The part to note is that almost all of this is a red herring. Its irrelevant if she remembers or not. Its just word play to get us out of the raw math. The odds are still the same.
Flip heads, 1 result
Flip tails, 2 results
Put the pile of results as total possible outcomes. You have 3 possible outcomes. In two of the outcomes, tails was flipped. Put it in a hat and draw one. You have a 2/3rd chance that its a tails outcome.
To be clear, it is a 50/50 shot as to whether heads or tails is picked. Meaning that both are equally like to occur. But since we have more outcomes on tails, and we're looking at the probability of what already happened based on outcomes, not prediction of what will happen, its a 2/3rds chance for tails. — Philosophim
The issue with her remembering or not is that if, as part of the protocol, she could remember her Monday awakening when the coin landed tails and she is being awakened again on Tuesday, she would be able to deduce that the coin landed Tails with certainty and, when she couldn't remember it, she could deduce with certainty that "today" is Monday — Pierre-Normand
Your argument in favor of the Thirder credence that the coin landed Tails (2/3) relies on labeling the awakening episodes "the outcomes". But what is it that prevents Halfers from labelling the experimental runs "the outcomes" instead? — Pierre-Normand
Correct. My point was that its just used as a word problem way of saying, "We have 3 outcomes we reach into a hat and pull from" — Philosophim
Because there are two different outcomes. One with one day, and one with two days. If you pick any day and have no clue if its a day that resulted from a heads or tails outcome, its a 2/3rds chance its the tails outcome. The heads and tails is also irrelevant. The math is, "Its as equally likely that we could have a series of one day or two day back to back in this week. If you pick a day and you don't know the outcome or the day, what's the odds its a tails day vs a heads day?"
The odds of whether its head or tails is irrelevant since they are the same and can be effectively removed from the problem.
So, now you are back to treating experimental runs rather than awakening runs as the "outcomes". This sort of ambiguity indeed is the root cause of the misunderstanding that befalls Halfers and Thirders in their dispute. — Pierre-Normand
I'm not seeing the ambiguity here, but maybe I'm not communicating clearly. There are two outcomes based on context. — Philosophim
But Sleeping Beauty isn't being asked about specific kinds of outcomes explicitly. Rather she is being asked about her credence regarding the current state of the coin. She can reason that the current state of the coin is Tails if and only if she is currently experiencing a T-awakening and hence that the current state of the coin is twice as likely to be Tails than it is to be Heads. But she can also reason that the current state of the coin is Tails if and only if she is currently experiencing a T-run and hence that the current state of the coin is equally as likely to be Tails than it is to be Heads. — Pierre-Normand
She can reason that its equally likely that the result of the coin flip is 50/50, but that doesn't mean its likely that the day she is awake is 50/50. — Philosophim
Lets flip it on its head and note how the likelihood that she would be wrong.
If she always guesses heads, she's wrong twice if its tails. If she always guesses tails, she's only wrong once. Thus, she is twice as likely to be wrong if she guesses heads on any particular day woken up, and twice as likely to guess correctly if she guesses tails. If the total odds of guessing correctly were 50/50, then she would have an equal chance of guessing correctly. She does not.
Sure, but the former precisely is what she is being asked. She is being asked what her credence about the coin will be on that occasion, and not what the proportion of such occasions are that are T-occasions. — Pierre-Normand
I would say she is being asked what the odds are of it being a day in which a T side vs a H side coins is flipped. — Philosophim
If she's only being asked what the percent chance of the coin ended up being at, the answer is always 50/50. The odds of the coin flip result don't change whether its 1 or 1,000,000 days. What changes is from the result of that coin flip, and that is the pertinent data that is important to get an accurate answer.
This is very similar to the old Monty Hall problem. You know the three doors, make a guess, then you get to make another guess do you stay or change?
On the first guess, its always a 1/3 shot of getting the door wrong(sic). But it can also be seen as a 2/3 chance of getting the door wrong. When given another chance, you simply look at your first set of odds and realize you were more likely than not wrong, so you change your answer. The result matches the odds.
Same with the situation here. Run this experiment 100 times and have the person guess heads 50 times, then tails 50 times. The person who guesses tails every time 50 times will be right 2/3rds of the time more than the first. Since outcomes ultimately determine if we are correct in our odds, we can be confident that 1/2 odds is incorrect.
By the way, very nice discussion! I appreciate your insight and challenging me to view things I might not have considered.
On the occasion of an awakening, what is Sleeping Beauty's expectation that when the experiment is over ... — Pierre-Normand
The issue with her remembering or not is that if, as part of the protocol, she could remember her Monday awakening when the coin landed tails and she is being awakened again on Tuesday, she would be able to deduce that the coin landed Tails with certainty and, when she couldn't remember it, she could deduce with certainty that "today" is Monday (and that the probability of Tails is 1/2). That would be a different problem, and no problem at all. — Pierre-Normand
On the occasion of an awakening, what is Sleeping Beauty's expectation that when the experiment is over ...
— Pierre-Normand
This is what invalidates your variation. She is asked during the experiment, not before or after. Nobody contests what her answer should be before or after. And you have not justified why her answer inside the experiment should be the same as outside. — JeffJo
Here's one more attempt. It's really the same thing that you keep dodging by changing the timing of the question, and claiming that I have "vallid thirder logic" while ignoring that it proves the halfer logic to be inconsistent.
Get three opaque note cards.
On one side of different cards, write "Monday and Heads," "Monday and Tails," and "Tuesday and Tails.
Turn the cards over, shuffle them around, and write "A," "B," and "C" on the opposite sides.
Before waking SB on the day(s) she is to be woken, put the appropriate card in the table in her room, with the letter side face up.
Let's say she sees the letter "B." She knows, as a Mathematical fact, that there was a 1/3 probability that "B" was assigned to the card with "Heads" written on the other side. And a 2/3 chance for "Tails."
By halfer logic, while her credence that "Heads" is written on the "B" card must be 1/3, her credence that the coin landed on Heads is 1/2. This is a contradiction - these two statements represent the same path to her current state of knowledge, regardless of what day it is.
Perhaps you didn't parse correctly. There is no ambiguity. If she is asked to project her state of knowledge on Wednesday, or to recall it from Sunday, of course the answer is 1/2.The reason this reference is made (to the future verification conditions) is to disambiguate the sense of the question, ... — Pierre-Normand
Remember: SB isn't betting on the card (neither is she betting on the current awakening episode). She's betting on the current coin toss outcome.
They ask her one question after each time she awakens, however: What is the probability that the coin shows heads.
Her Thirder-credence would then be pragmatically relevant to selecting the destination most likely to afford her a sunny trip. — Pierre-Normand
Under the Thirder interpretation, all three of those biconditionally related "experienced" events are actual on average 2/3 of the times that SB is experiencing a typical awakening episode. — Pierre-Normand
Perhaps you didn't parse correctly. There is no ambiguity. If she is asked to project her state of knowledge on Wednesday, or to recall it from Sunday, of course the answer is 1/2. — JeffJo
I keep looking at the problem, and I can't find a reference to betting anywhere. The reason I don't like using betting is because anybody can re-define how and when the bet is made and/or credited, in order to justify the answer they like. One is correct, and one is wrong.
So, if a bet were to exist, and assuming she uses the same reasoning each time? She risks her $1 during the interview, and is credited her winnings then also. If she bets $1 on Heads with 2:1 odds, she gains $2 if the coin landed Heads, and loses 2*$1 if it landed on Tails. If she bets on Tails with 1:2 odds, she loses $1 if the coin landed Heads, and gains 2*$0.50=$1 if it landed Tails.
But if she bets $1 on Heads with 1:1 odds, she gains $1 if the coin landed Heads, and loses 2*$1=$2 if it landed on Tails. If she bets on Tails with 1:1 odds, she loses $1 if the coin landed Heads, and gains 2*$1=$2 if it landed Tails.
The answer, to the question that was asked and not what you want it to be, is 1/3.
Again, there's not much sense in this so-called "pragmatically relevant" credence. Even before being put to sleep – and even before the die is rolled – I know both that the die is most likely to not land on a 6 and that betting that it did will offer the greater expected return in the long run. So after waking up I can – and will – continue to know that the die most likely did not land on a 6 and that betting that it did will offer the greater expected return in the long run, and so I will bet against my credence.
With respect to "pragmatic relevance", Thirder reasoning is unnecessary, so if there's any sense in it it must be somewhere else. — Michael
My argument is that a rational person should not – and would not – reason this way when considering their credence, and this is most obvious when I am woken up 2^101 times if the coin lands heads 100 times in a row (or once if it doesn't).
It is true that if this experiment were to be repeated 2^101 times then we could expect 2/3 of all awakenings to occur after the coin landed heads every time, but it's also irrelevant.
Uh, yeah?Your argument in favor of the Thirder credence that the coin landed Tails (2/3) relies on labeling the awakening episodes "the outcomes". — Pierre-Normand
Because it is not both Monday, and Tuesday, when she is asked the question? What else may or may not happen is irrelevant.But what is it that prevents Halfers from labelling the experimental runs "the outcomes" instead?
A "scoring procedure" based on imagined repeats is a way of testing your probabilities, not of defining it. It does not work in the SB problem, as should be painfully obvious, because each side will define the number of trials differently since repeated runs require looking at more than one outcome, and the number changes based on the subject event.That's right, and this is a good argument favoring the Thirder position but it relies on explicitly introducing a scoring procedure that scores each occasion that she has to express her credence: once for each awakening episode. — Pierre-Normand
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