4 ms·
Two are very pertinent for me at the moment: 1. The Monty Hall problem 2. The Wason Selection Task. I read about the first one eons ago and was impressed tha
by I_complete_me 4y ago
Two are very pertinent for me at the moment:
1. The Monty Hall problem
2. The Wason Selection Task.
I read about the first one eons ago and was impressed that Marilyn Von Savant was vindicated. Shoutout to her!
The name Wason was unknown to me but I bought a book called The Oxford Companion to The Mind (new in 1987!) and his 'task' was featured in it (pg. 639 in my edition). I spent a lot of time satisfying myself as to the answer and kind of got there. This Christmas I am reading Stephen Pinker's "Rationality" and the description of both have allowed the penny to fully drop. I hadn't been thinking about these puzzles for ages and then when they cropped up "unexpectedly" I grokked them easily. They "clicked". There is a certain type of wisdom that comes with passed time.
- metadat 4y agoNew to me me, interesting problem and origin story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
- v-erne 4y agoThat's a great paradox that can be really hard to understand for some but it's quite obvious when it finally clicks. You just needs proper reference or rather point of view that makes You understand that Monty selection and player decisions are not unrelated events and Monty just eliminates a whole branch of possibilities by introducing his knowledge into the system (he cannot show the prize and thus must always select one of the goats). And if You can imagine this problem as a decision tree You suddenly, as a bonus, understand conditional propability.
- rubberband 4y agoOh thank goodness. Another human not cool enough to "get" the Monty Hall problem at first. I thought I was the only one... Took me years...
- hinkley 4y agoI made a pact with a group of friends never to bring up Monty Hall again, especially not when alcohol is involved. The only things I’ve seen people get more upset about than MHP is infidelity and politics.