Red Herrings

A red herring is a class of social puzzles, loosely related to 20 Questions. A perpetrator (host) presents an odd situation - something is off, but it isn’t obvious what it is. The participants (team) are allowed to ask an unlimited number of yes/no questions. Their quest is to explain the oddity.

The host answers each question, ducking any that are not strictly yes/no questions. The tone of his answer can subtly guide the group’s progress - too slow is frustrating, too fast isn’t a challenge. In a well crafted red-herring, extra information has been included in the setup that not only is irrelevant, but with malice aforethought puts the minds of the participants into a state of assumptions from which no solution is possible.

Generally, early progress is slow, the participants having to identify and resolve hidden assumptions. Then, suddenly, in a gestalt moment, the answer appears - they don’t really reason their way to a solution, they just see it, finally, all at once - a true Aha moment.

In the context of the Paradigm of Paradox, red herrings matter because they highlight a subtle but recurring problem: progress often comes not from adding facts, but from learning what to ignore. This instrument offers a few brief ways to experience that distinction directly.

Nothing here is required reading.

A canonical example

A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water.
The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at him.
The man says “Thank you” and leaves.  

• Team - “Did he intend to drink the water?”
• Host - “Yes.”  
• Team - “Was he thirsty?”
• Host - “No.”  
• Team - “What? Why did he want the water?”
• Host - “Relevant.”  
• Team - “Was the gun loaded?”
• Host - “Irrelevant.”  
• Team - “Did he ever get his glass of water?”
• Host - “No.”  
• Team - “Why did he say ’thank you’?”
• Perp - “Now that is a good question - yes.”
• Team - “Ok, we get it, yes/no questions only.”

And no, I’m not going to answer this puzzle, but I will make a confession. In my youth, I failed this one not once, but twice. That is why this red-herring sticks in my mind, why I present it as the canonical example. It shows just how firm a grip paradigms can have on us.

Places to explore further

The sites below collect short, self-contained examples of red herrings and lateral-thinking problems. Each emphasizes assumption checking rather than formal logic.

• Mystery Writers Love Red-Herrings
  Who doesn’t love a good mystery?

  Mystery writers use the same principle.

• Braingle — Situation & Lateral Puzzles
  Braingle

  A large archive of short puzzles, many of which hinge on ignoring surplus information.

• Red Herring (word-group puzzle game)
  blueoxfamilygames

  A different take on the same idea: identifying which elements do not belong despite superficial similarity.

These are diversions, not demonstrations. Their value lies in repetition, not depth.

Why this matters here

In later chapters, the Paradigm of Paradox will return repeatedly to situations where familiar explanations feel compelling but fail quietly. In those cases, the obstacle is often not a missing principle, but an unexamined assumption.

Red herrings train a small but useful habit: pausing before asking for more information, and instead asking whether the information already present is doing any real work. I have run red-herring sessions many times as a host. Groups often stumble at first, but a good team finds its groove. By the fourth or fifth puzzle they become markedly better at questioning hidden assumptions.

Creativity, at least the thinking out-of-the box kind, is a teachable skill. You get better at it with practice.

When ready, return to the main thread.