The paradox of the Muddy Children1

A group of children return home after playing outside. Father greets them, but announces to
the children that at least one child has a muddy face. He then requests “step forward if you have
a muddy face.” The children, who are all reasonable, perceptive, honest, will step forward if and
only if they are sure that their own face is muddy. The father repeats his request until all the
children with muddy faces step forward.
If there is just one child with a muddy face, she will step forward on Father's first request. This
is because she will see that no other children have muddy faces, and reason: “If at least one child
has a muddy face, then it must be me.”
If there are just two children with muddy faces then each of them, observing the other, would
expect the other to step forward at Fathers first request. Not having done so, each muddy-faced
child will deduce that her own face is muddy at Father's second request, on the reasoning: “Had
the other child not seen any other muddy-faced children, she would have behaved reasonably and
stepped forward on Father's first request. The reason she had not done so would have to be due to
the presence of another muddy face in the group”. If this thinking child2 did not see any other
muddy-faced children, she would deduce that her own face was muddy and step forward on
Father's second request.
The same logic may be extended to 3 muddy-faced children, each of whom would use the
reasoning above to deduce that the two other muddy-faced children would have stepped forward
at Father's second request if those had seen one other muddy face. Not having done so, they go
on to deduce that their own face is muddy upon Father's third request.
With the above reasoning in mind, if Father tells the children that at least one has a muddy
face, then, if there are n muddy children, they will step forward on Father's nth request.

However, if Father makes no request that at least one child has a muddy face, none of the
children will be able to deduce that their own face is muddy. This will be true regardless of how
many children in fact have muddy faces, and if the number of children with muddy faces is two
or more, each child will know by seeing that at least one child has a muddy face.
If only one child in the group has a muddy face, she will not be able to deduce that she has a
muddy face from looking at the others in the group, because Father has not specified that there
are any muddy children. To her, it seems possible that every child, including her, has a clean
face.
If two children in the group have muddy faces and neither steps forward at Father's first
request, then seeing one other muddy face, both would think: “although her face is muddy, the
other child would have had no reason to step forward at Father's first request, whether my own
face is muddy or not. If my face is clean, she would think it possible that there are no muddy
faces; or if my face is muddy, she could only be certain that there was just one person with a
muddy face.” Thus, in such a case, each child would know that the muddiness of her own face,
unlike in the first scenario, would not at all affect the other children's' behaviour.

In the second scenario, each child is unable to deduce whether her own face is muddy, and the
paradox lies in the way that the only difference between this scenario and the first one (where
each child is able to deduce the muddiness of her own face) is Father's announcement - the
content of which gives absolutely no new knowledge to any of the children.
 However, while the statement adds no new knowledge to any of the children about the number
of muddy faces, what it does is adds certainty that each child knows that there is at least one
muddy face. In the example above where the father makes no such announcement and there are
two muddy-faced children, I mentioned that part of the reasoning that one child employed in
coming to the conclusion that her own muddiness would not affect the behaviour of the other
child was: “If my face is clean, she would think it possible that there are no muddy faces”, and
from there reasoning that the child who was the object of her thought would have no reason to
step forward. Such a line of thought could not occur to a child in the same situation but who had
heard Father's announcement to the entire group, for no child would think it possible that there
were no muddy faces. If so, she could be confident that, if the other child did not step forward at
Father's first request it was because the other child would have been expecting her to step
forward, and she could deduce that she herself was muddy.
If Father makes no announcement when there are three children with muddy faces, however,
the problem seems more complicated. On the one hand, it seems that the children require the
incremental reasoning for how the group would act if there was one, then two children with
muddy faces, and as I have shown above such reasoning would be fruitless. And yet, unlike in
the first example, each child could reason: “every child can see a muddy face, thus everyone
must know that there is at least one muddy face.”
However, the child that considers this does not know whether her own face is muddy or not,
and thus she could not be certain that the children she sees can too know that at least one child
has a muddy face. After all, she could reason the following: “I have no way of telling whether
my face is clean or not, thus I must allow for the possibility that it is. If my face is clean, then
both of the other children – a boy and a girl – can only see one muddy face. But then the girl
would allow that her own face could be clean, which would from her perspective result in the the
boy seeing no muddy faces. And vice versa for the boy's perspective on the matter: he would
allow that the girl might be seeing no muddy faces, if he allows for the possibility that own face
is clean.” In short, this child could not know that either of the other two children knew that there
was at least one muddy face.
Using this reasoning, if there were four muddy children, the fourth could not (as I have shown
above) be certain that the third child knew that either of the other two children knew that there
was at least one muddy face. Similar reasoning may be taken to conclude that any number of
children with muddy faces could not deduce that everybody knew that everybody knew that there
was at least one muddy face, if we assert that each child acknowledges the possibility that her
face may be clean, and knows that every other child is going to make the same assumption3.
Thus, if the children step forward if and only if they are certain that their own face is muddy, no
children will ever step forward if Father does not make an announcement because it would take
an initial assumption that everybody knows that everybody knows that there is at least one
muddy face for the reasoning process to begin.

Bibliography:

M. Clark, Paradoxes from A to Z, New York: Routledge, (2007). pp.138-141

R. Fagin, Reasoning about Knowledge, Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, (2003). pp.4-7
1As outlined by Clark (2007).
2As opposed to the child who is the object of the sentence.
3It may seem at first implausible that if there were ten (or a hundred) muddy faces, that they
would not be able to be certain, had the father not made the announcement, that each of them
knew there was at least one muddy face in the room. Yet as these children are perfect reasoners,
it is just as plausible, if Father had made the initial announcement, as all of them stepping
forward at once at the 10th or 100th utterance of Father's request. There would be an equal number
of logical steps to take in both cases.