Abstract
The Sleeping Beauty problem has spawned a debate between “thirders” and “halfers” who draw conflicting conclusions about Sleeping Beauty’s credence that a coin lands heads. Our analysis is based on a probability model for what Sleeping Beauty knows at each time during the experiment. We show that conflicting conclusions result from different modeling assumptions that each group makes. Our analysis uses a standard “Bayesian” account of rational belief with conditioning. No special handling is used for self-locating beliefs or centered propositions. We also explore what fair prices Sleeping Beauty computes for gambles that she might be offered during the experiment.
Rafael B. Stern
Professor of Statistics
I am an Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo. I have a B.A. in Statistics from the University of São Paulo, a B.A. in Law from Pontifícia Universidade Católica in São Paulo, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. I am currently a member of the Scientific Council of the Brazilian Association of Jurimetrics, an associate investigator at NeuroMat and a member of the Order of Attorneys of Brazil.