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

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

Hi Spike,

  I think your informal poll results can be reconciled with human behavior.
Men tend to take risks without thinking. Women tend to be conservative
without thinking. The reason my answer did not coincide with those of the
women in your poll is that I am vulcan -- like Rafal. ;)

Karen


> Preliminary results of the informal poll I have taken
> at my workplace are interesting.  Of those who gave a
> clear answer, there were 3 women and 18 men, all with
> formal training in a technical field, nearly all with
> masters degrees or higher.
>
> Of these there were 4 stickers and 17 swappers.
>
> Curious observations:  The three women were all stickers.
>
> The lone male sticker is gay.  (Im not kidding this time.)
>
> The three women offered reasoning for sticking that is
> uniformly irrelevant or incorrect (from my current view);
> that is they suggested what I think is the right answer for
> what I think is the wrong reason.  The ladies often gave more
> than one reason, apparently self contradictory, such as:
>
> - My first guess is usually best.
>
> - I do not like gambling.
>
> - I recognize that the other envelope probably contains
> more zorgs, but I would not take advantage of a generous benefactor.
>
> - God does not wish for us to be covetous, but rather to
> be satisfied with what we have.
>
> - I would stay, suspecting a diabolical trick
>
> - I am happy with my 10 zorgs, regardless of
> their size.  Size really doesn't matter to me (har har har)
>
> - Our society is far too materialistic
>
> - Greed is a bad thing
>
> etc.  Only the gay man (brilliant PhD in mathematics) trotted out
> a calculation showing that the probability of the larger
> amount in the other envelope collapses to 1/3 upon your
> gazing at the amount in your first envelope.  It doesn't
> matter if you know not how or why, it must happen that way.
> A simple simulation proves it.
>
> Or so goes that line of reasoning.
>
> Which tempts me to speculate: is there really something
> to women's intuition?  We might even observe that clearly
> testosterone makes humans do stupid thing, the examples
> being numerous indeed; just watch The Man Show on the Spike
> Channel (no relation) to see many young single males,
> (all high testosterone units) doing stupid human tricks.
> These often involve skateboards, bicycles, motorcycles, all high
> risk, low payoff stunts.  If testosterone leads to stupid,
> then not-testosterone leads to not-stupid?  How universal
> is that observation?
>
> But what happens to that concept if the not-testosterone
> individuals give faulty or irrelevant reasoning for
> the correct answer?  Does it still count as correct?
>
> Is the lesson here that whenever one is in a logically
> insoluble dilemma, to simply round up some smart women,
> ask them what to do, but don't ask them why?  Or to
> round up a number of high-testosterone individuals,
> ask them what to do, then do the opposite?
>
> Or perhaps that this outcome is mere coincidence, and
> that a larger sample size would erase this signal?
> I note that none of our extropian female RSPs have
> offered their insights so far.
>
> All this would make a tidy picture except for the
> observation that most of the (all male) swappers also
> offered multiple self-contradictory, irrelevant or clearly
> erroneous lines of reasoning.  Furthermore, if one decides
> that swapping is erroneous, then one could argue that
> *all* the swappers offered erroneous reasoning, for it
> leads them to an erroneous conclusion!
>
> Oy vey.
>
> spike
>
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