Friday, August 19, 2011

Question about the monty hall probability delima / paradox?

okay i understand the monty hall problem in probability theory. That you should always choose the other door because your initial choice give you only a 1/3 chance of winning. So you should always swap doors. I've even tried this out in a real life test using a deck of cards and see it to be true. You win more if you swap. But here's my delima and a paradox I just came up with. Say instead of having a simple sum of cash behind that door, you have a person holding that cash in an envelope. Who, after monty eliminates one of the doors for the contestent is then the one given the option of swaping instead of the original contestent having that choice. Isn't the probability the same for that 'door' as it is for the 'contestent'. Meaning from the perspective of the contestent, they originally only had a 1/3 chance of winning so now that a door has been eliminated they have better odds if they swap. Same goes from the perspective of the door doesn't it? If you take things from the doors perspective (or in my story, a guy standing behind the door) it also originally only had a 1/3 chance of having the cash in it's envelope so it too has better odds if it swaps. How can both be true? And if one can emperically test this theory from the perspective of the contestant using a deck of cards and it does indeed pan out to be true, then how could both be true? How can each have better odds if they switch? Does this turn into some weird quantum mechanics things? Has anyone tested this as in the one who actually makes the decision is always the one with the better odds?

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