The Sleeping Beauty Problem: How To Really Solve It?
A highly controversial decision theory puzzle!
The Sleeping Beauty problem is a decision theory puzzle that deals with the logic and uncertainty of experience. Arnold Zuboff originally proposed it in the 1980s. Later on, people such as Robert Stalnaker and Adam Elga popularised the problem.
The problem features a simple thought experiment involving Sleeping Beauty (the fairy tale princess). Beauty agrees to undergo a special decision theory experiment under controlled conditions. You and I are the professionals conducting the experiment.
The experiment begins on Sunday when you put Beauty to sleep using a special sleeping pill. Immediately after she falls asleep, I toss a fair coin. If the flip results in ‘heads’, we would wake Beauty up on Monday morning and conclude the experiment.
If the flip results in ‘tails’, we would still wake her up on Monday morning. But immediately after she wakes up, you would once again give her the special sleeping pill. After she falls asleep again, we would wake her up on Tuesday morning and conclude the experiment.
In either case, the special sleeping pill wipes her memory out, and each time she wakes up, we brief her about the details of the experiment.
