Pick one or both boxes?

If you are a gambler, you pick B

If not, you take A and the certain money.

After the boxes had been decided I would flip a coin to decide which box I would choose.

If the super intelligent being was able to predict this correctly then he would be able to predict coin tosses correctly. At this point I would kidnap him and use him to make money on coin-tossing scenarios and still take rubbish odds of about 1.8.

Then I would come back onto the forum and annoy the hell out of everyone by going on endlessly about how I can make a profit long term even though I am not getting value because picking winners is important and not value.

Ahh that would be fun.

The game is set-up so that the super-intelligent being 'moves' first when he makes his prediction and sets up the boxes.

If you think that your decision has no impact on the box then you should chose A+B because you will always be better off whatever the being chose.

The problem is that this Being is super-intelligent, and work out how you think, before you do.  If we assume that the alien can PREDICT WHAT I WILL CHOSE 99% of the time then I should chose box B, he will know this and so I will take the filled box. (I can actually do a bit better than this by randomly picking B 99% of the time).

If the Being is 99% accurate across humans then I'm going to have to spend my time thinking about how other people think and how much information the being has about me etc etc... and I have to do some work now.

Its a good puzzle though.

B for me. Even if his ability amounts to nothing more than being able to spot the sort of w@nkers who say "look he's already filled the boxes, what does it matter if I choose both" then if my box B doesn't contain a million I'll at least have the satisfaction of saying to him "are you calling me a w@nk" and then sticking the nut on him.

Castiron and U.A. the game is not about which ONE box to choose.

You have the choice of getting the contents of BOTH box A AND B, or only box B.

Apparently many (smart) people answer the question like this:

At the time you pick, the choice has already been made, so if you pick both boxes, you can't possibly get less than if you only take box B.

If you think that your decision has no impact on the box then you should chose A+B because you will always be better off whatever the being chose.
The problem is that this Being is super-intelligent, and work out how you think, before you do

That last sentence is key. Of course you can't change the past by changing your decision, if you are going to pick both boxes and then change your mind at the last moment, the contents of the box don't change. The point is that whatever thought process you use to arrive at your decision, will likely have been anticipated by the being.

I've heard this problem being talked about as punishing rational behaviour (picking both boxes for the reason above is supposed to be rational). The REAL rational choice is to accept that the being is smarter than you, and to forget trying to understand how that is possible.

Anyway I agree with feck and pick box B. I prefer this to making a randomised choice of picking box B 99% of the time as the being does not work against me, if he thinks I'll pick box B, it will be filled with £1M. My thoughts on the matter are pretty clear, and I would assume the 1% error rate is due to some people being 'on the fence' and not sure which choice to make, making their actions less predictable. Therefore my chance of getting £1M could be higher than 99%.

I think the randomized picking of boxes would only be the optimal strategy if the being was working against you.

Yeah sorry i did actually mean option when i said box.

In all honesty i would still flip for it. If you take it out of your control and leave it to pure chance to decide he can't legislate for that. If he could then I would assume he would be 100% accurate rather than 99%+.

It's a bit like how some poker players play, if you don't look at your cards until it's your turn to stake no-one can possible "read you" and try to figure out what hand you've got before that point.

At this time in the morning I''m just enjoying the thought of Feck sticking the nut on the super intelligent being.

Am I understanding this correctly ?

  If I pick both boxes I have 1 % chance of getting the million and if I pick box B I have 99 % chance of getting the million ?

  I'd say you would have to be pretty stupid to choose both boxes.....

Correcting myself here, the last sentence should be .

I'd say you would either have to be pretty stupid or extremely desperate to get the 1 k in order to choose both boxes.....

Why isn't there a Box C ?

Is this the best game the super intelligent being can come up with.
I prefer Goldenballs.

If we know the super intelligent being is performing to the rules set out above then everyone will pick box B. If we don't know he's performing to those rules everyone will pick both boxes.

So do we know in advance or not? If we don't know in advance the whole scenario is a farce.