[extropy-chat] Re: monty hall paradox again: reds and green gorfs

[Spike]

> Rafal Smigrodzki
> Re: monty hall paradox again:  reds and green gorfs
> 
> 
> Spike wrote:
> 
> > But any *real* Vulcan would swap.
> > 
> 
> ### Since my wife frequently remarks on my remarkable psychological 
> similarity to Mr. Spock, let me give the Vulcan advice:

Rafal, please compel Karen to get online and comment on 
this whole sordid affair.  I am interested in seeing if there
is a systematic male/female dichotemy in the way this
problem is viewed.  I have seen an apparent dichotemy
so far, but my sample size of women is too small to
derive statistical significance.  


> The paradox is not a paradox of probabilities, but a spectacle of 
> non-linear attitudes towards measurements of financial value...

Yes, the non-linearity of money argument.  If one dollar
gives you one grin, then 1000 dollars does not produce 1000 grins,
but rather a paltry 50 or so, and a million dollars produces
a disappointing but still fun few hundred.

This reasoning should not be taken to extremes, however,
for this can lead to the absurd conclusion that money
cannot buy happiness.  Spike's first theorem of money 
clearly states:

Money can indeed buy happiness, assuming sufficient 
quantities of money.


Spikes second law of money:

Any problem can be solved by hurling money at it, again
assuming amply sufficient quatities of money.


Spike's cheerful observations:

The price of happiness has been falling steadily for
decades.

In spite of the first theorem, happiness can be
achieved with little or no money at all, assuming
sufficient skill in producing happiness.

Regardless of one's skill in producing happiness,
it is *always* easier with money than without it.

Money can get lonely, so it always tends to seek 
company of other money.  This explains the oft-noted
rule that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer:
it is merely money looking for company.

Wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of a few.  
This is a good thing, for wealth that is evenly 
distributed is merely money, whereas if it finds 
other money and gets highly concentrated, it gets 
promoted to CAPITAL, and takes on a life, a power 
all its own.  Things get built, jobs are created.
Money changes hands, and then causes good things
to happen while on its journey to find its long lost
friends, the rest of the money.  It like one of those
"Finding Nemo" things, except it's our few paltry
dollars that are always scampering off at every
opportunity.

This whole situation is much more cheerful if one 
is one of the fortunates who actually own a bank 
account filled with happy money, which are 
cheerfully attracting other happy money, also 
known as interest.  You and I are not among 
this fortunate population of course, but I 
know those who are.

Money does not like to live in places where
there isn't much other money to play with.  That's 
is why those kinds of places look the way they do.
Money seems to escape from those places at every 
opportunity, in spite of humans' best efforts to 
forceably insert money there.


> ...but 10$ buys you a good desert...

Rafal, the cheapest I have seen desert for sale is about
100 bucks an acre.  But those who have lived in the
desert love to make smart ass comments about this
particular common misspelling.  {8^D

 
> So, if you know the subjective value of the money in the first opened 
> envelope, and you know the subjective values of the other 
> options, you will choose according to your relative feeling of 
> satisfaction with what you have, vs. what you could have...

True, which is why we have introduced the concept of
zorgs, the unknown unit of money.  


> If the true value of the envelope is 
> truly unknown, an abstract number, then one should not swap, since 
> swapping costs time and effort, but you chance of attaining a given 
> level of satisfaction (after you exchange your zorgs for cold 
> hard cash) is exactly equal with either course of action. Rafal


OK I see your point.  Let us assume away the nonlinearity
of money then.  Let us assume some quantity of something
that *everyone* likes, and that more is *always* better,
such as grins or orgasms or something.  Actually Im not at
all sure that this will work right either, for we might get
all tripped up in fractional orgasms.  Is a milli-orgasm
a sneeze?  Is a kilo-orgasm a heart attack?  (Actually that
kinda works on two different levels.  {8^D  It would be a
*really* good way to go out, would it not?)

But I digress wildly.

spike