Monk on island riddle

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There is an island of monks where everyone has either brown eyes or red eyes. Monks who have red eyes are cursed, and are supposed to commit suicide at midnight. However, no one ever talks about what colour eyes they have, because the monks have a vow of silence. Also, there are no reflective surfaces on the whole island. Thus, no one knows their own eye colour; they can only see the eye colours of other people, and not say anything about them. Life goes on, with brown-eyed monks and red-eyed monks living happily together in peace, and no one ever committing suicide. Then one day a tourist visits the island monastery, and, not knowing that he’s not supposed to talk about eyes, he states the observation “At least one of you has red eyes.” Having acquired this new information, something dramatic happens among the monks. What happens?

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    At midnight one monk will kill himself.
    If there were two or more monks with red eyes every one would have known there was at least one monk with red eyes.
    This means there was only one monk with red eyes. Every other monk would know hat there was at least one monk with red eyes.
    The monk with the red eyes only saw monks with brown eyes and never knew there was a monk with red eyes until the tourist told them.
    He than knew he must be the one with the red eyes and killed himself.

    CugelTheWise Expert Answered on 12th November 2018.
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