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The prisoner has survived the first day! But up to four more days of peril remain...

How long can he survive?

Interesting that it hasn't gone down in the last few hours, despite it being only an hour until midnight.

Shouldn't this be going down a few percent per hour at this point?

@DavidBolin It should be going down now. The exact amount depends on people's priors for when I will resolve it. For example, the probability might not go down that much during the wee hours of the morning under the assumption that I'm likely asleep at that time, so the probability that it would resolve then, given that today is the day, is low (although, incidentally, I was actually awake for a lot of the early-morning hours today). People might also consider it especially unlikely that I would resolve it very early in the day today, since this is the first day of potential doom, so it would be less exciting if I just immediately resolved it.

@JosephNoonan By the way, what counts as Monday? Monday in which time zone?

@AlekseyVoropaev Central Time zone. That was mentioned in the "Will it be a surprise?" market, but I guess I didn't explicitly put it in the description here (although I assumed it was implicit given the closure time).

We don't know when this will be resolved. AFAICS the 5 markets might all be closed at end of week then the 5 resolved, one to yes a week after we expect. So I am not sure how much the % here should decline if at all or how quickly if it should. But having said this, it is going to be a surprise so maybe it won't work like that.

@ChristopherRandles No, the one that resolves to YES will be resolved during that day:

> I will resolve one of the markets to YES on the day mentioned in its title

@rpominov possibly yes. ***The day*** mentioned in the title is "Monday". Does that say which Monday?

@ChristopherRandles

This market is one of five markets that will resolve on August 21 to August 25.

So yes, it does in fact say which Monday

Hmm, seems to be a weird disconnect between this market trading so low and the "will it be a surprise" market not being higher.

If you want to "win" and make it not be a surprise, you've got to get this over 50%!

The prisoner's first day of potential doom has begun! Will he survive to see tomorrow?

I can understand why someone still bets YES on Friday even though it's logically impossible, but why do you still bet YES on Monday given it already has passed??

@rpominov It starts next week.

@CertaintyOfVictory Missed it, Thanks!

@rpominov This is the next week.

That said, it is not "logically impossible" for it to be Friday anymore than it is logically impossible for the king to write those words in the boxes and then put the dagger in that box.

That being said, I don't see any reason to doubt that Plasma is trying to tell the truth here, which means there is absolutely not a 20% chance it will be Friday. It is probably being resolved by a random choice between Mon & Tue or Mon, Tue & Wed.

@DavidBolin Yeah, I added "logically" to hint on that. Still possible but not according to rules and logic

@DavidBolin Plasma doesn’t say when it will be a surprise. If it doesn’t happen by Thursday, some people will be surprised.

@JimHays

No one will know what day it's going to happen until I resolve one of the markets YES.

Doesn't this contradict what you say? I think Plasma is saying that people will be surprised on the day itself

@Fion Yes, you’re right, though I think it could still be Friday because the Friday market can resolve YES on Friday before the Thursday market resolves NO, right?

@JimHays I don't think it could resolve before the Thursday market, but I guess they could be just either side of midnight?

Or have I misunderstood? Do the markets get left open after the day ends?

@Fion “I will resolve one of the markets to YES on the day mentioned in its title, and the other four will be resolved to NO.”

To me, that seems left open to interpretation as to when the NO markets will be resolved. My guess is that the NO market for each day will not resolve until the following day.

@DavidBolin I can't tell you how I chose the day, since then it wouldn't be a surprise. It's up to you to infer whether you think I would allow for Friday to be a possibility or not.

@JosephNoonan That may be, but I will consider you a dishonest person (for the purpose of considering whether to bet in your markets in the future) if you select Friday.

@JosephNoonan I guess technically you could flip a coin to decide to resolve it to Thu or Fri 1 second before or after midnight on Thu. But I will still consider you dishonest in that event.

@DavidBolin As far as I see it, it’s a surprise at the moment the judge announces the paradox. So all days have a 20% chance. It might no longer be a surprise during the week but the paradox doesn’t say anything about that

@NiciusB In that case there would be no paradox at all, and this would be a very boring situation

@rpominov Yeah it is

@NiciusB The idea behind the unexpected hanging paradox is that the prisoner will still be surprised when the executioner knocks on his door. That's why he can reason that the hanging won't take place on Friday, since he would know on Thursday night that that's what day it would be, so it would no longer be a surprise. And then he continues the chain of reasoning back through earlier days. But the reasoning has to break down somewhere, since the prisoner is in fact surprised.

One argument would be that it breaks down when going from Thursday to Friday, which seems to be reflected in these markets: Friday is at a lower probability, while the other three are about equal, and some commenters argue that it would be dishonest of me to have the prisoner die on Friday. This is analogous to the prisoner's reasoning that the judge wouldn't be keeping his word is he was executed on Friday.

@JosephNoonan the other side of this is that we are the prisoner here. exactly all our reasoning and even right until the end it could surprise us