Intuition
The difficulty of many brain teasers relies on a certain degree of fallacy in human intuitiveness. This is most common in brain teasers relating to conditional probability, because the casual human mind tends to consider absolute probability instead. As a result, controversial discussions emerge from such problems, the most famous probably being the Monty Hall problem. Another (simpler) example of such a brain teaser is the Boy or Girl paradox.
Read more about this topic: Brain Teaser
Famous quotes containing the word intuition:
“Reason is sight. Instinct is touch. Intuition is smell.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)