Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sleeping Beauty Paradox

Source: Tim Whitter's Paradoxical natures

Problem:  Its sleeping beauty paradox, quite famous.
I have not fathomed it out yet.

The paradox imagines that Sleeping Beauty volunteers to undergo the
 following experiment. On Sunday she is given a drug that sends her to sleep.
 A fair coin is then tossed just once in the course of the experiment to
determine which experimental procedure is undertaken. If the coin comes up
 heads, Beauty is awakened and interviewed on Monday, and then the
 experiment ends. If the coin comes up tails, she is awakened and interviewed
 on Monday, given a second dose of the sleeping drug, and awakened and
interviewed again on Tuesday. The experiment then ends on Tuesday,
 without flipping the coin again. The sleeping drug induces a mild amnesia,
so that she cannot remember any previous awakenings during the course of
the experiment (if any). During the experiment, she has no access to anything
 that would give a clue as to the day of the week. However, she knows all the details of the experiment.
Each interview consists of one question, "What is your credence now for the proposition that our coin landed heads?"

This problem is considered paradoxical because the answer is often given as either 1/3 or 1/2.

Think!! :)

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