Conditioning can destroy independence
ID: conditioning-can-destroy-independence
Return to pairwise independence does not imply joint independence, where are independent fair bits and is their exclusive or. Given , only and remain, each with conditional probability . Given , only and remain, again each with conditional probability . Consequently,The conditional marginal distributions are still fair, so their product has four entries in either case. The actual tables differ: given , and given . Thus unconditional independence need not survive conditioning. Observing whether two bits agree restricts their possible combinations; no physical interaction between the original trials is required to produce that information constraint.
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