this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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tldr: Always flip the switch
Edited with some of TauZero's suggested changes.
So as it turns out, the total population is irrelevant. If you get abducted, the probability that the villain rolled a 6 is 2/3, and the probability of rolling anything else is its complement, so 1/3.
Let's say you want to maximize your chances of survival. We'll only consider the scenario where you have control of the tracks.
If you want to maximize your own probability of survival, you flip the switch.
As for expected number of deaths, assuming you have control of the tracks:
So to minimize the expected number of casualties, you still want to flip the switch.
No matter what your goal is, given the information you have, flipping the switch is always the better choice.
I am always surprised how my first guess gets wrecked by Bayes rule. I would have thought that there is 5/6 chance I am on side track and 1/6 that I am on the main track.
Excellent excellent!
Might as well reduce that to 10/N to make the rest of the lines easier to read.
There is also a chance that your switch is not connected and someone else has control of the real one. So there is an implicit assumption that everyone else is equally logical as you and equally selfish/altruistic as you, such that whatever logic you use to arrive at a decision, they must have arrived at the same decision.
That is my conclusion too! I was surprised to learn though in the comment thread with @pancake that the decision may be different depending on the percentage of altruism in the population. E.g. if you are the only selfish one in an altruistic society, you'd benefit from deliberately not flipping the switch. Being a selfish one in a selfish society reduces to the prisoner's dilemma.
Ah, yes. I forgot to account for that in my calculations. I'll maybe rework it when I find time tomorrow.