Beau Peep Notice Board
Beau Peep Notice Board => Outpourings => Topic started by: Mince on June 28, 2008, 01:25:02 PM
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There are three glasses of whiskey on the bar. Two of them are poisoned. You have to choose one of the glasses and drink from it.
You choose one of the glasses, and the barman stops you: "Now that you have chosen one, and before you drink from it, I am going to remove one of these remaining two glasses. The one that I remove has poison in it." He removes one of the glasses, leaving the other glass on the bar.
The barman then say: "You may now either drink from the glass you have chosen or change your mind and drink from the glass on the bar."
What should you do?
1. Drink from the glass you have chosen.
2. Drink from the glass on the bar.
3. It does not matter which one you drink from.
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Was this before the pub smoking ban?
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Perhaps.
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Not much help, are you? >:(
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You have a brain, don't you.
Go on. Venture an answer. Stick your neck out.
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I don't like whiskey...or whisky.
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I don't think that's an option.
Let's assume that if you don't choose, you're a big girl with ponytails.
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Ah! Well, you didn't say that initially, so the question was incomplete. I'll have a think about it, but I've got to go out for the rest of the day.
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It's easy. Just order a beer instead. Okay, you've wasted a drink, but the risk could have killed you, so it was worth the sacrifice. Also, if you're driving, leave the car and get a taxi. It isn't worth it.
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I think the barman had decide he was going to pinch one of your drinks anyway, regardless of whether or not you'd picked up the "clean" one. It doesn't sound like he's the kind of bloke you want to call your friend, Mince, even if you're desperate for mates.
Firstly, you should knock him off your Xmas-card list. He's not worth it. Has he got a girl-friend? (Or boy-friend). They should be warned if he's that callous.
It's all very suspicious. I would be so wary. If he said something straight-forward like: "I'll give you Mr Jackson's phone number for ?300", it would be better. At least, however bad the whole thing sounded, you would know what you were agreeing to.
I'm also uncomfortable about a phone number being worth 300 quid. That's got to have "Mr Big" written all over it, or "Writ Large" as trendy folk would have it. I don't want to know Mr Big, 'cos he doesn't represent anything I aspire to.
Mince - you're on your own. You got yourself into this mess, and although I sympathise, I can't help you. Don't phone Mr Jackson. Only an idiot would chuck away ?300 for his phone number, and I wouldn't want it to be you, (in case it reflected badly on this website). Tarquin will back me up on this, I'm sure.
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Are there more than zero people who are interested in venturing an answer?
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Well, I certainly think Peeps has had a cocktail or two.
Is this conundrum related to the one about asking a liar which gate has a lion behind it?
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Is this conundrum related to the one about asking a liar which gate has a lion behind it?
No, the barman tells the truth. It's a question of weighing the odds.
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Okay, since I'm going to have my dinner in a minute, I'll have the drink I've already chosen. Cheers. GLUUAARGH!
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Okay, here is the answer.
Choosing to drink from the other glass doubles your chances of living.
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I know I'm going to regret this but why?
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I know I'm going to regret this but why?
You had to do it, didn't you! Roger, when will you learn to leave things alone? And to ask the 'why' question of Mince..... Well, all I can say is, YOU asked for it!
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When you first choose your drink, you have a 1 in 3 chance of living and a 2 in 3 chance of dying.
Notice what happens when you switch drinks (choose the other drink).
If you have a non-poisoned drink and you switch, you end up with a poisoned drink (since the other two are both poisoned and so it does not matter which one the barman removes).
If you have a poisoned drink and you switch, you end up with a non-poisoned drink (since the other poisoned drink was removed by the barman).
Switching means changing either from poisoned to non-poisoned or from non-poisoned to poisoned.
So by switching, your 1 in 3 chance of living becomes a 1 in 3 chance of dying, and your 2 in 3 chance of dying becomes a 2 in 3 chance of living.
So by switching your initial 1 in 3 chance of living is doubled to a 2 in 3 chance of living.
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That's false logic. It's a one in three chance however you go about it. You can add all sorts of nonsense about choices and the barman's intervention but, in the end, you have to pick one glass from three.
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That's what everyone thinks, but intuition lets you down with this one.
Here is a web page that allows you to play an identical game (but with doors, donkeys and prize money). Try it first without switching. Then try it with switching.
http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtml/LetsMakeaDeal.html
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There is absolutely nothing amazing about this. You have to choose one drink from three which, obviously, gives you a one in three chance of selecting the non-poisonous option and this is the way the question is phrased. In actual fact, you're being given TWO choices which, also obviously, alters the odds. In other words, you're first being asked to choose one from three and then being asked to choose one from two. Of course that reduces the odds! The chances of you selecting the non-poisonous drink are two to one against. Full stop.
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So do you agree that you increase your chances by choosing the other drink?
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In 36 games when I didn't switch, I won 18 times. In the 36 games when I did switch, I won 18 times! Ok what does that mean then?
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You were lucky. Try again.
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I'm back. :)
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It's interesting to observe Mince being a pillock all the way from Manila.
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I hate arriving at these conundrums late. The remaining glass on the bar does not contain poison, and we know this because there are now only two glasses on the bar and the barman told us:
"The one that I remove has poison in it."
He did NOT say "one of the glasses I remove has poison in it"
Therefore the one which remains on the bar does not contain poison.
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Yes but at the begining there was two glasses with poison in them. And as you have chosen one of them, it might have poison in it aswell.
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This is all making me feel like Madjock's avatar
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Yes but at the begining there was two glasses with poison in them. And as you have chosen one of them, it might have poison in it aswell.
In fact, knowing Mince, they might all have poison in them, but, what with him being an unscrupulous, conniving, individual....