TakenItSeriously

It's already been explained a few times now why people "intuitively" think the chance is 50:50 when it isn't. If you have a different perspective then why don't you present your viewpoint instead of asking us to guess, or dismissing our other responses?

Read post #23

Yes it does.

 

Why do you think it doesn't?

No it doesn't.

 

Why do you think it does?

I think it is much more likely that people just ignore the door being opened. They see a choice of two (count them: two) doors and hence assume a 50:50 chance. Certainly that is the view of everyone I have talked to about this.

That doesn't explain why people who fully understand why the trade is 1/3:2/3 still see the 50:50 trade as intuitively correct.

Nothing is at rest.If you see something at rest, it just means your velocity vector is the same as that thing, giving illusion of being at rest to observer.The smallest currently known, in Standard Model, charged particles are electron and positron.Photon obviously cannot be made of electron and positron joined together (in such way to cancel each other influence to external observer).As their total energy (1.022 MeV) is tremendously higher than typical photon (say green photon 2.32 eV 532 nm).

Everyone understands "rest mass" but you.

This brings up an interesting point.

 

An object at rest has 0 potential energy, but to an object in relative motion, its energy is > 0.

 

Does this imply that energy is a relative property?

So, what you are saying is that our experience that a choice of two items normally has a 50:50 chance is what makes most people think that is the answer? Well, that's a shocker.

No the intuitive error is a result of having no experiences with a dealer who always deals the same card.

 

Without the correct experiences we instead rely on the experiences of dealing random cards as the intuitive model.

 

If Monty reveals a random door: we end up with a 50:50 trade

 

Monty cannot reveal a door chosen at random - he might reveal the car

 

Thread is drifting out of context.

 

What makes the incorrect 50:50 answer intuitive is how our intuition reads the MHP. The broken link in this case is in how the reveal is interpreted.

 

Reveals are interpreted by our intuition as a dealer dealing a card. However we also know that Monty always reveals a goat. We have no experiences with dealers who always deal the same card and intuition is only dependent on experiences. Since our intuition sees Monty always revealing a goat as a null experience, we are only left with interpreting it to the experience of dealing a random card, or monty opening a random door.

 

I'm not saying Monty actually reveals a random door, your intuition is interpreting it that way if the 50:50 solution seems intuitively correct to you.

 

To test this, use three cards to simulate the problem.

For example:

 

Usr Ax,2x,2x dealt face down.

You must take the role of Monty and note the position of the Ace.

The contestant can just be a player who always picks door 1 and always sticks.

 

Run the game for a few orbits and the 50:50 answer will no longer seem intuitively correct.

 

Why this happens is that you now have relevant experiences with what happens when Monty always reveals a goat.

So, what you are saying is that our experience that a choice of two items normally has a 50:50 chance is what makes most people think that is the answer?

 

Well, that's a shocker.

No the intuitive error is a result of having no experiences with a dealer who always deals the same card.

 

Without the correct experiences we instead rely on the experiences of dealing random cards as the intuitive model.

 

If Monty reveals a random door: we end up with a 50:50 trade

For a detailed look at the Monty Hall problem, click the Wikipedia link.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

 

I would propose the following hypothesis:

The Monty Hall Problem creates a false intuitive result as a consequence of our lack of not having any actual experiences of always revealing the same thing in a game or similar situation. Therefore a logical chain of failures that results in our intuitive experience changing from that of always revealing a goat to create a 1/3:2/3 trade to the false experience of Monty making random reveals that results in an incorrect 50:50 trade that is as real to us as actually experiencing random reveals.

 

Amazingly we can correct this common intuitive failure by modeling the events of Monty always picking a goat using a simple analog of three cards playing cards As, 2c, 2s placed face down and simulate 5-7 hands should be more than enough to correct our own perceptions of reality.

 

The Monty Hall Problem

 

There are three doors, behind one of those doors is a new car, behind the other two are goats eating hey.

 

A contestant is allowed to pick one of the three doors to will win whatever is behind that door.

 

Before the contestant can see what they've won, Monty opens one of the other two doors to show a goat which you already knew was going to be the case.

 

Monty then asks the contestant if he would like to swap what's behind third remaining door for what is behind the contestants door.

 

Should you:

A) make the trade

B) stick with your first choice

C) It doesn't matter (coin-flip)

 

Veridical Paradox

The Monty Hall problem is an example of a Veridical Paradox, which could be viewed as:

A Correct result from Reason does not agree with a seemingly intuitively obvious result.

 

The Correct Answer from reason: (1/3:2/3)

If ignoring our intuition and calculate the odds for the car behind each door using math, logic, or game theory, we would find that the correct answer is a 1/3:2/3 trade.

 

The Intuitive Answer: (50:50)

Upon first hearing the problem few would get as far as trying to calculate the odds because the 50:50 trade was already axiomatic and there didnt seem to be a need to look further. The common assumption as to what was duping our sense of intuition is that their are only two doors left and therefore it should be a 50:50 trade.

 

Surprisingly, however, even when people know and fully understand that the correct answer is a 1/3:2/3 trade. They still feel like the 50:50 trade is intuitively true.

 

My intorduction to the Monty Hall Riddle:

In my first experience with the problem, I found my own perspective of the intuitive answer to be a rather unique experience which demonstrated that our intuition isn't linked to the simple 2 doors for a 50:50 trade assumption..

 

When i was in the 9th grade some 40 years ago. The MHP was presented to me as a logic riddle,

 

I had just enough experience with solving logic riddles to have the beginnings of a standard strategy going into a problem.

 

I would take mental notes on key variables as I would hear them in the riddle.

I would always look at the least obvious answers first while completely ignoring the other options. If needed, i would move down to the next least obvious answers while ignoring all others, and so on.

 

When I heard that Monty deliberately picked a goat based upon knowing where the car was, I didn't recognize the mathematical form. I did note that picking only goats was an asymmetrical relationship between doors. Therefore I could see that the odds of the doors should diverge though I didn't know much beyond that.

 

Despite that assumption the most obvious answer was still seemed to be 50:50 so I completely ignored the 50:50 case and solved for the trade to see if it was consistent.

 

Goat Reveal:

D1. D2. D3

Car Goat Goat

Goat Car Goat

Goat Goat Car

 

We assume the contestant picks D1

Monty reveals goats in the assymetricle pattern below:

 

Monty Reveals a goat

D1. D2. D3

Car xxxx Goat

Goat Car xxxx

Goat xxxx Car

 

D1 = Car, Goat, Goat = 1/3

Dx = Goat, Car, Car = 2/3

Correct trade at odds of 1/3:2/3

 

I first assumed that two doors would have diverging odds before knowing about the intuitive trade. Following through with that assumption and my strategy to ignore the obvious. I arrived at the 1/3:2/3 trade directly having never noticed the 50:50 intuitive trade.

 

The problem got very interesting when asked about why I ignored the 50:50 trade. I explained it to him while looking at it for the first time and saw a 50:50 trade that appeared to be intuitively true!!!

 

Instead of an intuitive trade 50:50 trade between two doors which support each other before any other considerations are taken into account. My take on the intuitive 50:50 trade was more surreal.

 

Before I ever considered the intuitive trade, the two doors were already assumed to be asymmetricle and solved at 1/3:2/3 so the state of the problem before I first looked at the intuitive 50:50 solution was known and complete contradiction to the 50:50 trade. Yet even in complete contradiction to all known facts it still seemed intuitively correct!!!?

 

So I knew something much deeper was going on with how our intuition must work.

 

Over the years, I mostly paid the MHP no attention other than to offer up improved intuitive and elegant proofs when it came up now and then. They helped to sell the 1/3:2/3 trade but still did nothing to remove the intuitive illusion which I assumed would never go away.

 

It wasnt like the magician who revealed his secret, and the intuitive illusion of his trick would never work on us again.

 

Finally, some three decades later, when didnt have a pen and paper to help me explain the true answer. i decided to just simulate the problem in front of her with 3 cups and a quarter. She flipped almost instantly to the 1/3:2/3 solution.

 

I finally got the illusion to turn off! But I wasnt sure what that meant yet.

 

Epiphanic Moment

Finally, forty years after first expeeiencing the odd intuitive 50:50 that went against everything I knew to be correct. I noticed a post about the Monty Hall problem in a poker forum where the OP had asked if the Monty Hall Problem related to poker like it related to BJ in the movie 21.

 

It turns out it doesnt relate to poker or even to BJ for that matter. Even the movie 21 got it wrong. In fact the MHP doesnt relate to anything in real life. But why would it? No one is ever going to invent a game where we reveal a known constant every time. It would be completely pointless. Much like the game show was. Other that giving away stuff.

 

This explained how gaining the relavent experience would fix the problem. But what was creating the fale intuitive answer? The clue was to find experience resulted in the 50:50 trade.

 

For a random reveal, the odds fit just right:

 

Random reveal

Assume D1 was picked initially

And D2 was eliminated randomly.

 

D1 D2. D3

Car Goat Goat

Goat Car Goat

Goat Goat Car

 

D1. D2. D3

Car xxxx Goat

Goat xxxx Goat

Goat xxxx Car

 

Then

D3 = Goat, Goat, Car

D1 = Car, Goat, Goat

D1 = D3 (50:50)

 

Is the missing deliberate goat reveal experience logically consistent with results of a random reveal?.

• We have no experience to match with Monty deliberately showing a goat every time.
• Therefore we remove the context of Monty's always showing a goat.
• Without the context of always removing a Goat
• we are left with only an image of revealing a single on purpose
• revealing a goat on purpose matches revealing a random goat.

Therefore the random goat reveal is consistent with results.

 

Is adding the experience revealing only goats consistent with the results normalizing for the 1/3:2/3 trade?

• We have new experience to match with Monty deliberately showing a goat every time.
• Therefore we keep the context of Monty's always showing a goat.
• Making the 1/3:2/3 trade the new intuitive answer.

experience of revealing

 

With the visceral experience of always removing a Goat added through a quick simulation using cards our intuitive expectations become normalized. (Intuitive answer changes from 50:50 to 1/3:2/3.)

 

So the hypothesis seems to be logically consistent with results and expectations therefore it is self consistent.

 

But is it consistent with what we know about intuition:

 

Human Intuition:

Its widely accepted that Human intuition is based upon the sum of our experiences. It could also be said that human intuition is the ability to recognize patterns in our experiences.

 

For any given event such as dropping a baseball which falls to the ground, the more experienceswe have with consistent results, the more those experiences represent our take on reality. Speaking only for myslef, this was why the odds seemed so bizarrely surreal to me. I had four years experience with playing poker with friends by the time I experienced the intuitive 50:50 problem and it was a powerful illusion.

 

We also know that Human intuition predates human reasoning, or conscious thought. Therefore, it is probably safe to assume that intuition is not a conscious process and it does not rely on reasoning.

 

Experience without the benefit of reason certainly explains the similar yet invalid experienc model. It seems to be consistent with common ideas about intuition.

 

Can we test the hypothesis?

If the 50:50 answer still seems intuitive to you regardless of what you choose to believe about the true odds. Or what proofs you have seen to deny the 50:50 result. You can prove it to yourself very easily. If you don't see it as being intuitive, you will need to test someone else who did find the 50:50 trade to be intuitive.

 

All you need to do is provide the missing experience that is missing by simulating the game to yourself.

 

You can use 3 cards such as: As, 2c, 2s dealt face down to represent the doors and prizes.

 

If running the experiment on yourself, you can play Monty Hall and assume the player always picks the same card and sticks with it. After surprisingly few hands you will feel your intuitive perception will flipflop from the 50:50 trade to the 1/3:2/3 trade.

 

Note, that this is by no means a scientificly valid experiment. But it wouldnt be that difficult to create a valid experiment. Only don't expect me to pay for it, I'm just a broke retired engineer.

For a detailed look at the Monty Hall problem, click the Wikipedia link.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

 

The Monty Hall Problem

 

There are three doors, behind one of those doors is a new car, behind the other two are goats eating hey.

 

A contestant is allowed to pick one of the three doors to will win whatever is behind that door.

 

Before the contestant can see what they've won, Monty opens one of the other two doors to show a goat which you already knew was going to be the case.

 

Monty then asks the contestant if he would like to swap what's behind third remaining door for what is behind the contestants door.

 

Should you:

A) make the trade

B) stick with your first choice

C) It doesn't matter (coin-flip)

 

Veridical Paradox

The Monty Hall problem is an example of a Veridical Paradox, which could be viewed as:

A Correct result from Reason does not agree with a seemingly intuitively obvious result.

 

The Correct Answer from reason: (1/3:2/3)

If ignoring our intuition and calculate the odds for the car behind each door using math, logic, or game theory, we would find that the correct answer is a 1/3:2/3 trade.

 

The Intuitive Answer: (50:50)

Upon first hearing the problem few would get as far as trying to calculate the odds because the 50:50 trade was already axiomatic and there didnt seem to be a mpneed to look further. The common assumption as to what was duping our sense of intuition is that their are only two doors left and therefore it should be 50:50

 

Surprisingly, however, even when people know and fully understand that the correct answer is a 1/3:2/3 trade. They still feel like the 50:50 trade is intuitively true.

 

My intorduction to the Monty Hall Riddle:

In my first experience with the problem, I found my own perspective of the intuitive answer a rather unique one.

 

When i was in the 9th grade some 40 years ago. The MHP was presented to me as a logic riddle,

 

I had just enough experience with solving logic riddles to have the beginnings of a standard strategy going into a problem.

 

I would take mental notes on key variables as I would hear them in the riddle.

I would always look at the least obvious answers first while completely ignoring the other options. solutions. If needed, i would move down to the next least obvious answers while ignoring all others, and so on.

 

When I heard that Monty deliberately picked a goat based upon knowing where the car was, I didnt recognize the mathematical form but, I did note that it was asymmetricle. Therefore I could see that the odds of the doors should diverge.

 

Despite that assumption the most obvious answer was still 50:50 so I completely ignored the 50:50 case and solved for the trade to see if it was consistent.

 

 

Goat Reveal:

D1. D2. D3

Car Goat Goat

Goat Car Goat

Goat Goat Car

 

We assume the contestant picks D1

Monty reveals goats in the assymetricle pattern below:

 

Monty Reveals a goat

D1. D2. D3

Car xxxx Goat

Goat Car xxxx

Goat xxxx Car

 

D1 = Car, Goat, Goat = 1/3

Dx = Goat, Car, Car = 2/3

Correct trade at odds of 1/3:2/3

 

So notice how I first assumed that two doors would have diverging odds before half way through the problem. Following through with that assumption and my strategy to ignore the obvious. I arrived at the answer more quickly.

 

The problem got very interesting when asked about why I ignored the 50:50 trade. I explained it to him while looking at it for the first time and saw a 50:50 trade that appeared to be intuitively true!!!

 

Instead of an intuitive trade 50:50 trade between two doors which support each other before any other considerations are taken into account. My take on the intuitive 50:50 trade was more surreal.

 

Before I ever considered the intuitive trade, the two doors were already assumed to be asymmetricle and solved at 1/3:2/3 so the state of the problem before I first looked at the intuitive 50:50 solution was known and complete contradiction to the 50:50 trade. Yet even in complete contradiction to all known facts it still seemed intuitively correct!!!?

 

So I knew something much deeper was going on with how our intuition must work.

 

Over the years, I mostly paid the MHP no attention other than to offer up improved intuitive and elegant proofs when it came up now and then. They helped to sell the 1/3:2/3 trade but still did nothing to remove the intuitive illusion which I assumed would never go away.

 

It wasnt like the magician who revealed his secret, and the intuitive illusion of his trick would never work on us again.

 

Finally, some three decades later, when didnt have a pen and paper to help me explain the true answer. i decided to just simulate the problem in front of her with 3 cups and a quarter. She flipped almost instantly to the 1/3:2/3 solution.

 

I finally got the illusion to turn off! But I wasnt sure what that meant yet.

 

Epiphanic Moment

Finally, forty years after first expeeiencing the odd intuitive 50:50 that went against everything I knew to be correct. I noticed a post about the Monty Hall problem in a poker forum where the OP had asked if the Monty Hall Problem related to poker like it related to BJ in the movie 21.

 

It turns out it doesnt relate to poker or even to BJ for that matter. Even the movie 21 got it wrong. In fact the MHP doesnt relate to anything in real life. But why would it? No one is ever going to invent a game where we reveal a known constant every time. It would be completely pointless. Much like the game show was. Other that giving away stuff.

 

This explained how gaining the relavent experience would fix the problem. But what was creating the fale intuitive answer? The clue was to find experience resulted in the 50:50 trade.

 

For a random reveal, the odds fit just right:

 

Random reveal

Assume D1 was picked initially

And D2 was eliminated randomly.

 

D1 D2. D3

Car Goat Goat

Goat Car Goat

Goat Goat Car

 

Then

D3 = Goat, Goat, Car

D1 = Car, Goat, Goat

D1 = D3 (50:50)

 

So if the valid experience is missing, the brain substitutes an invalid experience so long as it is a close enough match based upon experience alone. And the image of revealing a random door with a goat behind is not different from revealing a goat on purpose. However it only works once, after a few trials the experience is completely replaced with the correct version.

 

So the hypothesis seems to make sense and is self consistent, but is it consistent with what we know about intuition. How consistent is the hypothesis?

 

Human Intuition:

Its widely accepted that Human intuition is based upon the sum of our experiences. It could also be said that human intuition is the ability to recognize patterns in our experiences.

 

For any given event such as dropping a baseball which falls to the ground, the more experienceswe have with consistent results, the more those experiences represent our take on reality. Speaking only for myslef, this was why the odds seemed so bizarrely surreal to me. I had four years experience with playing poker with friends by the time I experienced the intuitive 50:50 problem and it was a powerful illusion.

 

We also know that Human intuition predates human reasoning, or conscious thought. Therefore, it is probably safe to assume that intuition is not a conscious process and it does not rely on reasoning.

 

Experience without the benefit of reason certainly explains the similar yet invalid experienc model and it seems to be consistent with common ideas about intuition.

 

Can we test the hypothesis?

If the 50:50 answer still seems intuitive to you regardless of what you choose to believe about the true odds. Or what proofs you have seen to deny the 50:50 result. You can prove it to yourself very easily. If you don't see it as being intuitive, you will need to test someone else who did find the 50:50 trade to be intuitive.

 

All you need to do is provide the missing experience that is missing by simulating the game to yourself.

 

You can use 3 cards such as: As, 2c, 2s dealt face down to represent the doors and prizes.

 

If running the experiment on yourself, you can play Monty Hall and assume the player always picks the same card and sticks with it. After surprisingly few hands you will feel your intuitive perception will flipflop from the 50:50 trade to the 1/3:2/3 trade.

 

Note, that this is by no means a scientificly valid experiment. But it wouldnt be that difficult to create a valid experiment. Only don't expect me to pay for it, I'm just a broke retired engineer.

It might have some relevance to the philosophy or psychology forums. I can't see any connection to physics.

I was referring to the unintuitive nature of physics outside of the human scale of experience

Are you trying to nest spoilers within a quote?

 

If so, it might be easier to split up the quote around the spoilers

So... Do you want us to give you our answer as to why the incorrect answer seems intuitive, or to guess whatever answer you're thinking of?

Well, I'm pretty sure my answer is correct and I've tested it on a limited basis among friends, but I don't have the resources to run a scientific study.

 

I stumbled on the solution because I happened to have the right combination of interests which made it effectively luck. I believe the solution could identify when a false axiom was incorrectly assumed in the future but to be safe, I was also hoping someone else could discover a more reliable method for solving these types of problems before I gave the final solution and method for proving the hypothesis which might bias an original line of thinking.

I am not sure why there are spoiler tags as there are only a number of assertions and handwaving, but I cannot see any actual data/hints, references or relevant information.

The conflict is between a correct answer arrived at using reason vs a seemingly intuitively correct (but wrong) answer.

 

Therefore the conflict is a function of how intuition works vs reason.

 

Spoiler tags are used incase someone finds a potential line to solve the problem at some point without reading all of the hints.

 

Hint update:

Warning, there is no easy method (yet) to solve this problem. Therefore, I will leave it open a little longer than normal and post more hints then your probably accustomed to.

Hint 1

 

If you find the 50:50 answer to be intuitive, you will probably flip when you discover the answer

 

Hint 2

 

Finding the answer as to why we perceive the 50:50 as being axiomatically true will tell us something about our perception of reality. Which is pretty relevant in the Physics forums.

 

Hint 3

 

Don't think of this as a math problem. Math is a tool for finding correct answers, not for understanding incorrect answers.

Instead you should think of it as it relates to human nature. Use induction and deduction to try and solve it

 

In hind sight, I took the relationship between intuition and reason for granted, which I realize is not a fair assumption to make. So I added hints 3.6 & 3.7 to hopefully clarify hints 4 & 5.

Hint 3.6

 

The conflict of the Monty Hall Problem is that the seemingly intuitively corect (though wrong) solution is different from the correct solution that was arrived at through conscious reasoning.

 

Hint 3.7

 

In Physics or global warming, we know that intuitive assumptions are often wrong, because the assumptions are based on experiences that are invalid due to scale or transitional states.

 

With the Monty Hall Problem, we are dealing with a time independent problem at the human scale so experience should be relavent. Yet our intuition fails as if the associated experiences don't apply.

 

Hint 4

 

Human reality is based first and foremost through our first hand experiences from our own five senses.

 

Human intuition is based upon repeated patterns of experience.

 

What human experience is the monty hall riddle representing that is a very common experience to the vast majority of the population?

 

Here's a free hint, don't start with all of human experience when finding the subset that is common to both the riddle and the population.

 

Hint 5

 

Human intuition is independant of reason.

 

 

 

I will post the solution tomorrow evening, if you are working on a solution and would like more time please let me know before that time.

Average win rate for all the players [latex]\neq[/latex] Average win rate for the group as a whole

I thought for sure, I put "all of the players in the group" for the question. Sorry about the miscommunication. Editor has been acting funky, maybe an edit didnt go through.

 

Actually I thought I changed it to read "average win-rate for the group", but clearly the submission didn't go through, maybe I hit the preview button by accident and logged out.? idk

 

 

 

 

Sod it.if I ever get the spoiler tags to work I will offer an explanation

You can clip these:

 

 

Answer:

 

 

Hint update:

Warning, there is no easy method (yet) to solve this problem. Therefore, I will leave it open a little longer than normal and post more hints then your probably accustomed to.

Hint 1

 

If you find the 50:50 answer to be intuitive, you will probably flip when you discover the answer.

 

 

Hint 2

 

Finding the answer as to why we perceive the 50:50 as being axiomatically true will tell us something about our perception of reality. Which is pretty relevant in the Physics forums.

 

 

Hint 3

 

Don't think of this as a math problem. Math is a tool for finding correct answers, not for understanding incorrect answers.

Instead you should think of it as it relates to human nature. Use induction and deduction to try and solve it.

 

 

Hint 4

 

Human reality is based first and foremost through our first hand experiences from our own five senses.

Human intuition is based upon repeated patterns of experience.

What human experience is the monty hall riddle representing that is a very common experience to the vast majority of the population?

Here's a free hint, don't start with all of human experience when finding the subset that is common to both the riddle and the population.

 

 

Hint 5

 

 

Human intuition is independant of reason.

 

 

 

 

If security is an issue for you, then anything beyond windows 7 forces you to be connected. Ive had some very ugly experiences with hackers for some reason which I can only speculate about but I lost a tonne of work in the process, including multiple backups both local and cloud based. And a small fortune (to me) in trying to deal with the problem

Coincidentally enough, as I read your thread this morning, I was on my third cup of French-pressed Carte Noire with milk (arrived yesterday). Even with just mixing in milk, a bit of a skin forms by heating the fats and proteins and then letting it sit untouched. I'll admit I haven't checked this formally yet, but a layer of solid fat at the top should act as an insulator, trapping heat inside the cup, keeping the drink warmer.

 

Lol, I should have understood the consequences of choosing a riddle formum thats part of a science themed forum. I'll need to choose my riddles with a little more foresite than Im used to.

For the sake of discussion, can we assume that a "cupful" is a defined volume and the drinks are served in oversize cups (to avoid spillage)?

Yes please,

 

I did try to post it a couple times, but apparently it didnt take and I cant modify the OP.

This is not a logic based riddle

It depends, you could use logic, you could use thermal dynamics. You could use a lot of methods. Its easier, for me at least, to use logic.

 

Edit to add: after reconsidering the problem, I can now see that imatfaal has a valid point.

 

While I could use logic, it is still dependant on using the laws of thermal dynamics as its starting premis.

 

As the problem is defined, its a rather obvious premise but not necessarily a valid premis without understanding it's origin is from one of the laws thermal dynamics.

 

So to be fair, it does require some knowledge of thermal dynamics in order to solve the problem.

 

I appologize for my premature jumping to conclusions.

 

Since you said cream, and not milk, I'm going to guess:

 

 

 

A) now, because in 15 minutes the cream will have formed a skin of proteins and fat that acts as a heat barrier, trapping steam inside the cup and keeping the liquid hotter.

 

Not the answer I was looking for. Since I have no trivial way to verify your solution one way or the other. I changed the wording to say mix in the cream, which I'm pretty sure would create a solution that would prevent a skin from forming, though I could be wrong. I don't take cream with my coffee

 

BTW, the cream reference just dates when I heard the riddle. I suppose you could use milk but refrigerated milk changes the riddle.

Because they dismiss the additional info that the host reveals a wrong door and instead and instead reduce the question to a two door problem. I.e. it is assumed that the reveal simply removes it out of the equation, whereas as others pointed out it is still very much part of it.

Close, but not quite correct IMHO.

 

I think the key to understanding this is that our human intuition is not linked to our ability to reason.

 

Intuition is nothing more than learning through pattern recognition. It was around long before reason or even consciousness existed so it simply does not rely on reason and in fact it works despite our using reason. That is not to say that we have no control over intuition, clearly we can choose to ignore it which many people have finally succumbed to the sheer brute-force of it where too many people shared the opposing opinion and they may have conceded the point but they still would have felt the opposite. However, there are far easier ways to dispel false intuition which I promise to explain after the reveal.

 

Don't worry its not soft science, it's simply correcting a misperception. But the only way to do that is to be able to identify the source of the misperception. Which is the point of this exercise.

 

BTW, I've recently updated the hints in the post above if anyone is interested.

Hint update:

Warning, there is no easy method (yet) to solve this problem. Therefore, I will leave it open a little longer than normal and post more hints then your probably accustomed to.

Hint 1

 

 

Hint 2

 

 

Hint 3

 

 

Hint 4

 

 

You've just poured yourself a hot cup of coffee.

 

Before you can do anything, something comes up which will take you about 15 minutes.

 

You take your coffee with cream which is at room temperature. In order for your coffee to be as hot as possible when you get back when should you mix in the cream?

 

A) now

B) when you get back in 15 minutes

C) it doesnt matter

 

Logic based riddle

Yes,

My working involved thinking about it over a cup of tea and a cup of coffee.

So I take that to mean you know the answer.

 

Just curious about what you thought of it. This is my first original logic riddle.

 

 

 

I think Randall's explanation is good - yes literal interpretation; everyone can see everyone else all the time.

 

On the spoilers - it is always better to use spoilers so that people can read without the problem be ruined for them; this was my fault entirely -Sorry

 

Spoiler tags work like this

 

[spolier] text to be hidden [/spolier]

 

which if you spell spoiler correctly gives this

 

 

text to be hidden

 

 

I got the spoiler tags, thanks. I added them to my KB shortcuts.

 

Re the island, I have a possible solution.

 

 

 

BTW:

Here is one sentance that comes across as confusing, in case you wanted to let your friend know.

No one knows the color of their eyes

Which I took to mean:

No one on that island knows the color of their own eyes.

Ok

Both cups were filled exactly to the edge, is that it? Call it Vc and Vt (Volume of coffee & Volume of tea)

In this case, when you put the tea spoon in the first coffee cup a volume of coffee is splitted out, it corresponds to the volume of the tea spoon itself (called Vts1), not the contenance of the tea spoon (called Cts)

Step1. When you take out the tea spoon, the volume inside the coffee cup is less: you have Vc-Vts1-Cts=A

 

Step2.Then you put the coffee (Cts) in the tea cup, you can do that by pouring without putting the tea spoon into the liquid. Some liquid is spiltted out (because the the cup was already full, and the resulting volume remains the same = Vt

 

Step3. You put the tea spoon entirely into the tea cup and mix the liquid. Some liquid is spilled out again because the tea spoon has a volume Vts2 (here we ignore the difference in volumes because the tea spoon is immersed fully and consider Vts1 =Vts2).

 

Step4.You take the tea spoon out with the liquid, resulting in a cup having Vt-Vts1-Cts=B

 

Step 5. You pour the liquid in the first cup and you get A+Cts = Vc-Vts1

 

Thus you have Vc-Vts1 and Vt-Vts1-Cts , for Vc=Vt it means the first cup has more than the other

The assumption that the useage of coffee cup and tea cup indicates that they each hold exactly one cup which wasnt the intended meaning. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

Unfortunately I can't edit the op to make it more clear. Which is why I hate word play riddles. They make logic riddles so difficult to write

Am I going too far to say that gravity seems as intrinsically non deterministic as quantum theory?

 

Is it also inherently statistical? Would "chaotic" describe it better? (is that the same as "non-linear" ?)

 

IMHO, I think that's probably a true statement if you look at string theory and quantum gravity loops. Both require extra dimensional solutions.