>>16702962>Not that how the person choosing was physically able to choose even matters as long as you're told they did.Yes, it does matter, because as I told you, that person is me. And even if I were blind, if I get to somehow evaluate the balls and make a deliberate selection, I would know for certain which box it is. You keep insisting "it's not part of the problem" but it is, it's part of the scenario described and you're handwaving it because you can't admit that your clever little trick is ill-conceived. Note, again, that there is no such room for quibbling in the original. I'm asked to imagine something and I answer the question as if I'm in that situation. And that's why it makes sense for it to address me, the reader, in the second person.
>How does that help you outside the scenario?It helps me in the scenario, is the point.
>Then tell me the answer.Okay. It's relatively straightforward, really: in the hypothetical where I selected a box with two gold balls, I know that it contains two gold balls. In the hypothetical where it contains one silver ball, I know that it contains one silver ball. In either case I would be able to tell you with 100% confidence.
>Erm but you don't know which if these hypotheticals it is!How wouldn't I?
>You flip a fair coin and look at it. What is the probability it is heads up?You say I look at it but obviously you're asking me to judge the probability before I look. I.e. *if* I were to look, what might it be? If I *have looked* then, well, as you say, the probability of a past event is 1.
In your ball problem, though (or should I say bollocks problem), you are asking me to *select for gold* and then judge the probability *afterwards*, which necessarily entails me having looked in the box already or otherwise evaluated its contents. Again, the probability of a past event is...?