Two Doors (with plenty of lists and colons!)

In yesterday's post, I ended with the mention of a riddle. I think of it as the two door dilemma - I've adapted/personified it to involve an addicted gambler, named Dire Jim or DJ. This gambling man has taken out too many loans from unscrupulous characters. These loan sharks put DJ on the two doors list, which is a list of persons who'll never be able to pay back their advances. Instead of breaking DJ's fingers or knees or smacking him with a phonebook, the loans sharks have entered DJ into a two doors contest.

The two doors contest is a form of underworld gambling that involves high-rollers betting on someone's life. This contest is carried out in a luxurious cellar with two doors on the far wall from the cushioned steps. In front of one door is a man known only as McForgey, a stout, bald man with an iron-grey, handlebar moustache. In front of the other door is a tall, stick-thin lady with pale green eyes, who is named Willa. Unlike the two guardians, the two doors are identical. Behind one door, is a cramped corridor that leads into an alleyway. If DJ chooses this door, he can leave the cellar with all of his debts forgiven. Behind the other door is a closet space occupied by the Assassin holding a piece of piano wire. If DJ chooses this door, then he pays for his sizable debts with his life.

Allow me to lay down some details to help you suspend your disbelief:

1) Although the two doors dilemma is a common enough riddle, the loan sharks organizing this event have mild-mannered employees who function as plants and approach potential contestants with this riddle. In Dire Jim's case, a mature but still attractive woman had approached him at a bar and engaged him in a seemingly innocent conversation while slipping in the two doors question. After ascertaining that DJ didn't know the answer, she left the bar. DJ was bundled off to the cellar by two thugs 15 minutes later to decrease the probability that he'd have time to ask any other bar patron about the two doors riddle.

2) At first, it doesn't seem logical from a financial standpoint that the loan sharks would be willing to give DJ a 50-50 chance of leaving this contest alive and debt-free. In fact, whichever door DJ chooses, the loan sharks won't get a cent from him, since dead men are essentially creditless. But don't forget the group of high-rollers involved in this cellar event (they sit in the cellar now, against the back wall in leather chairs with seventeen massage settings and drink holders). The buy-in to take part in a game that involves someone's life is extravagant - extravagant to the point that DJ's sizable debts are at least an order of magnitude lower than the minimum bet. Thus, the loan sharks, who organize this event, are coming out well-ahead and can afford to be relatively generous with DJ's chances of survival.

3) The Assassin behind one of the doors isn't using a piano wire to be overly dramatic. Past events invloved a modified .22 caliber target pistol. The small caliber was to ensure that the bullet would not pass through a contestant's skull and maim or kill any of the high-roller patrons seated behind. However, there have been splatter issues in the past that've been bad for business. It was actually the Assassin's idea to switch to piano wire, since it's a relatively inexpensive, cleaner way to dispose of failed contestants. The Assassin also wears a hooded executioner's mask to preserve his identity - OK, maybe he's a tad bit dramatic, but he does his job well. Hell - masks for everybody! The high-rollers cover their faces in superbly-sculpted masks to avoid recognition and avoid connections to spheres of politics, religion, and entertainment.

The only unmasked persons in the room are DJ, with his hands tied behind his back to make for easy throttling should he choose the Assassin's door, and, for reasons unknown, the two guardians, Willa and McForgey.

The guardians don't speak as someone in the high-roller's seated area explains the rules of the game to DJ, who is to terrified to turn around and look at the speaker. The rules of the game are this:

1) DJ must choose a door (the speaker also tells him about the possible consequences of his choice)

2) Before choosing a door, DJ can ask only one of the guardians a single question.

3) Oh yeah, one of the guardians tells only truth, and the other tells only lies. DJ is not to know which one is the truthteller and which one is the liar.

Think one the nature of the guardians, on the idea of lies and truths. One guardian may as well be fiction and the other reality - but which one!?

[If you watched the Labyrinth clip in the last post where the girl has to choose between two doors, then let me dispel any potential confusion. The girl in that clip actually chose the right door; there is a popular misconception that she chose wrongly. No, she chose the right door - I did some quick IMDB research, and the reason she falls through the trap door after choosing the correct door is she says "it's a piece of cake" (you aren't supposed to say this in the Labyrinth because things will go badly).]

So without further ado, there are two ways that DJ can ask a single question to get out of the cellar clusterfuck:

1) He can ask one of the guardians "What door would the other guardian tell me to pick for my survival."

a) If he asks this question to the liar, then he is asking the liar what the truthteller will say. The liar knows the truthteller would give the correct door, so the liar will lie and tell DJ that the truthteller would give him the other door (that one that leads to death).

b) If he asks the truthteller, then he is asking the truthteller what the liar will say. The truthteller knows the liar will lie, so the truthteller will be truthful and tell DJ that the liar would give him the other door.

2) Or DJ can ask "What door would the other guardian tell me hides the Assassin?"

a) If the question is asked to the liar about the truthteller, then the liar will lie and give DJ the door that leads to safety.

b) If the question is asked to the truthteller, then the truthteller will faithfully tell him that the liar would give him the door that leads to safety.

In the first scenario, DJ would pick the opposite door as the guardian's answer. In the second scenario, he'd pick the same door as the guardian's answer - make sense?

Notice that for each scenario, it doesn't matter which guardian he asks, since each guardian will answer with the same door:

Truth exposes lies, and lying becomes a form of truth.

I was reminded of this two doors riddle when I woke up from my first surgery, the one that I got to remove my right testicle on the same day that I learned my lump was a tumor. It was evening when I awoke, still cheerful and dopey from the drugs, I told my Mom this riddle.

I've been trying to make sense of why I woke up with that riddle on my mind. Perhaps it was random, or maybe I felt that my life was at a turning point for better or for worse. This is what I believe so far:

Reality shapes fiction, and fiction twists reality. We can't replace reality with fiction and not suffer from delusions. We also can't abandon fiction for reality and still make sense of our existence. The two are not oppositely-driven entities; just as in the two doors dilemma, we must use them in conjunction to ask the right questions. It does not matter whether we state these questions in fiction or in reality. All that matters is having asked.

One a side note, it's been over two weeks since I've had a drink (minus the few drops of communion wine at church). I've been trying to be responsible, which I suppose is somewhat responsible - when the hell did that come about!? If all goes well, I'll be in Vegas on Monday. I've decided to try drinking responsibly there. If nothing else, it's a hell of a city to test myself in (only second to New Orleans in libation temptation, I'd say). Perhaps this is another turning point, for better or for worse - I'd ask you to wish my luck, but I've already been given enough of that.