so i'm reading a recent xkcd comic and came across something interesting. i was never a big game show watcher and didn't get the lets make a deal reference. what's with the goats? so i look it up and came across all this discussion over some statistical problem derived from "lets make a deal" where you are given 3 doors. one has a car behind it and the other 2 have goats (why goats?, it's not really important just weird to me...) once you chose they reveal a goat behind another door and you chose again. my intuition told me that the first choice was unimportant to the problem and i wasn't satisfied with the explainations that changing you're choice increased odds from 1/3 to 2/3. the way i saw it the first part of the puzzle was not relevant because no matter what you chose first you are left with a choice between 1 car and 1 goat. seems pretty strait forward that the results are 50/50. but then i saw the simulation results. changing the answer won twice as often. it was also said that was true on the show but i never was the numbers on that.
well i went through this in my head a few times and didn't like the other explanations, then i realized, your first choice influences monty's choice. there are 2 goats and 1 car. monte is guaranteed to never show the car. 2/3 time he has to choose a door not at random of 1 out of the 2 remaining doors but must avoid the car always on those 2/3 times there is a car, you're choice influences montes 2/3 times and those 2/3 times there is a car waiting behind the door you did not choose.. the difference is montes choice has knowledge of the cars location and given a few iterations montes choice will be influenced by youre more often than it is not.
this is all well studied now yet many intelligent people like myself have trouble believing it. but it has been proven empirically. it just made me think of the genius of the guy that invented this game.... human nature is to stick to the decision. there is an emotional attachment to the choice and the rules and how they really worked were never that clear to the contestants. if it was 50/50, then why play that extra part of the game. was it just designed for suspense or did the game designer understand the statistics of it to a point that even phd statisticians did not. many people of high intelligance refuted the notion that one strategy was better. was the game designed to fool people into thinking the game was fair but make the house win based on nothing more than human nature? is it designed to raise suspense and keep people watching while commercials roll? how much of this was intentional? i guess this isn't really about the "monty hall problem" for me now as much as it's a realization that there can be all sorts of trickery pulled on us every day. i think i just became paranoid. and i don't even take drugs. i mean the problem actually gives the contestant the upper hand without the contestants knowledge. but the contestant has a bias toward keeping the original decision without knowing it also. so even with the advantage the cotestant loses more often than winning because of human nature and ignorance of their advantage. the show creators bank on the player making an emotional decision not an informed one. with a study of human reactions, all sorts of "fair" choices can be engineered to favor a result. how much of my life is engineered for me? it kind of blows my mind and i think i may be much more wary of politics, and marketing from now on....
funny how that happened. it's not that i wasn't already aware that things are engineered. just i never felt so fooled by a simle problem where i had all the information. and seeing how that plays into the show made me realize just how clever the marketing people can be. a few hours ago i was obsessed with a problem. now it just feels like the world is a lie.
well i went through this in my head a few times and didn't like the other explanations, then i realized, your first choice influences monty's choice. there are 2 goats and 1 car. monte is guaranteed to never show the car. 2/3 time he has to choose a door not at random of 1 out of the 2 remaining doors but must avoid the car always on those 2/3 times there is a car, you're choice influences montes 2/3 times and those 2/3 times there is a car waiting behind the door you did not choose.. the difference is montes choice has knowledge of the cars location and given a few iterations montes choice will be influenced by youre more often than it is not.
this is all well studied now yet many intelligent people like myself have trouble believing it. but it has been proven empirically. it just made me think of the genius of the guy that invented this game.... human nature is to stick to the decision. there is an emotional attachment to the choice and the rules and how they really worked were never that clear to the contestants. if it was 50/50, then why play that extra part of the game. was it just designed for suspense or did the game designer understand the statistics of it to a point that even phd statisticians did not. many people of high intelligance refuted the notion that one strategy was better. was the game designed to fool people into thinking the game was fair but make the house win based on nothing more than human nature? is it designed to raise suspense and keep people watching while commercials roll? how much of this was intentional? i guess this isn't really about the "monty hall problem" for me now as much as it's a realization that there can be all sorts of trickery pulled on us every day. i think i just became paranoid. and i don't even take drugs. i mean the problem actually gives the contestant the upper hand without the contestants knowledge. but the contestant has a bias toward keeping the original decision without knowing it also. so even with the advantage the cotestant loses more often than winning because of human nature and ignorance of their advantage. the show creators bank on the player making an emotional decision not an informed one. with a study of human reactions, all sorts of "fair" choices can be engineered to favor a result. how much of my life is engineered for me? it kind of blows my mind and i think i may be much more wary of politics, and marketing from now on....
funny how that happened. it's not that i wasn't already aware that things are engineered. just i never felt so fooled by a simle problem where i had all the information. and seeing how that plays into the show made me realize just how clever the marketing people can be. a few hours ago i was obsessed with a problem. now it just feels like the world is a lie.
