in the player's mind. You will discover, as you play each of the version long enough, that version one uses the same path all the time to give you the right answer while the second version uses different path each time to give you the right answer. This is true even when you choose the same counterfeit coin with the same relative weight. For example, try using A coin as counterfeit and heavier than the genuine one. Do you see a different path each time?

Essentially, the second version illustrates that the compter programme has the "freedom" to act as it pleases, but always fulfilling what the "creator" wants it to do, namely, to guess rightly what are in the mind of the player. So, the "sovereign determination" of the "creator" is not contradictory to the "freedom" of the acts of the programme.

I, the "creator", do not even know which path my programme will take to do what I want! This is not to suggest that God, the Mighty Creator, does not know which path we, the dependent creatures, will take in doing what He wants. Man devises his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.

He can and does know all things because He determines them all. But I am happy to know that I don't. Praise be to His Name!