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Originally Posted by Ken G
Yes, I figured this was a bit of a swindle, but the idea is, it's better that someone renounces their own place in the tribe and in the religion rather than condemning them all to death. An interesting moral quandary in its own right, but let's go with it.
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That’s changing the rules of the puzzle. The puzzle actually said, “Imagine a tribe of people who are legendary logicians, but who have a curious religious commitment that if they are ever able to determine the color of their own eyes, they must commit ritual suicide in front of the whole tribe at the tribe's daily meeting.”
The puzzle doesn’t say anything about an option of leaving the island. If we are going to introduce possibilities that aren’t given in the premise to the puzzle, we can make up anything we want, and we might as well say that when the professor said what he did, all 20 people laughed and said, “Well, heck, there goes our religion, cause I ain’t gonna kill myself!”
If you want to change the rules of the puzzle, then we might as well say the professor just talked them out of killing themselves.
If you really want the “leaving the island” solution, you need to state that option in the premise of the puzzle, or not rule it out, because you said "they must kill themselves". You didn't say "they must either kill themselves or leave the island." You’ve already said they must kill themselves. Now you are saying they wouldn’t kill themselves. So the puzzle and the solution are both invalid.