Episode 307: What's in the BOX?

Very Bad Wizards

Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David and Tamler talk about two famous puzzles that for different reasons have bedeviled the rationalist community – The Monty Hall Problem and Newcomb’s “paradox.” Why is it so hard for people to see that a 66% chance of winning a car is better than a 33% chance? Why do famous mathematicians struggle with this problem? And David and Tamler split on the Newcomb case – can you guess which one of us is the one boxer?

Plus since we’re basically a TV recap podcast now, some thoughts on White Lotus Season 3.

The White Lotus [imdb.com]

Monty Hall Problem [wikipedia.org]

Numberphile on the Monty Hall Problem [youtube.com]

Newcomb's "Paradox" [wikipedia.org]

Nozick, R. (1969). Newcomb’s problem and two principles of choice. In Essays in honor of carl g. hempel: A tribute on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (pp. 114-146). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Vizarro,
0:06.0	having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.
0:09.4	Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say,
0:13.6	and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.
0:17.1	Oh, what's in the box?
0:18.5	What's in the fucking box? Who are you?
0:21.6	Who are you?
0:22.6	Who are you? Who are you?
0:38.3	Who are you?
0:40.3	A very bad man.
0:42.3	I'm a very good man.
0:44.3	Good man.
0:45.3	They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have.
0:52.3	May no attention tonight, man.
0:59.0	Anybody can have a brain?
1:02.8	You're a very bad man.
1:05.2	I'm a very good man.
1:07.1	Just a very bad wizard.
1:10.0	Welcome to Very Bad Wizards.
1:11.3	I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston.
1:14.2	Dave, things are pretty grim right now in the U.S. to put it mildly.
1:19.0	Can you give us all some good reasons not to feel hopeless?
	...

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