RE: The role of probability in solving the Monty Hall problem
March 8, 2016 at 8:07 pm
(This post was last modified: March 8, 2016 at 8:14 pm by Excited Penguin.)
It's that math doesn't tell me anything in that case(doesn't help/doesn't work/doesn't make sense), not that it tells me something and I choose to ignore it. And it's particularly dishonest of you to employ that sensibly false analogy.
Let me put it like this. What if you live in an universe where 100% of the time the correct option will always be the one you chose to go with at first. How will probability help you then? How does probability tell you that you don't live in that universe?
I think probability is only helpful when dealing with patterns. There is no pattern to be observed here, you're on wholly new territory with this problem and you don't have much of anything to go with. For example, you have no reason to assign any probability to any of the three options. To think that you do, I think, is simply so because of associating this particular scenario with others in which you would have more knowledge about what you're dealing with.
Let me put it like this. What if you live in an universe where 100% of the time the correct option will always be the one you chose to go with at first. How will probability help you then? How does probability tell you that you don't live in that universe?
I think probability is only helpful when dealing with patterns. There is no pattern to be observed here, you're on wholly new territory with this problem and you don't have much of anything to go with. For example, you have no reason to assign any probability to any of the three options. To think that you do, I think, is simply so because of associating this particular scenario with others in which you would have more knowledge about what you're dealing with.
