DescentBB

I was just watching \"Deal or No Deal\" 10 mins ago. I'm prettysure most countrys have their own local versions of it so i hope you know how it works. If you don't, i can simplify it by saying that it's a gambling game of chance - the further you go - the more you risk. If you risk it right to the end you could perhaps win $200,000 or you could win only 50cents. If you stop the game and \"make a deal\" before it's over, you'll walk away with a specified amount of $ somewhere inbetween. There's no real skill involved other than perhaps knowing your odds.

Anyway on today's episode of it, the contestant said that he had a dream last night that \"he went all the way to the end, and the final suitcase which was numbered 14... it ended up containing the $200,000 which means he won and totally pwned the game as you can't win anymore than $200,000 - it's the top figure\".
Back to the waking world though: on the show he actually ends up getting all the way to the end of the game, against HUGE odds. The only suitcases left are $0.50 and $200,000, which are both the smallest and largest amounts available in the game (which in itself is a huge coincidence). This means that this is the biggest risk possible in the game! After much thinking, the guy finally gives up and takes the deal, which is $100,000 (still not too bad).

Then afterwards they check the suitcase to see if he would have won if he played on, and he would have won $200,000!

That means that THE NIGHT BEFORE HE ACCURATELY DREAMED THAT HE WOULD HAVE SUITCASE 14 AND IT WOULD CONTAIN $200,000 IF HE TOOK IT!!!

it was amazing. and i'm sure he felt cheated afterwards thinking that \"if only he had trusted his dream he'd have 2X as much money\"

What do you make of that? Do you think that dreams can actually effect reality?

Roidy, you said it yourself. What are the odds to win a game like that... They are not more to dream a winning trajectory than the actually play a winning trajectory... So the only thing that remains is the fact that he dreamed about the game rather than something else.. Well, his mind was pretty much set on it full with anticipation, probably..

It's just improbable, not impossible.

Hmm, well i just checked the rules and it seems that the contestant actually DOES choose the case number to be placed on the podium, it's the first thing the contestant does. Since he had that dream - it would make sense to choose the case number from his dream. So i guess there's no big wow there.

- The chance of him choosing $200,000 as his podium case is 1 in 26.
- Then since he gradually eliminates all the rest of the cases, the chance of him NOT eliminating the $0.50 case until the final play would also be 1 in 26 (or 1 in 25, i'm unsure). This is simply the chance of him attaining the highest possible risk choice on his final choice. It just makes for great tellevision more than anything. (it doesn't effect the amount of money he will get if he plays till the end and inherits the podium case - which turned out to be $200,000). i'm not sure i did the odds right on this part. i suck at math

how do you add these odds together into one figure? would it be 1 in 676 perhaps?

Then the chance of him actually mentioning his dream early on in the show seems very unlikely, he must have first mentioned it at the start of the show when he chose the podium suitcase from his dream to be his podium suitcase on the show. I don't think i've heard ANYONE mention a dream on the show before, but it could be possible that they get more footage than they need and just edit out any mentions of dreams (unless they come true) along with other stuff before they air it to tweak the airtime & the drama/suspense quotent of each show.


So if my math was right the odds are 1 in 676, PLUS the chances of him having a dream the night before, PLUS the chances of him announcing his dream on the show (which i've never seen before).
the final odds seem pretty out there.

I hate that gameshow, it's too tense for my liking

roid wrote:So if my math was right the odds are 1 in 676

How many contestants have there been on the show? 1/676 isn't all that unbelievable.

And another important thing to remember. What you see is affected by the PEOPLE who run the show. I can see two ways that could have had a major affect on the outcome:

1:It seems that changing which case holds the money would be risky, but if it ups viewership, there is certainly a chance they would do it. It's been done before.

2:I doubt if you watched the show live. That means what you got was an edited version. And the twelve people who mentioned their dreams before all got it edited out because their dreams didn't match up and that was BORING.

None of which proves that the guys dream wasn't prophetic, just that it didn't have to be. You'll need much worse odds than that and a less easily manipulated enviornment before you convince we skeptics.

Kilarin

blarg

HEATHENS!!!

roid wrote:HEATHENS!!!

Ha!

Kilarin

roid wrote:- Then since he gradually eliminates all the rest of the cases, the chance of him NOT eliminating the $0.50 case until the final play would also be 1 in 26 (or 1 in 25, i'm unsure). This is simply the chance of him attaining the highest possible risk choice on his final choice. It just makes for great tellevision more than anything. (it doesn't effect the amount of money he will get if he plays till the end and inherits the podium case - which turned out to be $200,000). i'm not sure i did the odds right on this part. i suck at math

I don't think this is right because there are multiple choices involved. I don't know exactly how you add odds but it would be 25 in 26 + 24 in 25 plus 23/24 plus 22/23 etc etc as the seperate odds of not picking $0.50 from the remaining pool. If I gather correctly from your post that he chooses 1 at a time.

yes but you could also say that he simply chooses one case to go LAST, then elliminates all the others.
i get your point, but i chose my way because it seemed easier to mathemicate.

hah i just made that word up

Hmmm...

The contestant dreamed that

1. He went all the way to the end of the game and won $200,000.

2. The final suitcase was numbered 14 out of 26 suitcases.

In the game,

1. The contestant did not go all the way to the end, but instead took a deal.

2. The final suitcase was indeed numbered 14 out of 26.

Furthermore, we have the occurance that the consestant dreamed about the game the night before playing it. Since it's well established that we dream about what's on our minds, and assuming he knew he would play, let's count this one has high enough probability to ignore.

Given that the contestant dreamed about the game, the probability that the winning suitcase number from his dream would match the winning suitcase number in the game is 1/26. (Whatever he dreamed, there's a 1/26 chance that the real suitcase would match it.)

Furthermore, since one of the predictions from his dream failed to come true (he didn't go all the way to the end, he stopped), that weakens the dream as a predictor of reality. However, it did predict he'd get to the very end of the game, so we have a coincidence of the order of magnitude of probability that he'd get to the end of the game. (Which I can't caluclate, not knowing the rules, but assuming it consists of picking the winning suitcase and not stopping along the way, we've already pretty much accounted for it.)

So we have a true prediction on the order of 1/26 and a false prediction. That's a very weak specification--on the order of an everyday occurance. Keep your eyes peeled for an entire day, and you'll almost certainly observe a coincidence more unlikely than that.

Conclusion - the dream's coincidence with reality can be explained in terms of known human psychology and the high-probability rules of the game.

The final choice of the suitcases with $200,000 and $0.50 deserves special attention. The first consideration is the bare probability of this occurance. Assuming it involves nothing more difficult than choosing those two suitcases, the probability is 1/26*1/25 = 1/650. However, you have to factor in the \"you noticed it because it happened\" element. How many other selections of suitcases would have seemed \"as special\" to you? Since you're looking at the \"most dramatic\" possibility at that stage of the game, ignoring the probability that he would make it that far, this can can only specify one thing. It's therefore fair to consider the 1/650 the true significance of the event.

This does not figure into the dream affecting the game, as this was not dreamed. So we have a coincidence with probability 1/650. That's not too bad; you've just observed something rare. Roughly as rare as that one time my groceries rang up at $6.66. Those are always fun when they happen.

Now, if it had happened before--say two or three times over the course of a couple dozen episodes--you might begin suspecting that the game was rigged to increase the drama...

Phoenix Red wrote:

roid wrote:- Then since he gradually eliminates all the rest of the cases, the chance of him NOT eliminating the $0.50 case until the final play would also be 1 in 26 (or 1 in 25, i'm unsure). This is simply the chance of him attaining the highest possible risk choice on his final choice. It just makes for great tellevision more than anything. (it doesn't effect the amount of money he will get if he plays till the end and inherits the podium case - which turned out to be $200,000). i'm not sure i did the odds right on this part. i suck at math

I don't think this is right because there are multiple choices involved. I don't know exactly how you add odds but it would be 25 in 26 + 24 in 25 plus 23/24 plus 22/23 etc etc as the seperate odds of not picking $0.50 from the remaining pool. If I gather correctly from your post that he chooses 1 at a time.

Ah, an interesting math conundrum. On the one hand, he could just mentally pick the $0.50 case beforehand and then eliminate all the others. That *should* give him a 1/25 chance. Does it work out that way if he tries to avoid picking the $0.50 case every round?

Round 1: There are 25 cases. The odds of not picking the $0.50 one are 24/25.

Round 2: There are 24 cases left. The odds of not picking the $0.50 one are 23/24.

At this point, the odds of not having picked the $0.50 case yet are the same as not having picked it the first round and not having picked it the second round. That multiplies. Total odds are now 24/25 * 23/24.

...

Round 24: There are 2 cases left. Odds of eliminating the last one that isn't the $0.50 case are 1/2. Total odds are now...

24/25 * 23/24 * 22/23 * 21/22 * ... * 2 /3 * 1/2

You can use a ginormous calculator to figure all of this out, or you can cancel like crazy. Either way, when all of the smoke clears you get...

1/25

Ooooh, mathemagical! Cool!