The interesting thing to me is the thought process here, as I also knew what was being tested and corrected myself. But the intuitive algorithm for answering the question is to translate “which of these statements is more probable” with “which of these stories is more plausible.” And adding detail adds plausibility to the story; this is why you can have a compelling novel in which the main character does some incomprehensible thing at the end, which makes perfect sense in the sequence of the story.
The only way I can see to consistently avoid this error is to map the problem into the domain of probability theory, where I know how to compute an answer and map it back to the story.
The interesting thing to me is the thought process here, as I also knew what was being tested and corrected myself. But the intuitive algorithm for answering the question is to translate “which of these statements is more probable” with “which of these stories is more plausible.” And adding detail adds plausibility to the story; this is why you can have a compelling novel in which the main character does some incomprehensible thing at the end, which makes perfect sense in the sequence of the story.
The only way I can see to consistently avoid this error is to map the problem into the domain of probability theory, where I know how to compute an answer and map it back to the story.