Current Events > The Monty Hall problem is fucking me up pretty bad

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

basically, the logic says that, if you're playing a 70s game show, you're at that part near the end where you have to pick from 3 doors and only one has the prize, your odds are raised if you change your answer after one door is revealed to be a nonwinning door.

And like the graph is right there in my face, and I get it, but the thing is that the logic essentially works the same regardless of how you order the picks and doors; so the odds should even out, right? That's what my brain wants, anyway. My brain could be wrong. I don't wanna be like one of those guys that takes issue with .9...=1

it's 5 in the morning

fuck

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What is your chance of initially getting the corrext door?

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one

in

three

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Guide posted...

one

in

three

And when the host opens the goat door, what is the chance of you having picked the correct door?

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I believe Mythbusters actually ran this and found after like 200 runs that it is better to always Switch.

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Garioshi posted...

And when the host opens the goat door, what is the chance of you having picked the correct door?

one in two, I would think.

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Guide posted...

one in two, I would think.

Nope, it's still 1 in 3. Revealing what one of the other doors has does not change what's behind your door.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I believe Mythbusters actually ran this and found after like 200 runs that it is better to always Switch.

Hell, this experiment has been run on pigeons; the pigeons learn immediately to always switch.

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You read what happens when there are 100 doors right?

If the host opens 98 doors with goats in a row, and then asks you if you want to switch

Do you think you had the 1% chance of having the prize? Or did he just eliminate all the duds and left the prize door as the other option?

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The point of the problem is that it's incredibly unintuitive. You just have to accept the proof even though it "feels" wrong.

Some people don't have the learning skills to be able to do that...

What really melts my mind with the problem is how sticking with the door at the end doesn't have the same odds. It ends with two doors, and one has a significantly higher chance of being right

Garioshi posted...

Nope, it's still 1 in 3. Revealing what one of the other doors has does not change what's behind your door.

It doesn't change what's behind my door, but of the remaining doors, there are only two conditions left. I say this even as I see that the graph makes sense. FFfuck

FvP posted...

You read what happens when there are 100 doors right?

If the host opens 98 doors with goats in a row, and then asks you if you want to switch

Do you think you had the 1% chance of having the prize? Or did he just eliminate all the duds and left the prize door as the other option?

Would they not both be 1%?

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I haven't read into the logic but on first glance I'm scratching my head.

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OctilIery posted...

What really melts my mind with the problem is how sticking with the door at the end doesn't have the same odds.

As someone else posted, it becomes clearer if you scale it up to a much larger number of doors.

ArchiePeck posted...

The point of the problem is that it's incredibly unintuitive. You just have to accept the proof even though it "feels" wrong.

Some people don't have the learning skills to be able to do that...

No yeah, I get that, I would never deny it. But I thought myself pretty good at bending my brain so that I could feel the sense being made. Like with .9...=1, or, just to sound more dramatic, the illusion of free will.

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ArchiePeck posted...

As someone else posted, it becomes clearer if you scale it up to a much larger number of doors.

That still doesn't fix my problem. Imagine you aren't choosing to switch, but instead he just asks you to pick a door again. You're choosing between two doors, but only one has a 50% chance of being right. I get the logic and math behind it but it fucks with my head so much lol

OctilIery posted...

but only one has a 50% chance of being right.

No! LOL

I do get it, though - I remember like twenty years back being one of those people mad at 0.9~=1 and how annoying it was even with proof!

Think of it more like this.You walk into a room with a million boxes where one has a prize and get told to pick one at random. After you pick one, someone offers you another one of the boxes and gives you the chance to switch, telling you that one of the two boxes has the prize. Which is more likely, that you picked the right box on your first try, or that you're being offered to switch to the winning prize? The monty hall problem works the same way, just on a smaller scale.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I believe Mythbusters actually ran this and found after like 200 runs that it is better to always Switch.

Couldnt find the MB video, but this does a pretty good explanation.
https://youtu.be/koPBkK_Ra-k

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