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While on some adventure, you are transported away from your companion magically.

Your companion, confused, enters a nearby building that suddenly materialised overnight.

Inside the building there is an invisible announcer guy who says:

yo we kidnapped your buddy and placed him with two identical guys, but the guys aren't him or really conscious.

one of the fake guys only lies, and one of the fake guys speaks only truthfully.

actually it might be that both of them lie? or both of them tell the truth? I forgot. colon open paren

also you aren't allowed to say anything to the guys because that's cheating.

if you wanna save your pal you have to figure out which one is ya real buddy.

otherwise he'll be trapped here forever with the fake guy you didn't pick, and let me tell you they are really boring guys. really. and also me but I don't really live here, so that's only during 5-9 on weekends.

You hear this as well because you're standing right there

What the announcer guy doesn't mention is that you are only able to speak one sentence, with three words, while your pal is there

Your buddy isn't an idiot, by the way, so he can figure out stuff.

You are unable to say anything that is neither true or false because you are a robot or something, and everyone knows that robots explode when presented with paradoxes.

How to make sure your companion figures out you are the genuine article and saves you and does not condemn you to a lifetime of boring conversation with a fake guy and the occasional chat with the announcer?

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4 Answers 4

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Say "I can lie."

Clearly truth-tellers cannot lie, and being truthtellers, they will say so. Liars can, but they will lie about themselves being able to lie. Therefore, saying "I can lie" tells your friend that you are neither a liar nor a truthteller, and thus you are the real you.

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  • $\begingroup$ actually I just had a ---great--- kinda good idea for an edit to the question, because this is not the exact answer I thought of: "how many non-trivially-changed answers can you make?" thoughts? $\endgroup$
    – Destructible Lemon
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 4:00
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Another option (besides "I can lie"):

Say "I always lie."

This statement is false, but would be true for the liar, so your friend can pick you out. In contrast, "I can lie" is true, but would be false for the truthteller.

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The three word sentence is "I'm a liar." A truth teller nor a constant liar can say this sentence without causing a paradox to occur.

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The fake guys are really boring and aren't really conscious. Since you're buddy isn't going to be asking questions (that's cheating), there is no reason for the fake guys to ever speak.

Therefore, all you need to do is say anything to signal to your buddy that you are real.

"Hey buddy", "I am me", etc.

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  • $\begingroup$ there's no reason for them not to speak... $\endgroup$
    – Destructible Lemon
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 23:00

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