The Law of Probability

If you pick door number 1, and the host opens 3, revealing a goat, then you know you have a 50-50 chance of being right. You may as well stick with your original pick. I'd say the host was trying to get you to switch by revealing the goat. Either way, you win! You get transportation or a lawn mower.

I will bet anyone any money that no matter how long that monkey pecks on the typewriter, he (or she) doesn't type 'to be or not to be'. the probablility of combining those 18 strokes just so is enormously unlikely.

Gasoline companies say phooey to probability-they just finally figured out that no matter how much they charged for petrol we'll pay it now, since we're ADDICTED.

You're on about the monkey. But I would also venture to wager that I that the probability is there wouldn't have been much controversy if it were merely a 50 50 venture. And actually judging by the price of petrol, I'd want the goat anyway.

The probability of monkeys thing is a wash, but I'll lay odds on the probability that my one year old daughter can accidentally type the password to the Pentagon's mainframe and hack me some of that $900 toilet seat money. Last night she got a hold of my laptop for thirty seconds, in which time she renamed and deleted my hard disk, and - speaking of monkeys - sent an e-mail to whitehouse.gov, something to the tune of "I'm gwing 2 keel Booooosh". I'm freaking doomed.

Change your choice.
Night everybody.

The Law of Probability . . . . . now there's a law that is just begging to be bent, if not broken. I'd rather be lucky and happy than right.

If you would prefer to live on the razor's edge however, may I suggest a journey in the Douglas Adams' literary invention "The Infinite Improbability Drive" which is based on the Laws of "Improbability". According to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. As the Improbability Drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe almost simultaneously. In other words, you're never sure where you'll end up or even what species you'll be when you get there. It's therefore important to dress accordingly".

I guess this means that the odds of me waxing seriously about this subject are somewhere between zilch minus zero and zip. ;)

Ah, Jonathan. Get used to it, for you're becoming the plaything of a wily little female creature who will quickly learn to push all your buttons when she pleases, and manipulate you like putty in her hands. As Doc said, the power of a woman, indeed!

My daughters soon discovered there was another female about, even more stubborn than they are...

When discussing all those probabilities, Mr. Peterman does not mention that 84.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Yes, I want to select door #2

What if. . . .

. . . . the minky . . . 

Don't you mean the "monkey"?

Yes, that is what I said ..... what if the minky had access to some good spell check and grammer check software?

I alwyays wanted to select"The Box Where Carol Merrill is standing."

the minky alweez knew best...

It is vexing and befuddling to me to think that the probability is 1/2 that the car is behind one of the doors. That the car is (or is not} behind one of the doors is how the state of affairs must appear in a complete description. Before the door is opened, the car is by no means behind one of the two doors. The car becomes definitely behind one of the doors only after one of the doors are opened. Then the odds are that the car is 100% behind the door, or 100% not behind the door. So the odds are changed by simply opening one of the two doors. I find this to be very odd. I think that is what I thought I meant to say about the cars and the doors.

It has been my experience that odds and probability are quirky but sometimes useful in craps and roulette. In my case, at the casino anyway, Lady Luck is usually out taking a smoke break. In life, the odds can be very unclear and mystifying.

I have a hairdresser that is expensive, but very talented. I have to make an appointment weeks in advance. At my age, hair and clothing are about the only things you can manipulate to try to improve your appearance. Anyway, it takes a minimum of an hour and a half to cut my hair because we engage in these involved discussions and whenever he talks, he stops working, has his say, which may take awhile, and then continues cutting away when it's my turn to talk. We get along famously. After I had been to see him a couple of times, we learned that years ago, in the seventies and eighties, we had spent our twenties and thirties hanging around the same friends, went to the same bars, same swimming holes, and other various hang-outs, attended the same parties and local concerts, but had strangely never met each other. I had lost touch with most of these folks, so he called up and arranged a reunion of about seven of us guys and we all went out to dinner one night and spent hours laughing and talking and reminiscing. I had introduced them all to "Firesign Theater", and felt that I deserved a citation, or some special recognition for it. I was given a sincere and hearty toast. Everyone there was astonished to know that my hairdresser and I had never met. Apparently my hairdresser had always had a pair of scissors and comb in his back pocket back then, and would give free haircuts to anyone who would ask, at any given place or moment. I had missed those free haircuts back then, but as i was getting my haircut last week the discussion was the rising price of property and housing in Northwest Arkansas. He mentioned that his sister had bought a home in Huntington Beach California back in the sixties that was now worth close to $900,000. He went on to say that when he was just out of High School, his mother would ship him out to stay with his sister every summer, and he would work with the street department cutting down weeds along the major streets in Huntington Beach. The rest of the time he hung around on Huntington Beach by the pier. Interestingly, that would have put him out there during the same time that I was hanging around the very same place. I listened in stunned silence as he began to tell me about this great theater called "The Golden Bear". A guy on the street department worked as a janitor there in the evenings, and would secretly let my hairdresser in the side entrance to watch the great entertainers that were playing there. Now I hadn't mentioned "The Golden Bear" to anyone, for years, until about two days earlier when I was posting about it here on "Peterman's Eye". It was strange enough, in and of itself, that the subject would come up again so soon, but the fact that my hairdresser had been hanging around there, the same time I was there, made it even stranger. I asked him if he had seen Hoyt Axton, but he said that he missed seeing him for some reason. Then I told him that I had been there too. What are the odds on this?

Another time, my room-mate and I were going to hitchhike from the University of the Ozarks to my home in California to spend the Summer. One of our classmates lived in Paramount, California, but he was flying home for the Summer. But he did have a car that he kept on campus to use each year, and he offered to take us out to the edge of town. We took him up on that offer, and he drove us out of town and dropped us off on the West highway. It took us four or five days, and many adventures to finally reach the West Coast, and as we were dropped off the freeway by some psycho with a back seat filled with rotten oranges, just five miles from my home in Lakewood, who should drive by at that very moment, in his parents car, but our classmate who had given us a ride out to the highway in Arkansas five days earlier. He picked us up and gave us a ride the rest of the way home. Now what are the odds of that?

JE - The Katy-Trail was great! We rode fast and took chances. The only problem was the first day when the train from Sedalia to Herman was two hours late. I also misjudged the time that the train trip would take. We didn't get on the trail until three o'clock. We rode the last six or seven miles in complete darkness. There was no moon, and the bulb on the small flashlight I had clipped to my visor burned out after about three seconds. I thought of you, about taking chances, as we flew down the trail into near blackness, imagining washouts, rocks, and unseen branches all along the way. My son was right behind me, and I kept thinking I heard him crashing. I panicked once, when I thought I saw a fence directly in front of me. We came to a screeching halt. But it was just some play of starlight. The one hundred and thirty dollar non-refundable cost of the bed and breakfast awaiting us compelled us forward. We arrived at around nine o'clock and our reward was being treated like royalty at Cliff Manor. They came and picked us up at the trail-head at North Jefferson City, fed us, and gave us a wonderfully lavish room with a view of the Capitol building in the distance. The next morning they fed us a breakfast to die for, washed our bikes, filled our water bottles with ice water, and took us back out to the trail-head for the next fifty miles to Boonville. We stayed at the Frederick Hotel there, a fantastic place, then did the last leg, about forty miles back to Sedalia on Saturday. I've been recuperating all day. It was great. Challenging, but great.

Thanks Tiberius - the probability that I would enjoy any story you would write is 100% - and remember - be careful out there.

M'sieur, do you have a leesance vor your minky?

Okay Tiberius, you've given away your real name with your first paragraph...so, Professor Schrodinger, how's your cat?

Love the story, and I recently had a similar experience when I met my new best friend. We talked all night after a Frank Zappa tribute concert by a local band, finding that we knew all the same musicians, had hung out at many of the same clubs, and it was likely that I had even sung with her husband's band on occasion when I was in my Janis phase many moons ago. But, we had never met, or couldn't remember if we had. Strange how two bodies can orbit the same experiential nexus without colliding-what's the probability?

Of course, no one has yet mentioned the futility of trying to measure the odds of this probability, for in the very act of measuring, we change the subject being measured. I love that, thanks Dr. Heisenberg!

Having just read a cute article in our local paper about how that columnist has never won anything; not even a pen; not even a t-shirt, nothing.  He asked if we like he had ever won anything and, alas, I had to answer "no, nothing".  So then having read this article on probability I have to ask:  Would the rules of probability say that I'm due to win something or would they then say that the rules of probability would be based on my past performance (or in this case, lack of) and determine that in all probability I would continue in my winless state?

I would just use my marvelous intuition which is always correct at least some of the time.

I was once pressed into service as an emergency driver for an academic en route to deliver a speech at a private college down the valley.

Her topic was probabilities and randomness. She enjoyed dragging me through just this sort of discussion with frequent questions to see if I were listening, comprehension having been too much to hope for.

It ought to have been a short trip but the weather and roads were bad. Then, we were very early owing to a misunderstanding on her part of time zones. What are the odds?

A nearby cozy cafe was out of the question as: "Coffee makes my mind over-keen if you know what I mean."

I didn't .

What I remember best is how she shuddered in describing a nightmare that she'd had the night before: As a caller on C-SPAN, she had rankled Brian Lamb and been subjected to a public reaming by him. (Not likely)

While it was the sort of thing that I could have gotten away with, no doubt all of her friends would have been tuned in.

Morning!

Mr. Peterman made me laugh this morning with his hopelessly romantic post:

". . .or deciding which life partner is less likely to be an idiot."

Thank you for that. Too funny.

As far as statistics, they are interesting. I was a research psych major, very promising one, too, before I abandoned them for the English Lit department.

My professor was so mad when I left. He had mentored me when he saw how apt I was at 'bending numbers.' I was an engineering major for my first two years. Love the Calculus. I know, nerdy. Keep reading. I've had quite a few majors! Anyway, we hung out a lot. We even ran together. He literally yelled down the hall after me after I told him I was leaving. Shouted that I was "wasting my time over in the arts."  

But here's the thing. You sit and study p-values for so long that your eyes bend. Your main goal: to contain human behavior. To define it.

And then one day you look away from the chalk board and out the window. And you see children playing on the hill and notice that what they are playing is undefinable and unpredictble. And that's where you want to be. You decide that you want to exist permantly on that hill of unpredictability.

I still like stats. I just NEVER trust them. EVER. There is always a third variable. ALWAYS.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Spinner,

Got your note. I have put lots of thought into whether I like the job they're offering. I thank you for asking that question, though. It's a good one.

Capt.Neptune,

Thank you. Very nice.

Stoney,

Regarding my 'good medicine,' back at ya. Thinking of you and your health. 

Hi have a monkey at a typewriter...

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/nachista/Pets/monkey1.jpg

He hasn't typed anything yet but he says the novel is really taking shape in his head.

I was actually on a game show a loooong time ago. It was how I raised the money to marry my wife of 31 years (part of The Greatest Love Story You've Ever Heard). One thing the Law of Probability doesn't take into account (but should) is the amount of pressure, both overt and covert, placed on a contestant during The Big Moment in a game show. After all, these shows aren't there to give away money -- they exist to create tension as an element of entertainment. So the question isn't so much "which choice has the better probability of providing a reward," as it is "when placed under extreme stress, do the elements of anticipation of gain and the introduction of uncertainty cause an individual to vary in commitment to a choice?"

 I think the answer can be found in the massive sell off being seen today on Wall Street!

Tiberius, your story encourages me to stay fit through my incredibly boring 40s so I can have that experience with my own son. That sounded GREAT!

but offizer, he iz not my minky!  I zimply playza de organ.

I seldom try to beat the odds, but don't leave me in a room alone with the evens.....

stoney, our upper midwest, picture-perfect ,blue sky, autumn weather is a lot greyer and wetter today.

DPR I heard that 99% of all statistics are made up on the spot.  But then again I dropped my Stats class in Uni for ceramics, so what do I know?

Tiberius, we left to go camping Friday night, we were driving up a dirt road in a canyon for half an hour in the dark before we reached the camp site that our family members were at.  We got the dutch ovens on the coals and were just talking about setting up a latrine over by the mountain biking trail because, "Who in their right minds would mountain bike this steep canyon in the dark on a very difficult trail?" when 6 mountain bikers zipped by.  Ok #6 didn't exactly zip, she was struggling a bit, but the rest were flying.

Dutchman, I'm with you.  The goat is the better choice, unless of course you live in an apartment.

I'm 75% certain that Murphy's law will figure strongly into this conversation at some point today.

Nachista  ~ LUFF the MONKEY pic.

Had a manager that was married to a college math professor my first year at my current job, she was the first person I knew that referenced the Monkey's Shakespear Theory to me.  Which was funny because I came form Radio & I came from Sports Radio where one of the national hosts used the phrase "tell your local Monkey's" or the"the "Program Monkey's"  ALL of the TIME (he still does). I guess i just always thought it was a reference akin to circus monkeys.  I had no idea until I started working at the TV station the host was referring to the "Monkey Shakespear Law" as it is Infamous known at work.

Watched the film 21 a few weeks ago, the goat game show probablity is the first thng discussed in the film & when you think about how they explained it, it really does make sense. Although I would not reccomedn watching the whole film, after that part I really found it to be quite boring, so the probability really is that most of you will find it boring also.

Andy ~ Being the "CONTEST QUEEN" at the station I work for I can honestly say that the probability that the columnist would win something if he keeps entering contests if VERY GOOD.  I do on average 5 contests a month ~ Most of them have 5 winners to them, out of all the winners I get about 3 repeated winners & the rest are totally new.  Who when I cal them say ~ I've NEVER won anything in my life...... Contests are really the GREATEST part of my job.  I had a winner on friday that has tried to win this contest we have every year for the last 3 years.  On Friday this guy FINALLY won.  Which just goes to show its Possible to win eventually. 

PeterLake,
Ah, but there is a bright side: The deafening street construction equipment from around the corner has fallen silent and none of our neighbors is out with his 110 hp. Super Turbo Leaf Annihilator.

I could go either way on this: Either the guy blows himself into the lake, or the machine simply explodes. Maybe, both?

stoney,

Personally, I'd pick the combo platter. It would be poetic justice to have him go out with a bit of loud pyrotechnics and then be quickly and silently extinguished by the lake. A bit like the fireworks at Navy Pier; you get to ooh and ahhh. 

Nachista: Murphy's Law. There. Now it's here, and it's not leaving. I firmly believe it's grounded in some truth. Or fate.

I dunno. I'm one of those what philosophers call causal determinists - that is to say, that time is stuck in a certain track - that nothing throughout ever anything ever changes. We can't go back and forth through time and change it. Everything's already set. We know that time travel will never exist ever because we've never had someone from the future come to see us, because in all the infinity of time, they've never been discovered. This does tie into probability:

It is 100% probable that we will experience something in our future - something undefined, but there is no chance that it will not happen. It is 0% probable that we know what this thing is. The common probability that we think of is just another way of saying that it's x% probable that you're right in guessing the future.

And as for the monkey: the key word is infinity. It doesn't matter how many thousands of years it takes for the monkey to come up with the 18 strokes in 'To be or not to be'. Like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as PeterLake already mentioned: the Infinite Improbability Drive occupies every single point in space all at once. The monkeys are like that - in the whole of infinity, the monkeys will eventually come up with every combination of every letter sequence possible. One of those combinations is Shakespeare.

Would that life could boil down to something as simple as probability, but rather, as MissIve said, there is always another variable... I first encountered the Monte Hall Problem in a book (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, for those interested) and then more recently in the movie 21. It's one of my favorites because it completely defies intuition in its solution.

... and yes, I would prefer the goat.

Here I go thinking out loud again.

I seriously doubt that I'd be thinking about the laws of probability if the honorable J. Peterman hadn't included it with my coffee this morning; so don't blame me for the nonsense that follows:

Isn't there a cousin to the Theory of Relativity that has an influence upon the Law of Probability's ability to accurately predict outcomes?

If nothing else, I think this may be good fodder for a Steven Wright comedy routine.

I'll try to keep good ideas such as this to myself for the rest of the day before "Those nice, young men in their clean, white coats" come to take me away,.......ha-haaaa

Now back to the minkeez,

Is it not at least 99.0033359% probable that any minky at any Zoo will immediately begin enthusiastically gratifying himself the moment after you bring him to the attention to your young children?

PeterLake,
Of course, and what a grateful bunch of lads were we that they had taken that little break from writing screenplays for Jerry Lewis films.

 I must admit I cheated: But I've developed a small migraine trying to understand it:

The Answer:

Players who choose to switch win if the car is behind either of the two unchosen doors rather than the one that was originally picked. In two cases with 1/3 probability switching wins, so the overall probability of winning by switching is 2/3 as shown in the diagram below. In other words, there is a 2/3 chance of being wrong initially, and thus a 2/3 chance of being right when changing to the other door.

Sorry, but I don't find the 50/50 answer to be intuitively correct as reagrds which door a car is behind.

My reasoning:

(1) the game show host is not choosing a door at random; the host knows which doors conceal goats and which conceals a car.

(2) your choice, which comes before the host's choice, had a 1/3 chance of being correct. That means that you were 2/3 chances likely to be wrong before the intervention of the host, who again knows where the goats are. The host's choice thus had a Bayesian effect on the overall outcome controlled by the player. Thus by changing your selection, you move yourself into the 2/3 chanches of being correct camp.

(3) If you adopt a strategy of changing your choice of door after the host reveals a goat-containing door, you will win the car 2/3 of the time.

It would be 50/50 odds IF the host didn't know what was behind each door.

Bravo! If I ever encounter such a situation I'll know exactly what to do.

All odds are chance.  Ever watch that suitcase show with the models?  The bald announcer guy throws out that mathematical probabilities that the contestants suitcase holds a million dollars.  And a lot of times the odds are really in the contestants favor but they still walk away without the million. 

Chance is chance, and murphy's law will always come in to play.  For example:  You go to the track and find a horse that is favored to win by a mile, so you make the "safe" bet...the favorite horse throws his jockey and doesn't finish the race.  It doesn't matter that it was the favorite, chance took over and you lost your money.  Safe bet is an oxymoron, there is no safe bet.  Its like Buffets, there are no safe buffets, erm yeah something like that.

Belleball - Thank-you so very much. You are very kind. I'm very flattered!

Olivia - OMG! I'm so busted. Yes, paraphrased from a Schrodinger/Einstein collaboration concerning wave functions and probabilities. You never cease to amaze me. You must be like...a genius or something, with a mind like a steel trap.

JE - Boring 40's? Incredibly? What? You don't strike me as the type of person that is EVER bored. With your sword fighting, rowing, kids, other interests, and your great, well crafted posts here, I'm surprised that you even know the meaning of the word. I am sure, though, that you will have many great adventures with your kids before, and after, they are grown. (Lamenting Sigh) Ahhh...to be forty again...or even fifty.

Nachista - I decided that mountain biking was a foolish sport when my coworker came to work with a missing front tooth and a special back brace to hold her broken clavicle in place. Mountain biking at night? That's just asking for trouble I would think. Of course, there we were, flying down the trail in pitch black so who am I to talk.

PeterLake,
Have you noticed that despite our best efforts to unravel this thread, people persist in remaining on topic? Discouraging.

Tiberius, #1 Who's wearing the kilt in your profile photo?  #2 Is that Lily?  #3 I'm usually the person to say "I'll never do that, its stupid" and then end up doing it anyway...just ask my husband because I said I'd never marry him.

Stoney, Peterlake, I say we mutiny and steer this ship to a tropical island where we can sit by the pool with a cabana person brining us pina coladas in a pint glass...with a pink umbrella on top (thanks murph).

Stoney & Nachista,
It's so sad; they used to be so much fun........ let's blow this pop stand.

I say we steal the car from behind Door #2 where it has been all along, and take a road trip. We can check out the leaves in the upper Midwest, swing Westward through the Black Hills, swoop down and get Nachista, head out to the Pacific Northwest and then drive on down the PCH and watch the sunsets while Cabana people bring Nachista her Pina Coladas.

I'll have a minky do a Mapquest for us.

Nachista,
Make that an Imperial pint of Goose Island Ale, I'm there.

I've got to find a minky to fill in for me at work, shouldn't be too hard, and then I'll be good to go.  There are lots of minkys around here.

Story about Pina Coladas, sort of.  Sir Boyscout and I were making a late night Slurpee run last fall.  There was a college age couple in front of us trying to decide which flavor of frozen sugar water they wanted.  The girl stops grabs the boy tightly and stares deeply in his eyes and asks "Babe, I HAVE to know...what's a PINE-A COLO-DAH?  Is that a fancy French way of saying Marshmellow?"  And the sad thing was, she was dead serious.

Nachista,
Reminds me of a young woman at the dog park who wanted to know: "What is a plifting?" Her grandfather having suggested that she get out and do something that was...

I'm a little late to the party, so I'll just give everyone the following advice:  READ NASSEM TALEB's BOOK, 'THE BLACK SWAN'.  We live in a strange world and we don't even know how strange it is... Taleb's insights are worth reading and rereading his book.... (I've read it somewhere between 10-20 times over the past two years.... and that doesn't count 'dipping in' to re-read a few paragraphs or a chapter or two from time to time.)

Nachista - That's me and Lilly on our daily walk through the park. I was trying to post a picture of our bike ride but it wouldn't take. Interestingly, Lilly will occasionally go to a certain spot along the road in the park there, sniff around and paw the ground and wag her tail and look up at me. It took me awhile to figure out that it was the place that I picked up her dead sibling. Can she actually pick up the scent and remember that?

Nachista ~ I'm going to say probably that this girl would NEVER EVER be able to answer the following Personal ad ~   

"If you like Piña Coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you'd like making love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape
Then I'm the love that you've looked for - write to me and escape"

I'm also now willing to say the probabilty that most of you have Rupert Holmes song playing in your head right now is most likely 90%.  

Peter Lake ~ I will already be in the upper midwest looking at the turning of the leaves on Friday. It's Applefest you should come up & also stay along the shores of  the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.  It will be my first time in the area during fall I'm already convinced it will be more lovely than a camera will be able to capture.

Of course if you hear a story about a girl who has fallen into the big lake they call Gitche Gumee, it will most likely be me rings90.... Miss Ive knows my real name so she will confirm for you all...  

DPR & Olivia ~ Replies to your ideas from last night have been posted to yesterdays forum.

Rings, you.suck.  I hate that song.

Tiberius, LUFF a man in a kilt.  I don't know if she would remember the scent, but it might be possible.  Stranger things have happened.  My dog tends to have a very short memory, but we were at the pet store and she spotted her crate mate from when she was with the Humane Society and beelined it for the dog.  We didn't recognize the other dog but its owner recognized Molly and called her by her old name, Jenny.  Molly was pawing the dog and licking it and acting cozy and she doesn't do that with other dogs.  Its been over a year since they saw each other.

I just asked myself what the odds were that the old Peterman gang was still on topic over at PE. I actually made a bet that involves a piece of chocolate cake as the prize. I won, too.

Hooligans.

Rings90,

I do know your name and will watch the news for your name in reference to falls into Gitche Gumme. I would love to tell you to 'be careful,' but you know how fond I am of a good story. So not too careful, okay?

My mother is in town, all. What are the odds we will not kill each other? Hard numbers only please. Will be clinging to them.

She is actually painting my new room as I sit here at the office. So she can't be too bad, right?!

To be successful you have to be right 51% of the time.

A philosopher once said that anything that can happen will happen at sometime. All things are possible (although not always probable).  That's why it's wise to have a good risk management plan in place.  Losses will happen so you must minimize them or at least have an exit stratergy.

I've always been fascinated by the theory that 100 monkeys typing at random will eventually re-create the works of Shakespeare. I doubt that theory because we have senators and of congressmen/women who haven't come close to creating a rational thought in 200 plus years.  Then again, the monkeys are probably smarter so Shakespeare may eventually have a rival.

We should put the monkeys to work on a new tax code.....they couldn't do any worse than the current one.

To: Olivia, You can take care of my silk ties anytime.  I've always been vary partial to the Stars and Stripes.....especially the stars.  Thanks for the visual....my day is better for it.

For anyone still interested, what unifies the Monte Hall anecdote, the film 21, and the show Deal or No Deal is Bayes theorem, which is that initial events, rooted in probability though they are, perturb the probability of subsequent events. Certain outcomes at the early stages of the games in question skew the subsequent outcomes because the earlier outcomes result in depletions of likelihood of secondary outcomes.

The garment obsessed among you may wish to read my late post to yesterday's topic.

Maybe this example will help.

You're backpacking in Papua New Guinea, and are captured by a cannibal tribe. You are taken to the tribe's chief, who will decide your fate. The chief says he will give you two urns, and 20 balls, half of them white and half of them black. You have to put every ball into either of the urns. The chief says that he will then reach into one of the two urns, and pull out one ball. If the ball is white, you go free. If it's black, you are on the menu for tonight's dinner.

The nominal odds at the start of this are 50/50, right? But you know Bayes theorem, and decide to use it to modify the post-conditional outcome strongly in your favor. How? You put one white ball in one of the urns (100% chance of going free if the chief chooses that urn) and all the other balls into the other urn (making your chances of survival roughly 50/50 if the chief chooses that urn). Your chance of survival is nearly 75%,

Everything is still random, but you have modified strongly the potential outcome by applying exploitative pre-conditions.

A timely post, Mr. P.  Quite a few traders are learning a lesson in probability today...

Uh, maybe this thread has become one of the those "pieces of string too small to save."

Nachista ~ Sincere apologies ~ but that song always runs throughmy mind whenever anyone brings up Pina Coladas so I had to share, Please forgive me...

Miss Ive ~ Whole numbers only? hmmm is there a hotel close by? that would totally changes the odds.

oh Yeah almost forgot  ~  For those of you who don't know or or have never heard the AWESOMELY HAUNTING Gordon Lightfoot Song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" Gitche Gumme, is the Native Americans name for Lake Superior.  I would say probably most of you already knew that...

To: mark swaim,

Deal or No deal is an interresting show.  I'm truly fascinated by the people who believe the million dollars is in their case. Essentially, the odds are one in 26 or 27 (the number of cases).  As they get down to the last two cases the odds are still only 50/50.  To turn down the "best" offer is irrational.  When the banker offers a certain amount and you calculate the odds it's better to take the banker's best offer than engage in a coin flip for the million. Never leave good (and free) money on the table. Granted, someone has won the million dollar prize this season, but it was pure randomness.

I love to take risks, but as a risk taker I'm calculated and realize things can and will go wrong. That's why you minimize the losses. Unfortunatley, it's not always possible to be free of emotions and behavior in any deal.  Your emotions/behavior can be your undoing. It takes discipline.

JillyBean:  You'e right....a lot of traders are wondering what hit them today.

Having once risked my er, inseam in GG's icy waters, I can assure that those to have done so and survived, didn't make the same mistake again.
They were also oddly reluctant to be seen naked for days.

Peter-Eet ees against ze lyeu for you to play your musical instrument in a public place for ze purpose of commercial enterprise...

Minkey or no minkey...

Tiberius-You and Mark are doing GOOD, babes...

Mark-Bayes' theorem sounds to me like a practical application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, at least in part.

ExPat-I could SO sort you out for neckwear, sugar. And you're welcome!

Soooo, what's the probabilty that my entire retirement fund will be lost before Christmas and I'll have to work another 20 years (accounting for the rampant inflation that is bound to happen) to get to where I was at the start of this year...meaning I'll be able to retire when I'm roughly 80.

I have been fairly calm about the financial crisis so far, but today has just depressed the hell out of me.  With the rising cost of food, groceries, clothes, etc. and the possibility of having to take a pay cut; the chances of paying off the hubbies car and the house before I'm 50 is looking slimmer and slimmer.  If I drank, I would take the afternoon off and roaring drunk, just to forget about today.  But as it is I've got a water bottle and a package of saltines...woofreakinghoo.

Vere ith ze Calgon Minky to take me avay?

but ze minky iss ze one wiz ze money, az an offizer of ze lyeu, it iss your zworn dutey to arrezt dees minkey and lif me to my muzick!

Aha! You are a musician and the monkey is a businessman. He doesn't tell you what to play, and you don't tell him what to do with his money.

Minkey!

Merde! Je marche trop vite avec mes doights!

Mais, Non! Je n'suis pas une minky, je suis ananas!  Yeah, I've lost it and I'm going to be at work until 10pm tonight, brace yourselves for the insanity.

Où travailles-tu, mademoiselle, que vous parlez en français? Ou peut-être, ou vives-tu? En Canada? En France?

Vous êtes ananas? Avez-vous des aubergines dans vos pantalons? C'est une phrase qu'on utilise en Quebec pour dire qu'on est fou dans la tête.

Ou, disons, mesdemoiselles?

Nachista,

Love your monkey at the typewriter.  And did anyone else notice that the top book he's sitting on is Atlas Shrugged?

Peter,

Months after we bonded over Douglas Adams, I discover you're also a Steven Wright fan?  Fantastic!  I came home today and found everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica.

rings90,

While talking about fandom, I love Gordon Lightfoot.  But I don't know that particular song.  I'll have to look for it.

*gigglesnortgiggle* TOATD Je travaille pour ma famille, mais ce n'est pas pourquoi je parle en français.  J'ai appris français dans le secondaire.  Oui, je suis ananas...je sais qu'il n'est pas possible, mais OUI, possible! Je n'ai pas d'aubergines dans mon pantalon, e n'aime pas aubergine.  J'ai appris que cette expression de la télévision montrent Telefrancais.  Notre professeur fait nous regarder quand il n'a pas se sentir comme enseignement.  J'ai voyagé au Canada et la France.  Je ne suis pas un mademoiselle, je suis une vieille dame mariés, mais, je vous remercie pour la flatterie.

Je suis désolé mon français est mauvais.  Il a été longtemps que j'ai été capable de parler.

I must confess that I've cheated a little and referred to my online dictionary.  Any errors in grammar or syntax are because I am a dunce and never paid attention in French class. 

If absolutely none of that made sense, Je suis désolé.  I keep forgetting where accents go and all the little english to french cheat codes on my keyboard.  I should have learned Spanish, everyone needs Spanish translators around here.  Unfortunately the only Spanish I learned was from fellow cooks, and most of it isn't fit for polite conversations.

Hey I say we all get together for a potluck "Kiss your ass-ets GOODBYE!" party...kind of like a hurricane but instead of mother nature, we will celebrate in the face of impending disasater brought on by greed and human stupidity.  I'll bring the funeral potatoes (if you don't know, ask your nearest mormon neighbor).  How does Saturday work for everyone?!?

"If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?"

Does the spaceship has regular or halogen bulbs in the headlights?  Seriously they won't give me a license to fly lightspeed spaceships, my reflexes just aren't what they used to be. 

Join me in a rousing corus of "So long, and thanks for the fish"

Ooooooooooh DPR, Me Me Me!  I noticed!  Of course I was the one who set him on top of Atlas Shrugged, which is on top of The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales, which is on top of Eldest (I hated it, I should put THAT one under the monkey's tail instead), which is on top of Through the Lens: Nationa Geographic's Greatest Photographs.  It was either the National Geographic or a photo book on Jacques Henri Lartique...I actually get the later out sometimes and go through it, so that stays out on the real coffee table where I can get at it. 

I think the Ansel Adams books people have gifted me are stashed away with my ZONE system books and all the dry boring manuals from Uni...towel tests *shudder*

Just had a great phone convo with friend.  Her plan for saving America's financial system...

Here's Cordelia Plan: 

Bitch slap every single one of those CEO's out of their big ass offices.
As those CEO's are being bitch slapped out of their big ass offices, make sure they have all their VP's, other minions and general ass kissers with them.
Sell their office furniture.
Downgrade those "Golden Parachutes" to cotton to help offset the damage.
Give every taxpayer who makes under $100,000.00 per year, $50,000.00 (tax free) to put toward what they owe on their mortgage.
If they don't have a mortgage, they can spend that $50,000.00 on stimulating the economy by putting a down payment on a house they can afford.
Arrest the CEO's for being greedy assholes.  Surely there's a law somewhere we can use.
Toss every freakin' Senator and Representative OUT of office for allowing this.
Bring home every single one of our men and women in the military to guard our borders and protect the people who pay them from the people who sent them to hell in the first place.
Bring back the Minuteman.
10% flat tax for everyone, PERIOD!  No deduction, no loopholes.
Impeach the current President for being stupid.
Impeach the next President for even thinking of being stupid.
Mandatory savings accounts and retirement accounts for everyone, funds withdrawn from every paycheque and you can only withdraw from them with proof of financial hardship or retirement age.
Offer Presidency to Warren Buffet and Vice Presidency to Chuck Norris. (we don't need no stinkin' foreign policy when we're the wealthiest ass kickin'-est country in the world again.
 Buy Cordelia a case of Dom for coming up with this brilliant plan.

I love Mark Swaim's definition of Bayes theorem: "that initial events, rooted in probability though they are, perturb the probability of subsequent events. Certain outcomes at the early stages of the games in question skew the subsequent outcomes because the earlier outcomes result in depletions of likelihood of secondary outcomes."  How elegantly and simply put!

I would like to add that I think we need to scrap our current Welfare for Jobfare.  You have to work at any job that welfare services can find for you to do to (according to your physical/mental abilities) and stay working at that job to received financial assitance.  Once you are on welfare the amount goes down for every additional child you have while on welfare, and if you don't like that you can have them adopted by responsible people who can't have children of their own.

Ooooh, now I'm ranting, its time to give up and get out of here.

P.S.  I always have had more than average difficulty in grasping the idea of probabilty.  I would say, 'I can only see two probabilities: one is that is rains in which case the probability of rain is 100 percent, and the other that it doesn't rain, in which case the probability is zero...  Moreover, if you stand between the raindrops the probability of getting wet is zero, but if one hits you the probabilty of getting wet is 100 percent.' --  I think I drove my teachers crazy, but I just had (and still have) difficulties about judging probabilties.  I'm simply tempted to throw up my hands and say, 'Hey, it hasn't happened yet.  How the heck do I know what will happened.  Why don't we just wait and see what happens and then we'll have 100 percent certainty of whether the coin comes up heads or if it comes up tails....'  

If it is possible and you DON'T want it to happen...it will happen.

If it is possible and you DO want it to happen...it won't happen.

Murphy and me, we think alike.  That's from years and years of personal experience.  You know doing things like switching to the short checkout line and waiting longer to get through it than if you'd stayed in the long one.  Or washing your car and then leaving it out to dry in the drive way on a sunny day, but while you nap the wind blows and it starts to rain and your car looks like the dogs breakfast again.  Or my favorite, getting to the airport 2 hours early, only to find out your flight has been delayed 2 hours...conversely, getting to the airport 1/2 an hour early to find your flight left an hour earlier.  I'm lucky...it just usually bad luck, but it makes for great stories.  Someday you'll all laugh when you find out just how bad my honeymoon was...I still find it a bit painful but it really is funny.

Cordelia's plan will never work-it's based on common sense and personal accountability, which is unknown to the majority of Americans anymore.

Mais non, nachista-ta Francaise, c'est bonne! La mienne, a le main l'autre, il sent mauvais. J'apprend ma Francaise dans les rues de Paris et Orleans, alors, il est comme ci, comme ca *pouf et haussement*

Hey, I noticed about the minkey's seat, but I got distracted by housework before I could comment on what an appropriate spot for minkey-butt...*sigh*

On another note, I'll never understand how the honor roll thingy works-seems like the more airy and off-the-cuff I am, the better JP likes it.

Oh, well *blows a kiss to everyone and skips off giggling*

I see a few comments here about the stock market plunging... If one buys put options one has a certain limit to one's losses (the amount of the original investment) but a highly leveraged upside should the stock market go to hell.  It's a great way to insure one's portfolio against massive downdrafts (like today!).  Unlike short selling, which can get one into massive debt, the put options are just 'insurance premiums' against loss.  (It may be a bit late to buy puts now, but then again, no one knows how low the market may drop.... one thing is certain: it will either go down more or it will go up....)

Oh, this is called speculating, so if your religious beliefs prohibit speculation, disregard these second-hand ideas....

Doc, I diversified, so all the separate investments that make up my retirement fund can fall equally low.  The only thing that hasn't tanked in the last week is the overseas investments, and even they dipped today.  *sigh*  I shouldn't even look at it, but I can't help it...its a compulsion, like touching the plate to see how hot it really is when the waitress says "Careful, its hot".

Olivia you crack me up.  Our first year french teacher had a rule that you could ONLY say/ask something in French.  We tried to skirt that rule by raising our hands and then saying "Comment dit on...I gotta go to the bathroom?" or "Comment dit on...What's the answer to number 12?"

nacho babygirl, you're a cutie! I lived with relatives who would do me that way sometimes too, but they would get so tired of my execrable grammar and prononciation that they would finally prefer to speak their bad English for a while to get some relief from my bad French!

My favorite probablility thingy is the weatherman predicting '50% chance of rain tomorrow' We'd all look at each other say 'that means, maybe it will, maybe it won't!'

I think life is more fun when you dont' know the odds.  People can accomplish amazing things when they don't know what people say can't be done.  Humans are amazing critters when we put our minds to it.

The odds will make you crazy, the evens will kick your ass...

Doc: Thanks for the compliment. I've really cultivated an extreme admiration for you, and so coming from you it means a lot. Personally, I was afraid I was being peripatetic.

By the way, I lived in Houston for a while (cherchez la femme). Favorite restaurant: Miss Saigon. Favorite hangout: the insuperable Downing Street!  I really thank my genes for allowing me to smoke cigars on occasion, thoroughly enjoy them, but never get hooked on nicotine. It turns out that this behavior, like many others we haven't realized, is attributable to the liver. (I am a hepatologist in RL). Twenty percent of us have liver cytochrome P450 enzymes that metabolize nicotine so slowly that a desire for a repeat "hit" isn't cultivated. It somewhat recapitulates the low p-word of alcoholism, because of aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, in Asians.

And also by the way, I adore Thailand (3 visits). Have given very serious consideration to retiring there when that times come around.

mark swaim:

I've been to Bangkok......and have a number of Thai friends.  Wonderful city and country!

It's true when they say you can spend a year there in one night. There are a number of internet sites that provide good advise on retiring to the "east indies".

I was actually hoping that ExPat and rings90 would come help me ring the bell for Atlas' comarability to Shakespeare.  I should have known that Oivia would come along with her "monkey butt" comment shortly after discussing personal accountability and missing the inherent contradiction in the two positions.

Speaking of contradictions, Cordelia's plan will not work because (much as we may wish otherwise) stupidity is not a felony or a misdemeanor.  Therefore, it is not an impeachable offense.  To attempt impeachment in the absence of said crimes would violate the Constitution.  The president we wish to impeach has already done this many times and that's why we're so P.O.'d at him.  To adopt the very methods we hate is also inconsistent with the notion of common sense and personal accountability.  Of course the current president is the first one ever to confess to an impeachable offense while in office but no one seems to be bringing that up...

Next, of course, we have the demand to impeach the next president for "even thinking of being stupid".  The notion of thought crimes brings us back to 1984.  I know the last time I invoked Orwell in this forum, I was offered a soothing drink and a warm blanket but, if the shoe fits...

Now, what's funny is that so many of us are so willing (as I have always predicted) to blame everyone and everything but ourselves for our downfall.  No one has been willing to acknowledge that Wall Street IS Main Street.  And, as today's events have heralded, what happens to one happens to the other.  Everyone was furious about the proposed bail-out.  Then, it didn't happen.  Everyone is still furious and blaming the same people they were blaming when they still thought the bail-out would happen.  Funny how it works that way.

DreadPirateRoberts:  Are we speaking about Atlas as in Atlas Shrugged?

This entire financial crisis we are currently experiencing has made me think long and hard about economic theory.....nothing has persuaded me that the free market and the "invisible hand" have lost significance. Too bad our government doesn't think too highly of a true free market.

ExPat:

Part of what makes Bangkok terrific is all the....EXPATS who live there!

There's a book by a former Rolling Stone editor who also wrote the definitive biography of The Doors----hey, I just found it here: Bangkok Babylon by Jerry Hopkins. His book is a set of profiles of people he has met in Bangkok (mostly expats), VERY interesting people. The point is that ONLY in Bangkok could anyone meet and befriend such a bizarre, entertaining, frightening, extreme concatenation of people. Hopkins admits he is quite the misfit himself, and lets on that Bnagkok is one of very few places he can be himself.

I'm going to bed  leaving everybody to think once again probabilities.

Last week, in one 24-hour news cycle, intolerable hubbub, balderdash and poppyock about Ben and Jerry considering using human breast milk to make ice cream, and a front-page Wall Street Journal article (at least in e-edition) about skyrocketing American demand for wet nurses because of the Chinese melamine scandal.

What are the chances of those two odd items appearing in the media at once?

Robert I don't see the connection in your canard about me missing the inherent contradiction, you wicked wicked thing.

Planning a trip to Bangkok, I may need advice, gentlemen!

With regards to breast milk, I SO could tell you stories! I was a great little producer, and pumped for my husband to use in bottles for the wee 'uns when I went back to work. Found out later he was using it for all sorts of things...

DPR,

I always get a bit uncomfortable when we paint things with  broad brush strokes and use words like nobody and everyone.  I think there are probably a lot of different perspectives as to what occurred in Washington and Wallstreet.  To paraphrase Steven Wright, "you couldn't know everybody's thoughts and feelings.  Where would you put them".

I can only speak for myself with such certainty, and only if I choose to do so.  I guess I have a natural resistance to being lumped together in any kind of all inclusive catagory. 

 If it wasn't such a tough day I'd probably just let your comments slide.

Be well

Peter,

If you truly object to something, never let it slide.

Sorry if I failed to be clear.  You are right of course.  I didn't mean LITERALLY everyone.  But that takes less time and energy to type than "a great big bunch of people".  Your eagle eye has clearly caught my generalization.  But it was a very deliberate generalization and not intended to be taken quite that literally.  Obviously, I'm part of "everyone" too and I don't include myself in the comment.  I know I'm weird but I figure there has to be someone out there whose perspective was closer to mine.

I certainly sympathize with your having had a tough day.  Did you know that, if a four-year old girl doesn't go to bed at a decent hour, she starts to resemble something out of a Stephen King novel?  Please permit me to plead parental exhaustion for my poor phrasing and over-generalized comments.  I'm lucky to be able to take part in grown-up conversation at all.

Having had the wonderful experience of two sons, I can certainly empathize with the pitfalls of not enough sleep, for either the parents, the child, or especially when its all of the above.

Thanks for being open to my feedback. It wasn't a hill that I was willing to die on, just had to dig my heels in the sand a bit.

I think many of us could use a good nights rest tonight.

Sleep well New Yorker.

DPR, I thought it was only MY daughter who did that.

 I feel relieved.

DPR ~ Actually I sent this E-mail with the picture link to my friend who owned the bookstore were I joined the Philosphy Reading group & was introduced to Ayn Rand & Atlas Shrugged:

Had to send this picture ~ NOTICE the book he is using as his booster seat... http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/nachista/Pets/monkey1.jpg

So I did notice it ~ i just didn't make a notice of it for the PE group...  Guess I was too busy with the Pina Colada song....

Nachista-I have that same typewriter! Small world.

Mais, Je n'ai pas le singe...tant pis!