Building a better biped: The easy answers

[Requia ☣]

A ball and a bat cost $1.10, the bat costs $1 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost?




The correct answer is 5 cents, most people (as much as 87% in some studies) answer 10.
This is not a hard question though, any grade school student should be able to answer this correctly.  And most people do get the question right when the numbers are less kind to human consumption (two objects total 37 cents, one is 13 cents more than the other), presumably because it is harder to do.  No easy answers mean that it must be processed the hard way, instead of the deceptive simple solution to the ball and bat problem. 

We latch on to that easy answer too, when presented with the correct answer and the incorrect answer side by side, half of respondents still went with the 10 cent answer to the question.  An improvement over the two thirds incorrect in the control condition, but hardly resounding success at removing the bias.

There is I think, a very deep flaw in human reasoning.  Once we have that simple solution, we simply stop thinking about the problem.  And the ball and bat problem is math, it can be proved, with 100% certainty, that the easy answer is wrong.  How much more dangerous are simple and wrong solutions to complex problems, where the simple solution is not so easy to disprove, and there may be no correct answer waiting to replace it?

[Adios]

My brain works pretty straight forward. After reading this I would still answer $.10.

[P3nT4gR4m]

fucking maths 

[Adios]

fucking maths 

It's not deep maths.

You have $1.10

You buy 1 item for $1.00

That leaves $0.10 left.

The statement that item 1 costs $1.00 more than item 2 completes the formula.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Not quite. $1.00 more than 10c = $1.10

1+0.1=1.1

That would make both items come in at 1.20 (1.1 + 0.1 = 1.2)

if ball=0.05 and the bat is 1.05 (1+0.05) then both items come to $1.10

Simples!

[Requia ☣]

fucking maths 

It's not deep maths.

You have $1.10

You buy 1 item for $1.00

That leaves $0.10 left.

The statement that item 1 costs $1.00 more than item 2 completes the formula.

But then the bat only costs 90 cents more than the ball.

[Adios]

Hawk,
going to go sit in a corner now.

FUCKERS

[Adios]

On a serious note some peoples brains are not wired for math. Mine isn't and never has been. People always tell me math is logical and damned if I can see any logic in it at all. Obviously.

Other things I can grasp easily and some people struggle with them. I wonder why that is.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Can totally relate - I'm okay with arithmetic (which this example is) but maths I'm fucking retarded at. I can add and subtract and, with a bit more head scratching, I can multiply and divide but my power to divide is severely limited with the pitfall happening at the point where you have to employ something called "long division"

Maths is when they introduce letters instead of or as well as numbers and you need to balance and solve. Fuck that shit - I can count but I have no fucking idea what balancing and solving even means, never mind the million and one stupid fucking ways those cunts at school tried to show me how to do it. Common denominators, factors, venn fucking diagrams, cartesian some bullshit or other... and then there was all that sin and cos and tan crap. I swear to this day they were just making shit up to make me feel stupid

[Adios]

Funny thing is when I was a carpenter I could just 'see' the solution to a fraction problem in my head. I have no idea how that happened either. Other guys would do the problem on a 2 X 4 after I would just spout the answer.
I even aced algebra in community college without understanding one iota of it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Meh. When I was at school I could english like a ninja and I could also biology the shit out of pretty much anybody but all the other subjects just confused the piss out of me. Except for history and geography - those struck me as straightforward enough memory tests which I was crap at on account of the amount of hash I went through at school.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Uhh the point isn't that math is hard.

[Adios]

Uhh the point isn't that math is hard.

There is I think, a very deep flaw in human reasoning.  Once we have that simple solution, we simply stop thinking about the problem.  And the ball and bat problem is math, it can be proved, with 100% certainty, that the easy answer is wrong.  How much more dangerous are simple and wrong solutions to complex problems, where the simple solution is not so easy to disprove, and there may be no correct answer waiting to replace it?


I think what we are trying to get at is why our brains tend to work the way Requia has accurately stated they do.

[Jasper]

Thoughts on building a better biped:

The problem isn't math, and it isn't exactly easy answers.  It's the human tendency to really cogitate as little as possible.

We are much more happy and comfortable when we can simply get through the day on force of habit alone.  Having to focus for too long, or too often, wears us out. 

A better biped would have a different policy on focus and attention.

[Adios]

Thoughts on building a better biped:

The problem isn't math, and it isn't exactly easy answers.  It's the human tendency to really cogitate as little as possible.

We are much more happy and comfortable when we can simply get through the day on force of habit alone.  Having to focus for too long, or too often, wears us out. 

A better biped would have a different policy on focus and attention.

True enough. If I had $1.10 in front of me I would have arrived at the right answer quickly. As it was I skimmed the statement and formed the answer without thinking deeper.

I wonder how much of life we skim on a daily basis?