Morendil comments on Drawing Two Aces - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (84)
(EDITED) Computing this the long way, by straightforward application of the product rule, yields probability 1/5.
There is a shortcut corresponding to argument 2. Call H the hypothesis that you have two aces, and E the evidence constituted by my confirming the ace I pick at random is spades. It turns out that P(E|H)=P(E|!H), so the evidence can't change my probability assignment. P(E|H) = P(spades | 2 aces) = 1/2. P(E|!H) = P (spades | 1 ace) = 1/2.
Now do it the long way: I start from P(2A,SR|A), that is, the probability that I hold two aces AND that I chose one at random, getting the ace of spaces, GIVEN that I hold one ace.
By the product rule P(2A,SR|A)=P(2A|SR,A)P(SR|A)=P(SR|2A,A)P(2A|A) and therefore the answer we seek is P(SR|2A,A)P(2A|A)/P(SR|A).
The numerator is easy. P(SR|2A,A)=P(SR|2A)=1/2 and P(2A|A) is as in scenario 2.
The denominator is trickier, requiring one more application of the product rule to get P(SR|A)=P(SR,A)/P(A) and factoring A into the six mutually exclusive possibilities to get P(SR,A). Of these the three which matter are (AS,2C),(AS,2D),(AS,AH) - for these P(SR)=1 for the first two and 1/2 for the last.
Numerically, P(SR|A) comes out to 1/2, which cancels out with the other 1/2, leaving the answer of 1/5. The reason they cancel out is precisely the "shortcut" above: P(SR|A)=P(SR|2A).