Thursday, November 06, 2008

sleeping beauty analog?

A procedure is going to be run to give values for an ordered pair (a,b). The value of the first parameter, a, is decided by a fair coin. The value of the second parameter, b, is decided as follows: (i) if a = 0, then b = 0, and (ii) if a = 1, then b = 0 or b = 1 (decided again by a fair coin).  The procedure is run; to what degree ought you believe that the procedure output 0 for the first parameter?

The answer is obvious. So in what important respect does the procedure above differ from the sleeping beauty scenario (if at all)? 
 

1 comment:

Brian Rabern said...

A procedure is going to be run to give values for an ordered pair (a,b). The value of the first parameter, a, is decided by a fair coin. The value of the second parameter, b, is also decided by a fair coin. The procedure is run; given that the pair (0,1) was not output, to what degree ought you believe that the procedure output 0 for the first parameter?

Why is this different?