Causal Stories

Story 78

Alex is playing a board game. Every turn in the game, you simultaneously roll two six-sided dice and flip a coin. Alex will either win or lose the game on his next turn. Alex will only win the game if the total of his dice roll is greater than 11 AND the coin comes up heads. It is very unlikely that he will roll higher than 11, but the coin has equal odds of coming up heads or tails. Alex flips the coin and rolls his dice at exactly the same time. The coin comes up heads, and he rolls a 12, so amazingly, he rolled greater than 11. Alex wins the game.

Question

Did Alex win because of the coin flip?

Majority Answer: Yes

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.72 P(No): 0.28

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Action Omission: Action

Causal Structure: Conjunctive

Event Normality: Normal

Norm Type: Statistical Norm

Time: Same Time Cause