Laffy Gone Wild

[lolly]

This was sent to my phone yesterday

They have alkali problems

[lolly]

Do da Maffs

[inavalan]

May 23, 2021 0:02:36 GMT -5 lolly said:

Do da Maffs

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

[lolly]

May 23, 2021 15:08:19 GMT -5 inavalan said:

May 23, 2021 0:02:36 GMT -5 lolly said:

Do da Maffs

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

If b is correct, there is a 25% chance of choosing at random... go figure.

[laughter]

May 23, 2021 15:08:19 GMT -5 inavalan said:

May 23, 2021 0:02:36 GMT -5 lolly said:

Do da Maffs

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

But, if that is the correct answer, when it is chosen at random, the random choice has exceeded the 0% probability of having chosen it.

[Deleted]

May 23, 2021 21:18:07 GMT -5 laughter said:

May 23, 2021 15:08:19 GMT -5 inavalan said:

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

But, if that is the correct answer, when it is chosen at random, the random choice has exceeded the 0% probability of having chosen it.

Yeah, it's the gameshow version of "This sentence is false." I wonder if this actually appeared on screen, or if this is a photoshop joke?

[laughter]

May 23, 2021 21:30:56 GMT -5 @robertc said:

May 23, 2021 21:18:07 GMT -5 laughter said:

But, if that is the correct answer, when it is chosen at random, the random choice has exceeded the 0% probability of having chosen it.

Yeah, it's the gameshow version of "This sentence is false." I wonder if this actually appeared on screen, or if this is a photoshop joke?

heh heh either it's a Dr. meme-joke or the author of the question didn't realize what they'd done. There are several yt vids about ambiguous math questions on standardized or even just a regular test that raise all manner of controversy. Some trivial - like, say, on order of operations - some quite involved.

The only way to salvage it is to declare it a special case. To wit, it's tempting to say:

"Since an argument can be made for each answer that the answer contradicts itself, we can say that the question has no correct answer." .. so, any cognitive dissonance here is based on the false assumption - overtly stated - that the question has a correct answer.

BUT .. there is a potential loophole.

The most common form of these question is that there are one or more correct answers .. regardless of the method of the answer (ie: randomly or deliberately chosen). We can introduce a loophole in this instance: that the correct answer to the question (0%) is only correct if it is not chosen at random.

Still though, that, at best, renders the question deceptive, deliberately so, and by the mechanisms of ambiguity and toying with the definition of the game. You could also say that 0% is the best bad answer.

[lolly]

May 23, 2021 21:30:56 GMT -5 @robertc said:

May 23, 2021 21:18:07 GMT -5 laughter said:

But, if that is the correct answer, when it is chosen at random, the random choice has exceeded the 0% probability of having chosen it.

Yeah, it's the gameshow version of "This sentence is false." I wonder if this actually appeared on screen, or if this is a photoshop joke?

I think there are Who Wants to be a Millionaire meme generators.

[laughter]

May 23, 2021 22:01:30 GMT -5 lolly said:

May 23, 2021 21:30:56 GMT -5 @robertc said:

Yeah, it's the gameshow version of "This sentence is false." I wonder if this actually appeared on screen, or if this is a photoshop joke?

I think there are Who Wants to be a Millionaire meme generators.

well, this particular use of it was pure genius. .. (heh heh .. that face ... heh heh ...)

[inavalan]

May 23, 2021 15:08:19 GMT -5 inavalan said:

May 23, 2021 0:02:36 GMT -5 lolly said:

Do da Maffs

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

In the reply above there is the link (click on the B) to the following explanation:

Corrado Lanera, Post-doc Machine Learning & Biostatistics Research at University of Padua (2020-present)
Answered May 3, 2021


So, first, we need to agree on two things:

1. one thing is what the question asks; another thing is what is asked of us (think of jacks who always lie and knights who always tell the truth, in a world in which each of us is a jack or a knight. We were asked, "if you were the other type, would you always lie?" If I am a jack (and I always lie), under the assumption that I was a knight, the correct answer to the question would be "no." Therefore, I would answer "yes" (because being a jack... I lie!)

2. A multiple-choice problem could have all wrong answers, only one correct, more than one but not all correct, or even all correct.

Having said that, having 4 answers to choose from, no matter what they are, there are only five possible options to be correct by answering at random: 0% (if they were all wrong), 25% (if only one was right), 50% if two were correct and two were wrong, 75% if three were correct and one was wrong, or 100% if they all were correct.

Now we come to our question. As in the example of the jacks and knights, the question put us in a hypothesis that is not "ours": it asks us what would happen if we answer at random, but we are reasoning! Our answer will be reasoned and not random, so the two answers in the two scenarios will not necessarily coincide!

So let's ask ourselves: IF I answer at random, "0%" could be a (possible) solution? No, because it is among the options, and so, at random, I could get it right with 25% probability... so let's exclude "0%" from the possible correct answers in the hypothesis that I answer at random. Now, since one of the possible selectable answers is wrong, we can also exclude "100%" from the potential answers (luckily... since it would not be among the possible options anyway 😂). Let's think now about "25%", could it be right? If it were, the probability of answering right by randomly guessing should be 25%, but since the answer "25%" is reported twice out of four, I would have a 50% probability of selecting it. Therefore it cannot be the right one (always under the assumption of randomly answering!). Now there is only one selectable option left among those listed (i.e., "50%"). Therefore we must also eliminate the answer "75%" among the potentially correct ones. It could be valid only if there were 3 out of 4 true ones, and the one left is reported only once out of four (again, not so bad since "75%" is not among the selectable options). We are left with only "50%", but it is reported only once out of four. Therefore, at random, it would be selectable with 25% probability... and therefore, selected at random, this answer would be wrong.

So, we have eliminated all possible answers (selectable or not, by the way)... that is, IF WE ANSWER RANDOMLY, every possible answer would be wrong!

So, IF WE ANSWER AT RANDOM, the probability of answer correctly would be 0% (Pay attention to that: answering "0%" at random would mean, as we showed before, giving a wrong answer!!).

So, since we are reasoning and NOT ANSWER RANDOMLY, we can correctly answer that the correct answer to the question, the option to select to win, is "0%". And that, because if we were answered randomly, the probability of answer correctly would be 0%!

Personal note: that is an excellent example of a question for which the (set of correct) answers change based on how one decides to answer! Thank you!

Basically: randomly you can't get it right, probability is 0%. When you pick B = 0% that is the result of reasoning.

[laughter]

May 23, 2021 23:31:06 GMT -5 inavalan said:

May 23, 2021 15:08:19 GMT -5 inavalan said:

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ...

Final answer: B 

In the reply above there is the link (click on the B) to the following explanation:

Corrado Lanera, Post-doc Machine Learning & Biostatistics Research at University of Padua (2020-present)
Answered May 3, 2021


So, first, we need to agree on two things:

1. one thing is what the question asks; another thing is what is asked of us (think of jacks who always lie and knights who always tell the truth, in a world in which each of us is a jack or a knight. We were asked, "if you were the other type, would you always lie?" If I am a jack (and I always lie), under the assumption that I was a knight, the correct answer to the question would be "no." Therefore, I would answer "yes" (because being a jack... I lie!)

2. A multiple-choice problem could have all wrong answers, only one correct, more than one but not all correct, or even all correct.

Having said that, having 4 answers to choose from, no matter what they are, there are only five possible options to be correct by answering at random: 0% (if they were all wrong), 25% (if only one was right), 50% if two were correct and two were wrong, 75% if three were correct and one was wrong, or 100% if they all were correct.

Now we come to our question. As in the example of the jacks and knights, the question put us in a hypothesis that is not "ours": it asks us what would happen if we answer at random, but we are reasoning! Our answer will be reasoned and not random, so the two answers in the two scenarios will not necessarily coincide!

So let's ask ourselves: IF I answer at random, "0%" could be a (possible) solution? No, because it is among the options, and so, at random, I could get it right with 25% probability... so let's exclude "0%" from the possible correct answers in the hypothesis that I answer at random. Now, since one of the possible selectable answers is wrong, we can also exclude "100%" from the potential answers (luckily... since it would not be among the possible options anyway 😂). Let's think now about "25%", could it be right? If it were, the probability of answering right by randomly guessing should be 25%, but since the answer "25%" is reported twice out of four, I would have a 50% probability of selecting it. Therefore it cannot be the right one (always under the assumption of randomly answering!). Now there is only one selectable option left among those listed (i.e., "50%"). Therefore we must also eliminate the answer "75%" among the potentially correct ones. It could be valid only if there were 3 out of 4 true ones, and the one left is reported only once out of four (again, not so bad since "75%" is not among the selectable options). We are left with only "50%", but it is reported only once out of four. Therefore, at random, it would be selectable with 25% probability... and therefore, selected at random, this answer would be wrong.

So, we have eliminated all possible answers (selectable or not, by the way)... that is, IF WE ANSWER RANDOMLY, every possible answer would be wrong!

So, IF WE ANSWER AT RANDOM, the probability of answer correctly would be 0% (Pay attention to that: answering "0%" at random would mean, as we showed before, giving a wrong answer!!).

So, since we are reasoning and NOT ANSWER RANDOMLY, we can correctly answer that the correct answer to the question, the option to select to win, is "0%". And that, because if we were answered randomly, the probability of answer correctly would be 0%!

Personal note: that is an excellent example of a question for which the (set of correct) answers change based on how one decides to answer! Thank you!

Basically: randomly you can't get it right, probability is 0%. When you pick B = 0% that is the result of reasoning.

Yeah, I just explained that. It's just a disingenuous hidden assumption, based on the obvious difference between a random or non-random choice. If you were a contestant, it would be easy to hide your random guess with a false sense of outward confidence.

And there's no need to resort to prepositional logic - implication being the most counterintuitive function - as it isn't necessary, nor is it directly applicable.

[Reefs]

May 23, 2021 0:02:36 GMT -5 lolly said:

Do da Maffs

Such a brilliant mind hook!

[lolly]

There are only 2 types of people in this world:

1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data

[inavalan]

May 26, 2021 21:31:52 GMT -5 lolly said:

There are only 2 types of people in this world:

1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data

Extrapolation at work ... "I will survive!" (a.k.a. "Alien Song")




Funny formulation ... "extrapolate from incomplete data" 

[lolly]

Here's one