And that statement, while better than how it is presented the vast majority of the time, still isn't sufficient to make the answer unambiguous. There is still the question of Monty's motivations which could make it either adviseable to switch (up to 2/3 odds of winning) or to stay (up to 100% chance of winning).

I might be misunderstanding the issue then.

The question, as I understood it, is that I find myself on a game show, and I've picked a door... the host has just opened a door to reveal a goat, and then asked me if I want to change my choice to the other door.

So, in order to make my decision on this *one* event, I have to test it... and in order to test it, I must set up *identical* events, devoid of the host's motivation, to test whether I should change in this one instance.

It would be different if the question was 'in general, what should I do if I don't know the host's motivations', but the question states that the host opened a door with a goat... therefore my examination of the question should assume that fact

I don't know if this is coming across correct in text or not, so I apologize if it isn't...

Put another way, I'm setting up a model to that mimics the original question, which assumes the host opens a goat door

The possibility that the host *might* not offer the choice... or might reveal the prize first... etc... don't enter into the answering of this question, because the question supposes that the opening of the goat door has already happened, and now you have to make a decision based on the probabilities in play.

Trek

In reply to Re^6: Marilyn Vos Savant's Monty Hall problem by TrekNoid
in thread Marilyn Vos Savant's Monty Hall problem by mutated

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