> Frankly, all of this still reads as an a posteriori rationalization for finding the solution to the straightforward formulation of the puzzle counterintuitive
Luckily, when I was introduced to that problem many years ago it was presented correctly and the answer albeit counterintuitive was perfectly clear. Developing an intuition for it was also rather easy (what is the chance I guessed incorrectly at a first try? it's the answer).
What's above is my reaction to the incomplete formulation of the problem and an incorrect answer that follows.
The reason I'm so annoyed by this is because probability theory is very fragile and only works when applied with absolute precision. If you follow your approach with the Two Envelopes Problem and make some "reasonable assumptions", you get a crazy answer (always switch). And people who are in the business of logic puzzles rather than probability theory wouldn't even know the difference.
Therefore I would rather discourage people from working on logic puzzles and suggest doing the actual math instead.
Luckily, when I was introduced to that problem many years ago it was presented correctly and the answer albeit counterintuitive was perfectly clear. Developing an intuition for it was also rather easy (what is the chance I guessed incorrectly at a first try? it's the answer).
What's above is my reaction to the incomplete formulation of the problem and an incorrect answer that follows.
The reason I'm so annoyed by this is because probability theory is very fragile and only works when applied with absolute precision. If you follow your approach with the Two Envelopes Problem and make some "reasonable assumptions", you get a crazy answer (always switch). And people who are in the business of logic puzzles rather than probability theory wouldn't even know the difference.
Therefore I would rather discourage people from working on logic puzzles and suggest doing the actual math instead.