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Old 06-16-2003, 01:48 PM   #26
Tobiasly
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Jeffersonville, IN (near Louisville)
Posts: 892
Quote:
Originally posted by vsp
But... as always, I don't grasp the causal relationship between the two choices.

...

But the situation _after_ Monty opens the door is not the same situation as _before_ Monty opens the door; to claim that the second choice (viewed in a vacuum) isn't a fifty-fifty chance in and of itself is to play clever semantic games with the problem as a whole.
The causal relationship you are looking for is this: the door Monty opens is affected by the door that you choose.

You can't view the second half in a vacuum, because your initial choice determined which door he would open (or, 1/3 of the time, it at least narrowed down the choices).

In Game 2, the odds are indeed 50/50, because the door that Monty opens was chosen between the two losers at random. But in Game 1, 67% of the time Monty <B>is forced by the rules of the game</B> to open the only remaining losing door.
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