Chacham's Journal: Puzzle: Three people. Figure out who they are.

Three people are in a room. One always tells the truth, one always lies, and the other is a Democrat. They know each other well, but you do not.

Only logical questions are answered, and all questions are asked and answered via proxy.

Both the truth teller and the liar will figure out the answer, and tell the truth or lie, unless they cannot know the answer, in which case they will simply say "i don't know", and even the liar can be believed on that.

The third will always answer yes or no, completely disregarding the question being asked.

Your goal is to find out who is who. That is, given labels 1, 2, and 3, be able to denote if person 1 is the truth teller, the liar, or the Democrat.

Scenario 1:

You may ask three questions in total. All three may be to one, or one question to each, or any other combination. All three questions are asked (to the proxy) and directed (that is to who the question should be asked) before any questions are asked.

Scenario 2:

You may ask two questions in total. Both may be to one, or one question to each of two. Both questions are asked (to the proxy) before any questions are asked, but the second question may be directed based on the answer to the first.

What are the questions?

Scenario 1:

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

Directed to each of the three: "What is 1 plus 1?". The person who says "2" is the truthful one, the person who says some other number is the liar, and the person who says "yes" or "no" is the democrat.

Re:Scenario 1:

[Chacham]

And i quote: Only logical questions are answered

For a question to be logical, it's answer must be "yes" or "no". 1 + 1 is mathematical, not logical.

Re:Scenario 1:

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

Ah, I wondered what that meant. "Are you alive?" is a very predictable question, but that third random player messes things up. Is there any pattern to his yes/no's, or are they completely random?

Re:Scenario 1:

[Chacham]

No bearing whatsoever. Just a random yes or no.

My younger brother, who came up with the original question (which i modified) had it that he chooses just before he answers whether to be truthful or not (for this one question). I didn't like that, especially when the random answer is easier to explain and more simple to work with.

The Demcrat

[Tikiman]

The third will always answer yes or no, completely disregarding the question being asked.

Will the democratic provide the same response to every question? That is, is the response random or will he consistently answer every question the same way with either yes or no

Re:The Demcrat

[Chacham]

Always random.