Doyle Brunson, early in his marriage, learned that the answer to that
question should always be, "Oh, about even."
Cogno
-----Original Message-----
From: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vpFREE@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Frank
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 2:27 PM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] The Impossible Question
In line with our current discussion about how people perceive their results
in discreet slices of time that begin and end primarily in their own minds.
I have constructed the following thought experiment. Hope you like it.
The Impossible Question
You're in Las Vegas for a three day vacation. It's about five o'clock in the
afternoon of your second day in Vegas. You saunter into your hotel room
whereupon your significant other asks you a simple question, "How are you
doing today in the casino?". Your goal is to answer as truthfully as
possible without confabulation or obfuscation. There is no need to sugar
coat the truth or deceive, as you budgeted appropriately for the trip. You
simply need to answer the question accurately. Why should this be difficult?
Well, I'm getting to that.
Here's your data:
You arrived yesterday afternoon at 4PM and played your favorite machine from
5PM-7PM until dinner time and lost $200. After dinner you resumed play on
the same machine and played for six hours straight, losing $600. However,
during this six hours of continuous play on the same machine the date
changed halfway through. Before midnight you were only down $200. After
midnight you lost an additional $400. At 4AM you went to bed for the night
and only slept 3 hours, returning to your machine at 8AM after a quick
breakfast. During this play session you made back +$100 and then, still
tired from your long night, decided to lie down for a quick nap, which
turned into 2 hours and fifty minutes. Upon rising from your nap you again
returned to your favorite machine and hit a Royal, winning $700 after losses
and a tip, before your date with destiny and the impossible question your
loved one was about to ask.
"How are you doing today in the casino?"
Here's a list of the data points:
1.Afternoon first day = -200
2.After dinner before midnight -200 (part of continuous 6 hours session)
3.After midnight = -400 (part of continuous 6 hours session) 4.After going
to sleep for 3 hours = +100 5.After 2 hour 50 min nap = +700
The obvious problem here is figuring out when your "day" started. You did
not go to bed before midnight and get up in the morning, and so have two
totally different time scales working in opposition. You could use when you
went to sleep and when you got up as the start of your day. But if we are
using sleep as a determiner of when your day started, then your nap was only
ten minutes shorter than your "sleep for the night".
Please list a single one sentence numerical answer for the question.
Example: I'm up $X today honeybee.
Then list all your thought processes and justify your answer in as much
detail as you can muster.
There is no right or wrong answer to the question itself; This is about the
justifications.
~FK
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