Right:

All are "all but one are ___"; all but one are black.

All are "every other is ___"; every other is solid polygons.

All are "gradually becoming ___"; gradually becoming thickly outlined.

Left:

All but one are "all but one are ___".

Every other is "every other is ___".

Gradually becoming "gradually becoming ___".

Here is another way of putting it:

Call it "meta" when the whole imitates its parts, and call it "doubly-meta" when the whole imitates its parts with respect to the way it imitates its parts. Left are doubly-meta, while right are just meta.

Here is a more belabored way of putting it:

Call something like "is star-shaped" a "rule". An object can satisfy a rule.

Call something like "all but one are ___" a "rule-parametrized rule". A collection of objects can satisfy a rule-parametrized rule with respect to a particular rule.

On the right: every collection fits the same rule-parametrized rule (with respect to various rules); furthermore the collection of collections fits that same rule-parametrized rule (with respect to some unrelated rule that collections can satisfy).

On the left: The collection of collections fits a rule-parametrized rule with respect to the rule of fitting that rule-parametrized rule (with respect to various rules).

Previously, an unintended solution to this BP was "not all groups share some noticeable property vs. all do." It is hard to come up with examples foiling this alternative solution because the rule-parametrized rule (see explanation above) usually has to do with not all objects in the collection fitting the rule. (See BP568, which is about BP ideas that are always overridden by a simpler solution.) The example EX9979 "five are 'five are ___' " with five collections was added, foiling the alternative solution.

Either of EX8220 "all are 'all are ___' " or EX8222 "palindrome with respect to being a palindrome with respect to ___", placed on the left, would also foil the alternative solution described in the previous paragraph. But these interpretations are not necessarily the most obvious, so these examples have been marked as ambiguous.

Here is a list of left example ideas that would be impossible to make:

- Exhaustive list of all exhaustive lists of all ____.

The right side of this Problem is a subset of BP999^left.

Adjacent-numbered pages:
BP993 BP994 BP995 BP996 BP997  *  BP999 BP1000 BP1001 BP1002 BP1003

"Odd one out with respect to what property is the odd one out" would not fit left in this Problem: even though this example does seem doubly-meta, it is not doubly-meta in the right way. There is no odd one out with respect to the property of having an odd one out.

Similarly, consider "gradual transition with respect to what the gradual transition is between", etc. Instead of having the form "X 'X __' ", this is more like "X [the __ appearing in 'X __'] ". Examples like these two could make for a different Bongard Problem.

hard, unwordable, challenge, overriddensolution, infodense, contributepairs, funny, rules, miniworlds

zoom in right

Aaron David Fairbanks