• bucho@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        It might be helpful to extrapolate this out into a higher number of doors. Say there are 10 doors instead of 3, with still just the one prize. So instead of a 33% chance of getting the right answer off the bat, you have a 10% chance.

        Now, after making your choice, Monty, being the good guy that he is, opens 8 of the doors that contain no prize, leaving only the door you picked, and one other closed door. Originally, your chance of getting the right door was 10%. However, that’s just because you didn’t know what was behind the other doors. Now, you know what was behind the other doors. Now, the number of doors that could contain the prize has shrunk from 10 to 2.

        The prize is definitely behind one of the 10 doors. It could be behind the one you picked at random at the start. But that only occurs 10% of the time. 90% of the time, it’s behind one of the other doors, and Monty has just shown you which of those doors it is by eliminating the other 8 possibilities. So 10% of the time, if you stick with your original choice, you’re going to get a prize. But 90% of the time, you won’t. So it’s way better to switch when given the opportunity.

        Does that make it any clearer?

        • pory@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          What do you mean prize? This image is about not murdering your fellow humans and nothing more. This explanation only raises further questions!

        • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          So essentially like this:

          Original door has 33% chance of being good, compared to 66% chance of the other 2 doors

          One of other two doors are opened by Monty, because he’s a swell guy!

          The two doors still have a 66% chance of being good, but since one of them is now opened, that 66% chance now only applies to the one other door

          Ergo there’s a 66% chance that if you switch doors, you’ll pick the right door

        • eluvatar@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          This is a great explanation. I’ve always had a hard time explaining it but I feel like changing it from 3 to 10 makes it way more obvious.

      • juliebean@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        ponder on the fact that the host is not just opening one of the doors you didn’t pick at random, they are specifically opening one you didn’t open and that had the inferior prize. this reveals new information. if you did choose one of the two bad prizes initially (a two in three chance, right?), then the one that you can switch to must have the good prize.

      • Sylver@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        First choice: you have 1 out of 3 chances to get it right

        After you pick one, they eliminate another, so the one you currently have chosen is still 33% likely while the last remaining door became 50% likely

  • affiliate@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    i thought it would be helpful to make a comment on why the probability after switching is 66%, since it’s very counterintuitive. the main reason has to do with why a certain door was chosen to be opened.

    in more detail: it helps to instead think about a situation where there are 100 doors, 99 of which have a goat behind them. (original problem was about goats and a car). you choose one of 100 doors. there’s a 1% chance you picked the door with the car. in other words, there is a 99% chance the car is behind a door you did not pick. put differently, 99 times out of 100, you are in a situation where the car is behind a door you did not choose.

    afterward you pick your door, the host picks 98 doors with goats behind them and opens them. (this is another crucial detail, the host can only open doors that don’t have a car behind them.) it is still true that 99% of the time, the car is behind a door you did not choose. this is because the doors were opened after you made your choice. but now, there is only one door you did not choose, so that door has a 99% chance of having a car behind it.

    • pory@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Your hypothetical strapped 495 people to train tracks, you absolute monster! Statically, about forty of those 495 have serious chronic back pain, too. You obviously don’t care about the disabled. Be more careful next time when changing the number of doors in a Monty Hall problem!

    • ngwoo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Way easier to explain it this way:

      Switching turns a correct guess into an incorrect one, and an incorrect one into a correct one. Your initial guess was more likely incorrect.

    • fri@compuverse.uk
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      1 year ago

      I never understood why in the 100-door case, the host opens 98 doors, and not just one door. That feels like changing the rules.

      I fully understand the original problem with 3 doors; I know the win probability is 2/3 if you change. But whenever I hear the explanation for 100 doors case, it just makes everything confusing. By opening 98 doors, it feels like the host wants you to switch to the other door. In 3 doors case it’s more natural.

      • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        Because the problem is explicitly about the choice between two doors. You have to eliminate all but two choices.

        But even then, you’d still have a better chance by switching.

        Your intuition about the change is the whole point - it exposes why the result is what it is.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      after switching the probability becomes 66%. we talked about this one in my theory of probability class, it’s very counterintuitive!

        • Enkrod@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          You have Doors “Win” “Lose” and “Lose”

          There is a 33% chance to pick a winning door and a 66% chance to pick a losing door.

          If you pick one of the losing doors, the other losing door is revealed and switching gives you 100% success. That combines to 100% in 66% of cases.

          If you pick the winning door one of the losing doors is revealed, switching gives you a 0% chance of success. That combines to 0% in 33% of cases.

          Always switching gives you 66% chance of success overall. Always staying is betting on having picked the correct door when you only had a 33% chance of picking correctly.

          For all the pedants out there: the remaining 1% is the chance of summoning the ghost of Monty Hall who then drags you to probability hell. Probably.

        • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          Imagine you chose a door, then you are immediately offered to switch your choice to both of the two other doors. If one of the two is the correct one, it will go there automatically and you win.

          It should be obvious that switching and betting on two doors is better. But this scenario is actually effectively the same as the original one where a failure door is revealed before you can choose to switch.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      What kind of kindergarten is teaching the Monty Hall Problem? No wait, what kind of kindergarten is teaching stats?!

  • faeranne@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I feel like there is some overthinking of the monty problem here. The answer no makes the most sense. Consider this, what is behind the doors is predetermined, right? So either the smallest number of people you can hit is 0 or 5. The most is 10. Chosing either a or c guarentees at least 5 people hit. Choosing B limits the number who can be hit to 5 (if they’re behind the door). So you should always choose B and always keep the choice.

    • acwern@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Overthinking it is exactly what leads to the solution “no” imo. If you say no every time, then you can only possibly be correct 1/3 of the time since it’s a 1/3 chance of picking the correct door. Hence 2/3 of the time you picked incorrectly and hence should switch. By design if you pick incorrectly then the switched door will be the correct solution