What are you like at riddles? If you’re a Facebook addict you have probably noticed a plethora of giraffe profile pictures, with much discussion, sometimes getting fairly heated. It seemed that few could agree. If you don’t do Facebook then we’ll show you the viral riddle that ‘caught’ millions. We follow up with the REAL answer…

The Riddle

It’s 3am, the doorbell rings and you wake up. Unexpected visitors! It’s your parents and they are here for breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. What is the first thing you open?

If you haven’t had a go at the riddle then take a few minutes to decide on your answer before reading further.

The riddle is designed to catch you out. It lists a number of items that you might need to open while the real answer isn’t listed. In my last article Keep it Simple-y SOPHISTICATED I explored how we can frequently miss the seemingly obvious. When we’re confronted with something that seems quite simple we often fail to focus on the entire landscape during our cognitive processing. As a result we’re more likely to miss the critical detail.

The Answers

Two answers have been circulating:

1. The first is ‘the door’. In order to let your parents in so you can serve them breakfast you must first open the door to the house.
2. However, in order to do that, you are most likely going to need to see what you’re doing. Therefore, the second answer that is circulating is, ‘your eyes’.

Which Answer is Correct?

In general use, both answers have been accepted as correct but in many cases only one of these has been deemed correct. Many argue that the riddle states ‘you wake up’ and therefore your eyes are already open. Others disagree and insist that ‘your eyes’ is the correct answer. Other camps say that because ‘your eyes’ are plural, the first ‘thing’ (singular) you open is the door, so this is correct.

Author’s Choice

Here’s what I think: both answers are correct and acceptable. But only if you thought it through.

The Devil’s in the Detail

They are only both correct answers if you didn’t gloss over the landscape and you didn’t miss the critical detail. If you considered the intricate detail and decided that when you woke up your eyes were already open then it’s ok to answer ‘the door’. If you jumped straight to ‘the door’ and didn’t consider if your eyes were open then you missed the detail and your answer is wrong.

If you answered ‘your eyes’ and didn’t consider whether they were already open due to the way the question said ‘you wake up’ then, again, you missed the critical detail. The real secret to this riddle, the real value, is that it’s not about the answer, but about how you arrived at the answer.

It’s too easy to gloss over the landscape and miss the detail, particularly when a seemingly simple task is presented to us. Complexity can be a good thing as it discourages this act.

Keep it Complex Cuckoo

Next time you’re presented with a simple task, before you answer, take a few extra seconds. What are the second and third order effects? Can there be more complexity? Just by considering it like this you’re more likely to encompass the entire landscape and less likely to miss the critical detail.

Why?

We operate in a highly complex environment. Failure to acknowledge complexity can be a killer. While we have methods to simplify a number of factors, this simplification can often be through ignorance or pretending the factor does not exist. As I mentioned in Preventing Death, our lack of knowledge can be fatal. Complexity can save your life.