Philosophy Now Forum

When you choose from the three doors, you have a 2 out of 3 chance of choosing a goat. Not particularly great odds. So after one of the goats has gone you now have 50/50 chance so mathematically you have a better chance of winning if you 'start again' and switch doors. It goes against the grain and...

Related problem: If a gambling casino lets customers play the three-door problem, what should they charge the customer to play each game? (The casino pays for the prize, but wants to make money). Keep in mind human whimsy -- sometimes switch, sometimes don't switch, and unpredictably.

I mentioned on my deleted post the Mythbusters experiment. They found the maths to be correct, and the one who changed his choice won the predicted number of times more than the one who didn't, but as I pointed out, in the real situation no one changes (or extremely rarely. That experiment has been...

Strange. My posts keep disappearing. I mentioned on my deleted post the Mythbusters experiment. They found the maths to be correct, and the one who changed his choice won the predicted number of times more than the one who didn't, but as I pointed out, in the real situation almost no one changes (t...

Thanks to surreptitious57, Lacewing, HexHammer, and vegetariantaxidermy, for your interest! I'll try to make your gracious attention to my post both interesting and rewarding. Practical applications of probability -- games of chance such as card games and other casino games of chance, for example, a...

One of my favorite applications of probability theory is the Monty Hall Prize Behind the Door game. In the most basic version of the game, there are three doors, behind one of which is a prize. You, the player, don’t know the prize door, but your host, Monty, does. He asks you to pick one of the thr...

Well put, QuantumT. I think much depends on how we define the terms and the reliability/validty of the purported facts. If you get the time, could you give us an abbreviated example of how your array of letters may apply to a specific set of knowledge or propositions? For example, an array of six le...

Hi, Quantum T. Fascinating diagram. Let me make an attempt to understand your illustration and question, and you can check me on it. I’m thinking the probabilities of a letter pointing to another letter need to be specified, but maybe not! The fact that Y is pointed at the most, then no matter what ...

Thanks again, Immanuel Can! Good question, that of “how things actually are”. Here are a couple of quotes that may be relevant here: “We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know”. Albert Einstein “You can ask me to l...

Interesting topic, Quantum T! I hadn't encountered the idea of the "information approach", as such, before. Just an aside: We know how objects and light are affected by gravity. That is, we can perform the calculations and make the predictions according to our theory of the law of gravity....

Thank you, Immanuel Can, Nick_A, and Belinda, for your stimulating thoughts on my July 1 post! It’s difficult for me to think of “good” and “God” other than as human ideas that express deep human hopes of happiness and well-being for ourselves. I admit, however, that I'm often tempted to conceive of...

Hello again, Nick_A, and thanks for your ideas regarding "good" and your apparent interest in what it means to me. I tend to believe "good" and the associated word "God" are human (or anthropocentric) concepts or ideas or ideals which refer to actions or objects (or a s...

Hi, Nick_A, thanks for reading my last post. Your question about "good" -- what a loaded word! I guess I was using it (as in, "God" as a metaphor for "goodness") in the sense of humans treating themselves and others with kindness and respect. This is one interpretation ...

To Belinda and Nick_A: Thanks for your responses to my May 29 post! Maybe I'll follow up with your suggestion, Belinda, to re-post it. Nick_A, good question as to why we members of Homo sapiens apparently find it difficult to do better by each other. Some folks seem to do better than others, and as ...

I've wondered about this, too, PhilX. On the one hand, I've heard about things occurring in "quanta", which are discrete steps such as energy levels in electrons in an atom, or the idea that light consists of discrete photons. Also, there is the question of the limits of how well we can me...