A Phasalist Approach to Coincidence Puzzles

The phasalist solution to the classic puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay only works for some coincidence puzzles and not others. To address this limitation of phasalism, I develop a novel approach to coincidence puzzles that permits different kinds of coincidence puzzles to be solved in different ways, provided that each solution satisfies certain constraints inspired by the phasalist solution to the statue puzzle. I apply my approach to four different kinds of coincidence puzzles, and I argue that it is no less plausible than rival approaches in the literature.

Automated summary

This article presents a new approach to solving coincidence puzzles. The approach allows different types of puzzles to be solved in different ways, based on specific constraints inspired by the phasalist solution. The author applies this approach to four different types of puzzles and argues that it is just as plausible as other existing approaches in the literature.