Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: monty hall paradox again: reds and

[Ben Cunningham]

some of you keep talking about 'logic'. i strongly suspect that logic has
nothing to do with it.
rather, it sounds to me that this is a matter of human psychology, and a
result of evolution.

why do people do the lottery? - anyone with half a brain can see they have
such a slim chance of winning that it might as well be no chance. but look
at the gains if you do win!
this is why when the jackpot is higher, more people buy tickets, driving the
probability of winning down even further, and people know this, but still
they buy.

maybe there is a good evolutionary reason for this propensity to take a
gamble when the reward just might be bigger than you would reasonably
expect.

maybe the 80% swappers / 20% stickers ratio is a result of evolution
favouring people with a tendency for taking a risk. if you're an unlucky
risk-taker, ok, you probably die, and that's the end of your contribution to
the gene-pool. but, if you are a lucky risk-taker, your disproportionate
gains give you an advantage over the steady stickers, who reckon that what
they have is fine. the lucky risk-taker then outbreeds the stickers. the
population as a whole develops a tendency to take irrational risks, which
sounds bad, but isn't, because the gains are so much greater than the
losses. (not true in one individual case, but true in aggregate, across the
whole population, across many generations, because success gives many
different results, some disproportionately large, but failure always gives
the same result)

do you think this makes sense?

as far as logic goes, i must agree with eleizer - if you get an agreeably
high amount of money when you look in the envelope, stick (and try not to
think of what might have been in the other envelope), if you get a
disappointingly low amount, swap - and try not to be mad if you get even
less. if it's zorgs, and you don't know what they are worth, what the hell,
let evolution have it's way. swap.

and as far as the actual maths of the problem is concerned, i haven't got a
clue. i can't even work out what minus one minus minus one is. it makes my
brain hurt!

ben