#21. Brain teaser to challenge your brain: The Blind Beggar

Exer­cise mul­ti­ple areas of your brain by try­ing to answer this riddle…fast!

A blind beg­gar had a broth­er who died. What rela­tion was the blind beg­gar to the broth­er who died?

Impor­tant: “Broth­er” is not the answer.

Now, your brain’s turn. What is the answer to this teaser?

Tick tick tick tick…

still work­ing on it? …


Explanation:

This brain teas­er IS clear­ly stat­ed and yet stumps many who have not heard it before, because often the lis­ten­er tends to make an assump­tion about gen­der — that a blind beg­gar is a man, and always so.

The cog­ni­tive puz­zle touch­es on ana­lyt­i­cal func­tions like abstract rea­son­ing, hypoth­e­sis test­ing, and implic­it assump­tions resid­ing in your frontal lobes, as well as your cre­ativ­i­ty in find­ing nov­el solu­tions to prob­lems and emo­tion­al memory.

Answer:

The blind beg­gar was the sis­ter of her broth­er who sad­ly died.

 

 

Next in Sharp­Brains’ top 25 series of brain teasers for adults of any age:

40 Comments

  1. Ed on October 20, 2006 at 12:10

    Dear Alvaro, this blog is amaz­ing broth­er! I am a cur­rent under­grad stu­dent in biopsych and have a blog of my own. I was won­der­ing if you have an email address where I can con­tact you or if you can just email me and I will reply with the ques­tions. Nice Blog, keep up the geat work!

    Ed

    Hap­py Mind — Hap­py Mood
    http://www.happy-mind.blogspot.com



  2. Alvaro on October 20, 2006 at 12:44

    Thanks for the kind words, Ed. In fact this post was writ­ten by Car­o­line-will make a pub­lic intro­duc­tion now. Will shoot you an email.



  3. Joanne on October 28, 2006 at 9:00

    This is the first time vis­it­ing this site and it is tru­ly blow­ing my mind. I love it.



  4. Caroline on October 28, 2006 at 5:13

    Joanne,
    We’re so glad you like our blog! Our goal is that you both have fun and learn some­thing along the way, so feel free to send us feed­back any­time! Also, please note that we have now moved to http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog. Come vis­it us in our new location!
    ‑Car­o­line



  5. Randy on December 16, 2006 at 11:57

    I got this because I’d learned from the doc­tor who can’t oper­ate on a fam­i­ly mem­ber. Does this mean I did­n’t exer­cise my brain this time?



  6. Caroline on December 18, 2006 at 2:32

    Reusing infor­ma­tion still uses your brain (essen­tial­ly you’re “prac­tic­ing” some­thing you already know), but the amount and pat­tern of neu­rons used is dif­fer­ent when you already know some­thing. To see what I mean, look at the pic­ture here. As the infor­ma­tion gets more rou­tine, your brain becomes more effi­cient and exer­cis­es few­er neu­rons. Hence, we sug­gest “stretch­ing prac­tice” which means prac­tic­ing cog­ni­tive skills, but always try­ing a slight­ly more chal­leng­ing prob­lem to ensure you engage as much of your brain as pos­si­ble. This is also why com­put­er-based brain work­outs are more effec­tive than an assort­ment of recre­ation­al activ­i­ties. The soft­ware can keep push­ing you a lit­tle more each time, even while exer­cis­ing the same cog­ni­tive skills.



  7. Greg Koch on April 26, 2007 at 12:25

    I thought sib­ling would be cor­rect answer to Blind Beggar.
    I can­not fig­ure out how it is sis­ter, can you please help?



  8. Caroline on April 30, 2007 at 1:44

    Greg, you are right that “sib­ling” is a cor­rect response, but it is not spe­cif­ic enough to be the answer. The hint tells you that “broth­er” is not the answer. So, the only oth­er sib­ling left is a sis­ter. Hope you enjoyed the puzzle!



  9. David Nicoson on May 15, 2007 at 9:09

    The “hint” isn’t a hint. It’s a new con­straint. I.e., it’s part of the problem.

    So I don’t like the word­ing of this problem.



  10. Caroline on May 15, 2007 at 9:17

    David,

    Good point. I removed the “hint” and made it part of the puz­zle. The orig­i­nal goal was to get you think­ing about it, and then pro­vide more infor­ma­tion, but I see your point. Thanks for the feedback!



  11. zizo on September 7, 2007 at 3:27

    In Ara­bic the verbs and pro­nouns are dif­fer­ent for both female and male. which made this test not easy for me



  12. Alvaro on September 8, 2007 at 8:32

    Hi Zizo, that’s good for you-you exer­cised your brain more than the rest of us :-)



  13. S E E Quine on September 14, 2007 at 8:46

    I fail to see how this is a puz­zle — I got the answer in less than a second.



  14. Alvaro on September 15, 2007 at 3:17

    So you mean that, for you, see­ing how this is a puz­zle is a puz­zle itself?

    What is your guess?



  15. Jenn on October 15, 2007 at 8:16

    Hmmm, I thought maybe they were monks? Broth­ers in a non-blood-rela­tion sense?



  16. Alvaro on October 15, 2007 at 9:39

    Hel­lo Jenn, that is a good obser­va­tion, but if you fol­low the line of thought you’d have to say that the blind beg­gar is a broth­er too…and the prob­lem states that is not the case.



  17. NaeNae on December 7, 2007 at 3:28

    Sis­ter — The Blind Beg­ger is a woman



  18. Patrick on December 12, 2007 at 1:42

    Sib­ling is the cor­rect answer.



  19. Tina on December 12, 2007 at 8:21

    Hey, I am a 12 year old stu­dent. My dad showed me this rid­dle, and i was con­fused. I thought about it for a cou­ple min­utes, still i did­nt get it! {laughs) Final­ly, I got the answer…by scrolling down!!



  20. Alvaro on December 12, 2007 at 10:14

    Hel­lo Tina! thanks for vis­it­ing our web­site, and try­ing to solve the rid­dle. That was very good for your brain…and you will do bet­ter next time :-)



  21. JANICE on December 26, 2007 at 2:53

    haha. i was think­ing “sur­vivor”. yap, , the dead broth­er had a blind sister…



  22. miranda on December 26, 2007 at 9:22

    i am 13 and this was an easy riddle



  23. Alvaro on December 27, 2007 at 8:42

    Hel­lo Miran­da and Jan­ice, thanks for stop­ping by. I hope you enjoy the oth­er teasers as well!



  24. ET on January 1, 2008 at 12:53

    I thought “alive”..lol but see you you got sis­ter.. :) Love this brain stuff



  25. Alvaro on January 3, 2008 at 11:52

    glad to hear that :-)



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