Current Events > BRAINTEASER: Do you take boxes A and B, or only box B?

(+) Yeah! (+)

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The alien told us in the original problem that he has guessed correctly every time the last 999 experiments, which means by deductive logic:

Every person who took Box A and Box B made 1,000.

Every person who took Box B made 1,000,000.

We don't know the distribution of those results but we know those have been the only two outcomes, per the alien.

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The alien told us in the original problem that he has guessed correctly every time the last 999 experiments, which means by deductive logic:

Every person who took Box A and Box B made 1,000.

Every person who took Box B made 1,000,000.

We don't know the distribution of those results but we know those have been the only two outcomes, per the alien.

That's based on your assumption that the alien is precognizant and infallible, which he was not verified to be in the original scenario.

Again, calling a coin flip right X amount of times in a row has no bearing on calling the next one correctly.

and by the time you know it youre no longer in a stage to influence it.

Do you want $1,000,000 or do you want $1000? I'm not asking about your choice in box, but what YOU would want.
I want $1,000,000 - so I choose box B. If I'm correct, I get a life-altering amount of money; if I'm wrong, I just lose out on $1000. Imagine if box A had 1 penny, or was always empty, or had a rabid raccoon inside - to many people, these are functionally identical to the $1000 option. This is an economic approach, the marginal utility of $1,000,000 vastly outweighs the marginal utility of $1000. By choosing B, you say, "I agree," and the smart alien agrees with your choice.

Imagine the alien is instead a robot who has played this game 999 times. His first prediction is random but his subsequent ones simply match what the previous participant chose. Are you the greedy guy who screws over the next contestant by choosing to win an extra $1000? Is it better for everyone to win $1 million, everyone to win $1000, or some combination of prizes?

Finally, check out the poll results on here. By choosing box A you actually skew the expected outcome negatively by impacting the alien's future predictions. Does the alien think you're choosing boxes based on debatable game theory, or does the alien think you're choosing based on human emotion or economic reasoning?

You ALWAYS get box B. You are not choosing between box A and B. You are choosing between both boxes and B. Literally the only choice you are making is "Do you take $1000 extra alongside the money you already get either way?"

Being the sort of person who'd take both means you'd have 0 in your box B. While being the sort of person who'd only take box B means it would have 1 million.

You ALWAYS get box B. You are not choosing between box A and B. You are choosing between both boxes and B. Literally the only choice you are making is "Do you take $1000 extra alongside the money you already get either way?"

To put it another way, imagine an alien that perfectly understands game theory and expects you to as well. If A+B is the "right" answer, you receive $1000. If B is the "right" answer, you receive $1,000,000. It is therefore better for the correct answer to be B.
You're ignoring half of the problem. The value of B isn't determined randomly, there's reasoning behind it. You want that reasoning to favor you.

You're ignoring the marginal utility of choosing B over choosing A+B.

You should pick A+B regardless of which sort of person you are.

Your decision when presented with the two boxes is not in any way, shape, or form, part of the factors that determine whether there is money in box B. The only factors that determined that were the alien's prejudices about you before your decision. The actual decision LITERALLY cannot affect it.

The marginal utility of choosing B over A+B is losing the contents of A. Spacetime does not literally violate all causality and magically insert money into B based on your choice.

Since you're not going to respond to everything else I posted, answer this: What do you think the alien expects you to pick?

Yet B only has a higher expected value.

Expected value refers to probability. There is NO randomness in this problem. The outcome is completely certain before choosing. There is a 100% chance that picking A+B gives you an extra "thousand dollar bill" (which we'll say is actually worth $1000 to make the problem not boring) more than picking B alone.

Thousand-dollar bills don't exist. Why would I take a box with clearly fake money?

Expected value refers to probability. There is NO randomness in this problem. The outcome is completely certain before choosing. There is a 100% chance that picking A+B gives you an extra "thousand dollar bill" (which we'll say is actually worth $1000 to make the problem not boring) more than picking B alone.

Yet B only has a higher expected value.

B doesn't have a higher expected value because none of this has anything to do with probability. There is no chance, randomness or odds involved. There are two predetermined, fixed outcomes, and one of those outcomes is objectively better, which is A+B

So, all that matters is the alien's "prediction"?
If he predicts you take both and you do, you get $1000
If he predicts you take both and you take B, you get nothing
If he predicts you take B and you do, you get $1M
If he predicts you take B and you take both, you get $1M + $1000

Logically there's no reason not to take A and B b/c he could've just put nothing in B and the whole "prediction" thing is bull shit, you don't know. It's not like if you take B only you get the million if it wasn't in there, you just look like a fool.
The only reason to take B only is reverse psychology, "it expects me to be rational and choose both, so I'll do the opposite!" But it could counter your counter, and so on...

Should just take the $1000 and move on. This isn't the Monty Hall problem where your choice (and changing it) actually has a mathematical difference in the probability. Your choice means nothing, the alien already decided what's in B before it even talked to you.

One choice you get nothing, win or lose. One choice, you get $1000, win or lose. The latter is objectively better and again the only reason not to choose it is attempting reverse-psychology on a supposedly omniscient being.

I don't understand this.

If there's no penalty for doing what he predicts you'll do, he's been right every time, and most importantly he reveals all of this information to you freely, wouldn't you just take box B?

No, the alien is lying to me or they're wrong. I am different from the other 999 people. I will choose Box A & B and completely ignore everything the alien has told me.
/s

B doesn't have a higher expected value because none of this has anything to do with probability. There is no chance, randomness or odds involved. There are two predetermined, fixed outcomes, and one of those outcomes is objectively better, which is A+B

There are 4 states.
Alien think you are A+B but you are B
Alien thinks you are A+B and you are A+B
Alien thinks you are B and you are B
Alien thinks you are B but you are A+B

value of these are:
0
1000
1000000
1001000

Given the information, 1 and 4 are unlikely, so the best course of action is to believe one boxing is correct and follow through on it.

While A+B always gives 1k more than taking B only, it is a losing strategy because it encounters an empty B box far more often than B only does.

There is NO randomness in this problem.

Punch him in the face.
Bet he didn't "predict" that.

And again we get four posts in a row that believe in fantasy magic that states our decision determines the contents of box B somehow, which is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

LordFarquad1312 posted...
Punch him in the face.
Bet he didn't "predict" that.

"Welcome to Earth Motherfucker"

--Will Smith

This is completely wrong. You don't need randomness for expected value to be usable. Just uncertainty. Which exists here. We do not know what the alien predicted. What we do have is strong evidence that the predictions are very accurate and the possible payoffs. Given 999 past predictions with 100% accuracy, we can determine how likely it is that various real accuracy values would get that result. And we see that even say 95% is very unlikely to achieve that by chance.

You can then utilize those to assign probabilities to the payoff matrix. Which then lets you determine the expected value of the two choices.

tbh, all this topic is doing is proving "To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly." to be right.

Generally people fall into one of two camps, the CDT camp which argues for two boxing and the EDT camp which argues for one boxing.

Again, his prediction is irrelevant. There is literally zero reason to care about what he predicted because you make more money with A+B in both scenarios.

Again, his prediction is irrelevant. There is literally zero reason to care about what he predicted because you make more money with A+B in both scenarios.

Alright, let's prune this down to a single question:

Does the predictor know which boxes you are going to take?

Yes

Alright, let's prune this down to a single question:

But this is demonstrably untrue by definition. Every single person who has picked A+B had only made 1,000 and every single person who has pick B made 1,000,000. You are adhering to one very specific and narrow interpretation of the situation despite every other piece of actual evidence describing an outcome that's the opposite.

Those people who picked A+B would've made 0 if they picked only B, and the people that picked only B would have made 1,001,000 if they picked A+B, so my point stands.

Picking B doesn't put a million in the box, its already there by the time you're making a decision.

This question doesn't resolve the paradox however it's answered