Unfortunately, you died [closed]

Question

Your soul is on its way to the afterlife when suddenly you arrive in a room.
You look around and notice six humanoids staring at you.
You walk toward them and you can suddenly hear them talk between themselves.
They said "Not another one of those...".
Perplexed, you ask them, "is something wrong?".
Then they tell you "Of course something is wrong, we don't like your kind around here, you make our job too complicated!"
You then reply, "My kind?".
To which they reply "Yes! your kind! You did as many bad things as good things in your life and we don't know if we should send you to hell or heaven... You know what... Just choose by yourself!".

You quickly decide that heaven is where you want to go(of course).
So you look around for the door to heaven and then notice that the door to hell and the door to heaven, against all expectations, are identical plain wooden doors.
You then decide to ask them which one is the correct door.

NEED TO KNOW

-3 of them are demons working for hell and 3 of them are angels working for heaven.
-Against all expectations, demons and angels look identical.
-Angels are pure are holy and never lie.
-Demons are cruel and want you to go to hell no matter what. They will lie to you most of the time, but may tell the truth if they have a reason to believe it will make you fail.
-Demons can hear everything you ask to the others.

What is the best way to find the door to heaven if at all possible?
I will accept the cleverest answer!

Clarifications :
The demons are smart but not THAT smart.
They are trying to actively make you go to hell and will always tell you the answer that seems the most obvious to achieve their goal at the moment the question is asked to them. For example, if the very first question you ask happens to be to a demon, they will obviously tell you that the hell door is the heaven door.
Also note that no one is omniscient, that is why the detail that demons can hear everything in the room is important. That is the only source of information they get to fool you.

UPDATE
Some people seem hell-bent on closing my question , so I will try to lower the difficulty and perhaps post a few plausible answers of my own to let the people judge them in all fairness in an hour or so, after a few hours I will select the answer that seems the most liked by reading the comments before it is too late and the question do get closed.

New clarifications
Although the best way to find heaven was asked, the best does not have to be infallible, but simply the most likely to succeed. This does not mean that there is no sure way to do it, but for making it easier, the answer with the highest probability to succeeding will be chosen.
Also keep in mind that the demons are smart but not THAT smart, they are not prodigies that will be able to read 2-3 moves ahead of you. If you can come up with a very clever scheme, maybe you will get lucky.
Also keep in mind that asking a question simultaneously to everyone can be a good way to prevent demons to collect info and form a plan and change their answer.
Also keep in mind that the demons lie most of the time, except when needed. Which means that if the answer does not "appear" to help you in anyway to discover heaven or who is lying, they will always choose to lie.

Answer 1

Simple:

You don't need to ask any questions. Just be patient and wait for the next person to show up. If the person does not have a balanced life like you did, you will overhear their path and can then decide which door to take.

Answer 2

Ask all you want...

you're doomed to just guessing...

Imagine two people like you in identical rooms, with identical demons and angels, except in Room A, the door to heaven is on the left, and in Room B, the door to heaven is on the right. Also, in Room A, the angels are standing on the left, and in room B, the angels are standing on the right.

The demons in Room A deviously answer any question exactly the same as an angel in Room B would, and vice-versa.

Any question you ask of a particular creature in either room would get the exact same answer as the same question of the equivalent creature in the other room. Thus, there is no way to determine which room you are in, and thus you cannot determine which door is which.

Answer 3

What if...

If the demons want me to go to Hell, and want me to fail, I could technically short-circuit them by convincing them that I actually WANT to go to Hell. After I succeed, while they are writhing on the ground in existential agony, I saunter up to the angels and say, "Just kidding, folks. Lead on!"

Of course, then what follows is that...

The angels, disgusted at how I lied so smoothly to manipulate the servants of Hell itself, decide that I committed that last sin to swing the balance against my favor, and strip me of the right to decide, banishing me to Hell regardless. Oh well.

Answer 4

Right off the bat you can separate them into two groups by asking "is the door on the right heaven?" 3 people will say yes, 3 people will say no. (because if all 6 - or even just 4 - said one thing, then you would know it to be true)

Now you have two groups of 3 people each. You tell them to close their eyes and ask them questions about heaven that only angels would know. Only allowing them to answer with their hands.

So you say, "is heaven more gold or yellow? if its gold, put 1 finger up, if its yellow put two". You asking these questions until you see a member of either group provide a dissident answer. You then know that group is the group of demons.

The logic here is that if you ask a question that only angels will know, the demons have to guess. And if they don't know what the other demons guessed ("demons can hear everything in the room is important. That is the only source of information they get to fool you.") they will eventually have differing guesses. Angels on the other hand cannot have different answers because they cannot lie.

Answer 5

"Of course something is wrong, we don't like your kind around here, you make our job too complicated!"

If you ask me, this does not sound like an Angel who is holy. Every soul is something to be cherished by a holy individual, and they would consider this an opportunity to bring one more to the light!

Take the 5 individuals who didn't say this, have them arrive at a quorum about which door to walk through. Let the 6th one fume at giving away extra information before the start of the game.

Answer 6

This is not in the spirit of the puzzle, but my answer is

My good / bad work balance is irrelevant. I will sit quietly and wait for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to take me through the correct door! :-)

Answer 7

As a start, you can divide the group into

angels and demons by asking everyone "Does the door on the left go to heaven?"

If you get more than 3 "yes"es to this question, that would mean that indeed the door on the left goes to heaven (because if not, all three angels would've said "no"). So the demons, not wanting to reveal this, will smartly say the opposite of what the angels say in this circumstance. Therefore, assuming crafty demons, you'll have 3 of the humanoids saying "yes" and three saying "no" to this question, which allows you to separate the 6 into two groups of three.

But

You still don't know which three are which...

---

Below here doesn't really work.

So then, you ask questions in the following pattern.

Group A (unknown) and Group B (unknown).

To A1: "Does the door on the left lead to heaven?"
To B1: "Was my previous question answered truthfully?"
To A2: "Were my previous two questions answered truthfully?"

If the answer to the first two are ever both "Yes", you've asked about the correct door, because either you asked an angel first (and thus the first yes is true) or you asked a demon first and he answered truthfully, which is confirmed by the second "Yes".

So demons will try to ensure that the first two answers are not "yes", because that would reveal the door to heaven.

So we have some specific cases:

Case 1: Angel first, correct door asked about
A:Yes D:No A:No → Y N N
_{Note: Demon must answer "no" or gives it away.}

Case 2: Demon first, correct door asked about
D:No A:No D:No/Yes → N N Y/N
_{Demon must begin with "no" or gives it away.}

Case 3: Angel first, incorrect door asked about
A:No D:Yes A:Yes → N Y Y
OR
A:No D:No A:No → N N N
_{Demon has a choice, but angel's following answer will match.}

Case 4: Demon first, incorrect door asked about
D:Yes A:No D:Yes/No → Y N Y/N
OR
D:No A:Yes D:Yes/No → N Y Y/N

You can see from this that

If you ask those questions about the correct door, the second answer will never be "yes". If the second answer is ever "yes", take the opposite door to the one you asked about. And thus demons will probably seek to not ever answer "yes" to the second question.

Also, the N N Y answer pattern only exists if you asked about the correct door to start, so if you hear that, pick that door. And demons will seek not to answer that way because it'd give heaven away.

And the Y N Y case only exists if you picked the wrong door to ask about, so demons will avoid that.

Left with:

Case 1: Angel first, correct door asked about
A:Yes D:No A:No → Y N N

Case 2: Demon first, correct door asked about
D:No A:No D:No/Yes → N N Y/N N N N (because a "yes" would give it away)

Case 3: Angel first, incorrect door asked about
A:No D:Yes A:Yes → N Y Y → Take the other door
OR
A:No D:No A:No → N N N

Case 4: Demon first, incorrect door asked about
D:Yes A:No D:Yes/No → Y N Y/N → Y N N (Y N Y would give it away) OR
D:No A:Yes D:Yes/No → N Y Y/N → Take the other door

So if the answers are

N N N, then either you've asked a Demon first about the correct door, or an Angel first about the incorrect door.

And if they're

Y N N, then either you've asked an Angel first about the correct door, or a Demon first about the incorrect door.

Answer 8

Start by proclaiming the following:

I will enter the right door if you all have the same answer to my next question, and I will enter the left door if there is disagreement.

Then ask the following question:

Does the door on the right lead to Heaven?

Then take the following action:

If they all answer "no" enter the left door. If there is disagreement, enter the right door

Basically, the Demons have to call your bluff. If they take your statement as truth, you will go to heaven every time.

Answer 9

Lots of answers already, but I didn't see one like this yet:

Starting with a few assumptions:

1. All beings are compelled to answer whatever questions they are capable of answering. If not, then all 6 could just tune you out and let you make your own decisions; I mean gosh, they already have said that they "don't like you," why answer questions if they don't have to?

2. When asked a question with options (ex: "do you prefer Coke, Dr. Pepper, or Pepsi"), a demon must answer either with the true option, or one of the untrue options. This may seem obvious from the question, but the precision here is key.

We're also given that

Angels ... never lie

Also, all 6 beings told you

we don't know if we should send you to hell or heaven

Then for the angels to have said that, that must have been true for them. Which implies that

The angels have no preference for whether you should go to Heaven or Hell.

However, we also know that

Demons ... want you to go to hell

So, to find out if any given being is an angel or demon, ask them

Do you think that I should I go to Heaven, or that I should go to Hell?

Based on the assumptions before,

Demons must give one of the options, as they do have a preference. Angels, however, have no preference. So they cannot truthfully give either answer, and must either stay silent or, if they are compelled to give some answer, say something like "I have no preference."

Then, you can find an angel by asking the questions to beings until you get your first angel answer (so 4 times at most). Then ask the angel

Which door leads to Heaven?

And take that door. 2 to 5 questions.

Answer 10

It seems like there are too many variables in this riddle to actually come up with a solution that will get you 100% into heaven. The following is the closest I've come up with.

Say, "On the count of 3, everyone point to the door that the opposite spiritual being would most likely say is the heaven door." Then count to 3.

Having everyone point ensures that the demons won't overhear any of the other responses. Having everyone point at the same time ensures that the demons don't get a chance to plan ahead in case they can also see the others' responses.

If you asked a demon which was the heaven door, they would most likely point to the hell door. The 3 angels, unable to tell a lie, will therefore point to the hell door.

If you asked an angel which door is the heaven door, they would all point to the heaven door. The demons, knowing this, would then all point to the hell door as well.

Therefore you would know that the door that everyone didn't point to is the heaven door.

Now at this point, some of you might say that the demons are smarter than that. However it was stated that:

The demons are smart but not THAT smart.

so some demons may realize the trap they were put in and point to the heaven door instead, but unless all the demons point to the heaven door this trick still works. You might end up with 4 of the humanoids pointing to the hell door and 2 pointing to the heaven door. But because the angels have to point to the hell door the majority is most likely pointing to the hell door and therefore the other is the heaven door.

Answer 11

Ask anyone who are the angels, this will split the 6 into two groups of 3, although we don't which are the true angels.

Now, spit in your hands and ask the first group to bless the spit. Then fling it at the second group. If the first group were angels, your spit was turned into holy water and should burn the second group. If that is the case, ask the first group for the door and be on your merry way.

If the second group does not get burned but is merely pissed off (because after all you did just throw your spit at them) they must be the angels. Humbly apologize and bring them back towels and ice cream from heaven when they've shown you the way.

Answer 12

I'd ask them all a similar question to "Describe you go home to when you have finished deciding the fate of the damned each day?", but not similar enough to a devil to steal the answer (e.g. where do you go home to, describe where the angel next to you goes home to, etc.)

That way you should be able to at least determine which at least 1 of the angels are actually a demon.

Next, as you haven't said only 1 question per angel (I will refer to all as angels, unless there is a known demon), I would simply ask all but the one which we have worked out is a demon the simple question "If I was to walk through a door and enter into heaven, which door would I walk through?". You know for a fact that 3/5 of the answers HAVE to heaven, so you go through the door which gets pointed to the most.

---

Potentially sarcastic answer!

Either that, or open both doors at the same time and look inside. Whichever looks nicer, you jump inside.

Answer 13

Working off of Ryan27's answer:

Ask the first person you see if they mind if you wait awhile to see where the person after you goes. The demons will immediately object and demand that you chose now. Ask anyone who didn't demand you chose what door leads to heaven.

This assumes that

The angels don't care if you go to heaven or not.

Answer 14

Ok, since Stack Reader responded "Thinking outside the box, I like it" to Ryan27's answer, I'm also going to suggest some outside-the-box ideas, since they are not yet overtly prohibited:

Open each door and see what's inside--so far there is no statement you cannot return once you go through a door. Maybe you can explore each place & even live in each for a while to see which you like best.

This is supported by the fact the angels themselves can't tell which is better for you: if souls get stuck in heaven or hell once they went through a door, it would be a very serious problem from an all-good, perfectly just God's perspective to have good souls getting stuck in hell, and so a fool-proof system would have been put in place to make sure good souls only went to heaven. The lack of a fool-proof system to save good souls suggests souls cannot get stuck in an incorrect location.

Also potentially beside the point of logic-riddle solving, yet still philosophically/logically interesting and outside-the-box is this:

It may be a false assumption that heaven is better than hell for the ex-human in question. If you did as many bad things as you did good things, you might be just as happy in hell as you would in heaven. Perhaps if you do all bad deeds, your soul is fully demonic and so you are no different from the demons at the doors. This theory is supported by the quandary's premises that the angels and demons are visibly impossible to distinguish. If the demons reside happily in hell, then maybe you could too.

Also,

Just because the demons are stated to be "cruel", it does not follow that human souls will suffer in hell--being cruel may simply be a behavioral trait of beings that do bad deeds. Perhaps to demons who do bad things only, cruelty to each other is appropriate social etiquette, and hence not something to which bad ex-human souls are averse.

Answer 15

Assuming the Demon/Angel must provide an answer to your question.

Think of a number between 1 and 1 million in your head, hold it there. Ask one of the six to tell you the number. If they are an angel they are unable to lie and through some divine power give you the correct number. Just in case of extreme luck, perform this multiple times rotating through until one was consistently correct and one was consistently incorrect. Then ask the consistently correct angel which door leads to heaven.

The assumption:

The angel (and therefor a demon) will not respond with 'I do not know'. You could be stubborn and say you will not enter a door until your question is answered, hopefully prompting some divine intervention to keep things moving. Otherwise, eternity in a room with some demons and angels is better than 50% chance at landing in hell.

Answer 16

As the demons are smart they will realize what several people have before. All they need to do is answer all questions as if all angels were demons, demons were angels, heaven was hell, and hell was heaven.

As they are not that smart, they will not realize that this can take several forms:

• They each pretend to be one of the exact angels in front of them (6 permutations) (A)
• They pretend their demon names are the names of angels (B)

If Demons have two strategies that are equivalent and do not know which the other two will pick, you may be able to trip them up.

Therefore you should do the following:

• Choose a random being and request: "What is the name of one of you 6 humanoids?"
• Assume they answer "Bob"
• Ask all of them to face the walls
• Ask each of them in turn to nod their head if "Bob" is a demon

If all demons were genius, they would already have a plan set up for this.

If they are not "that" smart, however, you can expect that they may not know which strategy to adopt. This is compounded by my understanding that demons do not like to give their real names but that giving their real names is the better strategy.

• If there are 1, 2, 4, or 5 "No"s, then just separate them into two groups by asking "Does the door on the left go to heaven?" and see which group in inhomogeneous. This is what you are hoping for.
• If there are 0 or 6 "No"s, they agree to keep the angels names correct but may not have decided who adopts which identity. Ask for all names and move around asking at random whether each humanoid has each name.
• Finally, if there are 3 "No"s, they probably gave the demons' names as angel names. Try again with a different name to see if you can trip them up but I assume you won't.

If you do not succeed, ask yes or no questions about the "demons" opposing each "angel" and see if either group disagrees amongst itself. (Maybe "which demon is most badass?")

This can all be beaten by having the demons plan ahead as to which strategy to take or recognizing that giving their demon names is a slightly better idea (assuming no names are recognizable to you). They can also make up odd names or claim that someone has a duplicate name in the hopes of confusing you. I have to assume though that the demons aren't that smart because you said they aren't.

It may be a good idea to have demon's and angels pair up before starting so that both strategies are just as good but I would guess that aversion to revealing their names would bias them all to adopt the angels' names

Answer 17

Firstly you need to:

Ask each angel/demon "What would the other 5 will say to the question 'are you an angel'?" Each of the angels will say the other 2 angels will say "yes" but they will say they "don't know" what the demons will say, as they can only tell the truth and there is always a chance the demons will say something other than "yes".

From this:

The demons will give the same answers, only lying and pointing out the other 2 demons saying yes instead of angels, as they will know if they answer differently you will immediately know them for demons. This way you can immediately establish which 3 are equal to which other 3, though not which is which.

Then:

You only need 1 angel and 1 demon to answer your questions, so then ask the angel "Which door would (opposite number) tell me is heaven?", to which the angel will point out the door to hell, and asking the demon "Which door would (opposite number) tell me is heaven?" will also point to hell, as that is where it wants to trick you into going.

If the demon knows this:

it will point to the opposite door, as it will try to trick you. If this is the case, you simply need to ask "which door will (opposite number) say leads to hell?" in the opposite order and the demon will be asked first, and as the angel has not yet been asked it will invariably point to heaven, as will the angel afterwards.

You can then take the door you know points to heaven.

Answer 18

The door to Heaven should be located on the right hand side of the room. There are many biblical references which provide evidence for this.

Acts 2:34

"For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: 'THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND

Hebrews 8:1

Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens

Mark 14:62

And Jesus said, "I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN."

Answer 19

Solution 1:

Since the demons cannot simply choose to say "Yes" or "No", but only to either say the truth or to lie, just ask: "Is it true that either this door goes to hell or your answer is a lie, but not both?"

If the asked one says the truth (either due to being an angel, or due to being a demon choosing to say the truth), then his answer is not a lie, therefore he will say "yes" if the door goes to hell, and "no" otherwise.

If the asked one lies (a demon who decides to lie), then his answer is a lie, therefore if the door goes to hell the correct answer would be "no", but since he is lying, he'll answer "yes". And if the door leads to heaven, the correct answer would be "yes", but due to lying the given answer will be "no".

Either way, if the answer is "yes", the door leads to hell, and if the answer is "no", the door leads to heaven.

Solution 2, out of the box:

If you are a true believer, you'll of course figure that God will make sure you get where you belong, so you don't ask at all, but just arbitrarily choose one door. If it wasn't the one to heaven, you didn't deserve that anyway.

Answer 20

I'd feel each door and/or doorknob, just like you're taught to when there is a fire. Whichever is warm is Hell; take the other one.

Answer 21

Assumptions:

This works on the assumption that all six would be in consensus about a truly evil being (Adolf Hitler, a demon, whatever) getting sent to Hell...

1. To start,

Pick any arbitrary pair of humanoids (we'll call them A and B). Ask B, "If I asked A which door he would choose to send an evil being (we'll call it "E") through, which would he respond?", then ask B, "Which door would A choose to send E through?".

2. You may need to repeat this...

one more time if the answer to both questions is the same

3. Once you have...

different responses, you know you have one demon and one angel.

4. For your last question,

ask A, "Which door would B send me through"?

5. And you can walk through

the opposite door

assured of the path to heaven!

---

Explanations:

1. If you were to ask an angel directly which door he'd send E through, he'd point to the Hell door; thus if you were to ask a demon directly which door he'd send E through, he would of course point to the Heaven door so you'd go through the opposite and go to Hell.
   
   Now if B is an angel, he will respond to the indirect questioning with the Hell door twice if A is an angel as well, or Heaven then Hell if B is a demon.
   
   If B is a demon, he'll want you to believe he's an angel and also that A is the opposite of his actual nature (but also invert the answers to try to mislead you), so he'll respond with the Heaven door twice if A is a demon, or Hell then Heaven if B is an angel.
   
   Depending on your initial pairing choice (○ = angel, ⋔ = demon, + = heaven, - = hell), this would be your truth table:

    A B
    ○ ○  =  - -
    ⋔ ○  =  + -
    ○ ⋔  =  - +
    ⋔ ⋔  =  + +

2. So when you get different responses you know you've got one demon and one angel.

3. (see truth table in explanation #1)

4. If A is an angel, he would of course respond with the Hell door (since B is a demon).
   
   If A is a demon, (hopefully) he's more concerned with painting B as a demon than puzzling all this out so far, and will claim that B would send you through the Hell door.

5. Since both responses would point to the Hell door the other door is of course the heaven door.

Answer 22

Ask them all what the door is made of.

Angels will say wood, demons will say something else. Since its obvious that the doors are made of wood, the demons have no reason to tell the truth (to cause failure), and will lie (say it's made of metal, glass, etc.).

Of the six answers, 3 will be obviously false, and you can ask any one of the 3 identical looking humanoids who said the door was made of wood, which one the door to heaven would be.

Answer 23

Ask the leftmost one: Do demons lie?
Ask the one next him: Do demons lie?
Ask the one next him: Do demons lie?
Ask the one next him: Do demons lie?
Ask the one next him: Do demons lie?
Ask the rightmost one: Do demons lie?

If a demon always lie the 3 demons will say "no". Angels will alway say "yes".

The demon can say "yes" to make you fail. But since a demon tell lie to you most of the time, asking him : Do demon lie? 3 times will force him to say "no" somehow. Demon are not that smart so they would lie.

So repeat the same question another 2 rounds