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by dllthomas 2428 days ago
If the herds might have been in the valley and don't happen to be, you learn something. Your odds rise from 1/3 to 1/2. If the scouts know where the herds are and specifically checked the valley because the herds weren't there, you learn more - your odds rise to 2/3. But not as much as if they just told you where the herds are, so we're back to it being an unlikely scenario.
1 comments
kortilla 2427 days ago
Nope. Monty still reveals a door even if your planned pick was correct.

The entire gain in odds is predicated on Monty being forced to reveal a bad choice after you have chosen.

Monty knowing ahead of time has absolutely no impact on the outcome.

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dllthomas 2427 days ago
Knowing that Monty could not have revealed the car (vs happened not to) has an impact.

If you are objecting to how I described that, in terms of who knows what when, then you may be right and I probably could have been more precise.

But if you are disagreeing that scouts sent to investigate an area and return an answer (which this time happens to be negative) differs materially from the original question then you are wrong.

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kortilla 2425 days ago
> Knowing that Monty could not have revealed the car (vs happened not to) has an impact.

Nope, it does not. The fact that he revealed a dud is what matters. The notion of him maybe revealing a car is senseless anyway because you would just then pick the car or the game would be over.

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dllthomas 2424 days ago
> Nope, it does not. The fact that he revealed a dud is what matters.

That's simply wrong. This has been discussed countless times on this forum. The most effective way to proceed is for you to spend 5 minutes writing the simulation that you think will prove you right. When I was on the other side of this, that experience is what convinced me.

> The notion of him maybe revealing a car is senseless anyway because you would just then pick the car or the game would be over.

That's not a very strong objection - game shows are weird sometimes and could often apparently be easily improved.

But more importantly, it's an objection to the wrong thing. My point was that the presented "find the herds" problem differed from the game show. "That would have been a bullshit game show" is just confused.

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