the definitive answer
 

salmobytes wrote:
you said you took a false choice away

I said nothing of the sort. I said that I revealed one of the losing
tickets. This is not the same thing at all. Firstly, I took nothing
away. Secondly, there were no false choices. The only choices to be
made were the player's initial pick of what he or she hoped to be the
winner, mine to reveal one of the losers, and the player's to switch or
stand pat. Only one of those three is subject to a value judgment that
makes any sort of sense in context. The player can make the WRONG
second choice, but there can be nothing "false" about it or any of the
others.

That means the remaining choice is 50/50
no matter what.

Most people learn very early in life to get used to the fact that they
will not always understand what is said to them. Those of us who are
lucky also learn, eventually, that this is not really as much of a
problem as it first appear, because often enough we DO understand what
has been said to us.....even when those who said it clearly do not.

This is one of those instances.

You are absolutely right; you have no idea of what the correct solution
to the problem is (despite it's having been put forward here in various
guises several times), and thus your chances of correctly guessing what
to do are 50/50 since there are only two possibilities to choose from.

Unfortunately, for you (well, not JUST you......as we have seen here
over the past few days.....as well as the past few years), you guessed
the right answer to the wrong question. The question, as clearly
stated in the original exposition of the problem, concerned what you
SHOULD DO.....NOT your chances of guessing correctly what you should
do.

So, after several days, you have a fuzzy notion (at best) of what the
question was, no idea of what the correct answer is, and only a dim
(and wrong) notion of what you said above.

Here's what you should do. Whenever tempted to say something, you
should first determine whether or not you really have something to say.
Then, if you meet the first condition in the affirmative, you should
take some time to try to figure out whether there is any chance of
determining what it is you have to say. If that yields positive
results, you should then ask yourself whether it was worth the trouble
and would be worth the extra trouble of trying to phrase it in a way
that might be comprehensible and of interest to a reader. If so, then
you should do just that, as opposed to tapping on the keyboard in a
random fashion.

Any previous condition is like Wolfgang:
totally irrelevant :-)

And yet, here you are.

Wolfgang
p.s. for the benefit of anyone who might still be interested in all of
this, i believe it was Scott who stated early on in this thread that
the MH problem hinged on the fact that the exposure of a losing ticket
was not random. i agreed. on further reflection, it turns out that
this is not true. as i pointed out to Jon a bit later, as long as a
losing ticket comes up in the exposure, it doesn't make any difference
whether that ticket was chosen deliberately or at random. this
shouldn't be difficult for anyone to grasp. it's also not the
interesting part. what IS interesting.....because it is SO obvious in
retrospect.....is that turning up the WINNING ticket (whether by chance
or deliberately) doesn't make any differece either. remember, you, the
player, have been given the option of sticking with your original pick
or switching. the question is "what should you do." the exposure of
the winner simply makes the choice a no brainer. :)

What's a boy to do?
 

Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Sandy says:
"it doesn't matter."

You know one choice is true and one choice is false.
It's one of the two.
But you have no evidence which is which.
And any previous choice (regarding three possibilities)
is irrelevant.

Your insulting, passive aggressive attempts to
set me off have done the opposite. I'm laughing.

What's a boy to do?
 

salmobytes wrote:
Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Sandy says:
"it doesn't matter."

Yeah, we know that. And Sandy is STILL wrong. Ask stevie. :)

You know one choice is true and one choice is false.

No, there is nothing "true" or "false" about any of the choices in this
problem. The player's first choice might as well be random (and, in a
very real sense, IS), my choice, as has now been demonstrated, could
also have been random for all the difference it makes to the player, or
it could just as well be deliberate (as appears to be implicit in the
original statement of the problem), and the player's second choice can
be a good one (the correct choice.....to switch) or a bad one (the
wrong one.....to stick), but "true" and false" are meaningless in the
context of the problem.

It's one of the two.

True.

But you have no evidence which is which.

False. You have probablilities. Switching doubles the odds of winning
(except, as outlined in my previous post, in cases in which the winner
is exposed in the modified version of the game. I'm content to leave
calculation of the odds in that case as an exercise for you.).

And any previous choice (regarding three possibilities)
is irrelevant.

That looks suspiciously like it might mean something.

Your insulting, passive aggressive attempts to
set me off have done the opposite.

You may rest assured that there is nothing passive about anything I do
here.

I'm laughing.

Sure, you are.

Wolfgang

What's a boy to do?
 

On Nov 5, 4:01 pm, "Wolfgang" wrote:
salmobytes wrote:
Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Go back and read my answer.

The answer to that question is, as I said, : "flip a coin".

cheers

oz.......with a number of sucker bar bets. Any takers?

What's a boy to do?
 

MajorOz wrote:
On Nov 5, 4:01 pm, "Wolfgang" wrote:
salmobytes wrote:
Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Go back and read my answer.

No. I find more than enough fresh dumb **** to read in here......no
need to recycle.*

The answer to that question is, as I said, : "flip a coin".

Flip whatever you like. Nobody cares. Trust me on this one.

cheers

oz.......with a number of sucker bar bets. Any takers?

Heh, heh, heh. See all those dorsal fins circling you?

Wolfgang
*yet.

What's a boy to do?
 

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
oups.com...

MajorOz wrote:
On Nov 5, 4:01 pm, "Wolfgang" wrote:
salmobytes wrote:
Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Go back and read my answer.

No. I find more than enough fresh dumb **** to read in here......no
need to recycle.*

The answer to that question is, as I said, : "flip a coin".

Flip whatever you like. Nobody cares. Trust me on this one.

cheers

oz.......with a number of sucker bar bets. Any takers?

Heh, heh, heh. See all those dorsal fins circling you?

Wolfgang
*yet.
cut his ****ing throat and take the ****in
money..........................

What's a boy to do?
 

Faaart wrote in message ...

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
oups.com...

MajorOz wrote:
On Nov 5, 4:01 pm, "Wolfgang" wrote:
salmobytes wrote:
Wolfgang said
"the five dollars must be under one of the other two"
(after removing one choice)

Wolfgang also said:
" so what SHOULD you do now?"

Go back and read my answer.

No. I find more than enough fresh dumb **** to read in here......no
need to recycle.*

The answer to that question is, as I said, : "flip a coin".

Flip whatever you like. Nobody cares. Trust me on this one.

cheers

oz.......with a number of sucker bar bets. Any takers?

Heh, heh, heh. See all those dorsal fins circling you?

Wolfgang
*yet.
cut his ****ing throat and take the ****in
money..........................

Nah......I don't need the money. Besides, a live fool is cheap
entertainment.......a dead one is just litter.

Wolfgang

What's a boy to do?
 

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 07:27:18 -0600, "Wolfgang"
wrote:

Nah......I don't need the money. Besides, a live fool is cheap
entertainment.......a dead one is just litter.

Wolfgang


Good for compost, though.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless. Really.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli