People don’t maximize expectations. Expectation-maximizing organisms—if they ever existed—died out long before rigid spines made of vertebrae came on the scene. The reason is simple, expectation maximization is not robust (outliers in the environment can cause large behavioral changes). This is as true now as it was before evolution invented intelligence and introspection.
If people’s behavior doesn’t agree with the axiom system, the fault may not be with them, perhaps they know something the mathematician doesn’t.
Finally, the ‘money pump’ argument fails because you are changing the rules of the game. The original question was, I assume, asking whether you would play the game once, whereas you would presumably iterate the money pump until the pennies turn into millions. The problem, though, is if you asked people to make the original choices a million times, they would, correctly, maximize expectations. Because when you are talking about a million tries, expectations are the appropriate framework. When you are talking about 1 try, they are not.
I was really confused about what point EY made that went over my head but i think I get it now.
It totally changes the game to play it infinite amount of times rather than 1 go to win or lose. I made my choices based on 1 game and not a hybrid between the two of them played multiple times.
If I play once, choosing 1a is just taking money that’s already mine. If I play infinite times, 1b earns money faster because failing can be evened out.
People don’t maximize expectations. Expectation-maximizing organisms—if they ever existed—died out long before rigid spines made of vertebrae came on the scene. The reason is simple, expectation maximization is not robust (outliers in the environment can cause large behavioral changes). This is as true now as it was before evolution invented intelligence and introspection.
If people’s behavior doesn’t agree with the axiom system, the fault may not be with them, perhaps they know something the mathematician doesn’t.
Finally, the ‘money pump’ argument fails because you are changing the rules of the game. The original question was, I assume, asking whether you would play the game once, whereas you would presumably iterate the money pump until the pennies turn into millions. The problem, though, is if you asked people to make the original choices a million times, they would, correctly, maximize expectations. Because when you are talking about a million tries, expectations are the appropriate framework. When you are talking about 1 try, they are not.
I was really confused about what point EY made that went over my head but i think I get it now.
It totally changes the game to play it infinite amount of times rather than 1 go to win or lose. I made my choices based on 1 game and not a hybrid between the two of them played multiple times.
If I play once, choosing 1a is just taking money that’s already mine. If I play infinite times, 1b earns money faster because failing can be evened out.