Before drawing the cards, I decided randomly whether to “prefer” hearts or spades, so that if I had both cards I would tell you about the preferred one. That gives me twelve scenarios, of which five result in the answers that I gave you, of which I hold both aces in only one. Therefore 1⁄5.
If your second question was instead “Are you holding the Ace of Spades?” as in Scenario 1, then I’m twice as likely to answer “Yes” in the instance that I really have both aces as I was before—ie there are now six scenarios allowed by my answers and I hold aces in two, so the probability becomes 1⁄3 as stated.
This is too easy—where’s the catch? Is a more counterintuitive version of this on the way?
Before drawing the cards, I decided randomly whether to “prefer” hearts or spades, so that if I had both cards I would tell you about the preferred one. That gives me twelve scenarios, of which five result in the answers that I gave you, of which I hold both aces in only one. Therefore 1⁄5.
If your second question was instead “Are you holding the Ace of Spades?” as in Scenario 1, then I’m twice as likely to answer “Yes” in the instance that I really have both aces as I was before—ie there are now six scenarios allowed by my answers and I hold aces in two, so the probability becomes 1⁄3 as stated.
This is too easy—where’s the catch? Is a more counterintuitive version of this on the way?