Myself and two others had a debate earlier over what separates a logic puzzle and a riddle.
Friend A was arguing that a logic puzzle was a puzzle that required any kind of logical and lateral thinking, although he didn't define what logical thinking is.
Friend B was arguing that a logic puzzle is one that can be solved with an explicit set of instructions, thus resulting in a computer programme being able to solve a large number of logic puzzles using a single programme.
How the debate started
One of them gave a puzzle for us to solve:
You are in a room with 3 switches. One of the switches powers a light bulb in another room. The only way to check which switch powers the light is by walking into the room to check. You can only walk into the room once, and can not walk back into the room with the switches. How can you find out which switch powers the lightbulb?
The answer is to switch one on, wait a while, switch it off and then switch a different one on. Walk into the room. If the light is warm, you know it was the switch that you turned on and off. If the light is on, you know it is the switch you turned on and did not turn back off. If the lightbulb is neither warm nor on then it is the other switch.
Friend B argued that this is a logic puzzle based on the fact that you had to use his idea of 'logical thinking' and lateral thinking.
Friend A argued that it is not a logic puzzle because of the fact that you have to think qualitatively about the fact that the light bulb will warm up, and it is in fact a riddle of some description. A ridiculously long code would need to be written in order for a computer to solve this puzzle, because the computer would have to have so much information stored in the code in order to think of the fact that a light bulb warms up - i.e. only humans can do that.
Who is correct? (Person B's argument convinced me, whereas person A's argument wasn't really an argument with any basis.)