OK, upon reading the experimental premise (I blocked out the rest of the text below that so it wouldn’t influence me) the very first idea, the idea that seemed most obvious to me, was to bet on blue every time.
I basically figured that if I had 10 cards, and 7 of them were blue, and I had to guess the color of all the cards at once (rather than being given them sequentially, which would give me the opportunity to take notes and keep track of how many of each had already appeared), then the most reliable way of achieving the most “hits” would be to predict that each card would be blue. That way I’d be guaranteed a correct answer as to the color of 7 of the 10 cards.
At the same time I’d know I’d be wrong about 3 of the cards going into the experiment, but this wouldn’t concern me if my goal was to maximize correct answers, and I was given only the information that 70% of the cards were blue while 30% were red, and that they were arranged in a random order. Short of moving outside the conditions of the experiment (and trying to, for instance, peek at the cards), there simply isn’t any path to information about what’s on them.
Now, if it were a matter of, “Guess the colors of all the cards exactly or we’ll shoot you”, I’d be motivated to try and find ways outside the experimental constraints—as I’m sure most people would be. It would be interesting, though, to test people’s conviction that their self-made algorithms were valid by proposing that scenario. Obviously not actually threatening people, but asking them to re-evaluate their confidence in light of the hypothetical scenario. I’d be curious to know if most people would be looking for ways to obtain more information (i.e., “cheat” per the experiment), or whether they’d stick to their theories.
OK, upon reading the experimental premise (I blocked out the rest of the text below that so it wouldn’t influence me) the very first idea, the idea that seemed most obvious to me, was to bet on blue every time.
I basically figured that if I had 10 cards, and 7 of them were blue, and I had to guess the color of all the cards at once (rather than being given them sequentially, which would give me the opportunity to take notes and keep track of how many of each had already appeared), then the most reliable way of achieving the most “hits” would be to predict that each card would be blue. That way I’d be guaranteed a correct answer as to the color of 7 of the 10 cards.
At the same time I’d know I’d be wrong about 3 of the cards going into the experiment, but this wouldn’t concern me if my goal was to maximize correct answers, and I was given only the information that 70% of the cards were blue while 30% were red, and that they were arranged in a random order. Short of moving outside the conditions of the experiment (and trying to, for instance, peek at the cards), there simply isn’t any path to information about what’s on them.
Now, if it were a matter of, “Guess the colors of all the cards exactly or we’ll shoot you”, I’d be motivated to try and find ways outside the experimental constraints—as I’m sure most people would be. It would be interesting, though, to test people’s conviction that their self-made algorithms were valid by proposing that scenario. Obviously not actually threatening people, but asking them to re-evaluate their confidence in light of the hypothetical scenario. I’d be curious to know if most people would be looking for ways to obtain more information (i.e., “cheat” per the experiment), or whether they’d stick to their theories.