Episode 307: What's in the BOX?
Very Bad Wizards22 Apr 2025

Episode 307: What's in the BOX?

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.

Episoder(335)

Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")

Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")

David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of Thought." We talk about his rejection of empiricist theories...

9 Des 20251h 21min

Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)

Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)

David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer's Odyssey, the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the greatest story ever told). We dive into the first two...

25 Nov 20251h 29min

Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")

Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")

David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but also ...

11 Nov 20251h 29min

Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from no...

28 Okt 20251h 35min

Episode 318: A PTA Meeting

Episode 318: A PTA Meeting

David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many co...

14 Okt 20251h 48min

Episode 317: For Shame

Episode 317: For Shame

What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder's "Towards a Deep ...

30 Sep 20251h 23min

Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")

Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")

David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting pow...

16 Sep 20251h 33min

Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)

Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of...

2 Sep 20251h 30min

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