3 ms·
the flaw here is assuming that the value being higher on average in the envelope is a sufficient criteria to make swapping the best choice. this is not how prob
by jheriko 13y ago
the flaw here is assuming that the value being higher on average in the envelope is a sufficient criteria to make swapping the best choice. this is not how probability works, if i have a million empty envelopes and one with a billion dollars in it, the average value of each envelope being £1000 doesn't mean anything in the face of the 1 in a million chance of actually picking the right one.
- harryh 13y agoActually, that's exactly how expected value works.
- jamii 13y agoI think the point he is getting at is that expected value (or even expected utility) is not actually a good measure of human preferences. Additionally, in this problem there are certain distributions over the amounts in the envelope for which the expected value is not defined, making it an interesting problem to study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow is a good book exploring mathematical models for decision making.