248 research outputs found
The end of Sleeping Beauty's nightmare
The way a rational agent changes her belief in certain
propositions/hypotheses in the light of new evidence lies at the heart of
Bayesian inference. The basic natural assumption, as summarized in van
Fraassen's Reflection Principle ([1984]), would be that in the absence of new
evidence the belief should not change. Yet, there are examples that are claimed
to violate this assumption. The apparent paradox presented by such examples, if
not settled, would demonstrate the inconsistency and/or incompleteness of the
Bayesian approach and without eliminating this inconsistency, the approach
cannot be regarded as scientific.
The Sleeping Beauty Problem is just such an example. The existing attempts to
solve the problem fall into three categories. The first two share the view that
new evidence is absent, but differ about the conclusion of whether Sleeping
Beauty should change her belief or not, and why. The third category is
characterized by the view that, after all, new evidence (although hidden from
the initial view) is involved.
My solution is radically different and does not fall in either of these
categories. I deflate the paradox by arguing that the two different degrees of
belief presented in the Sleeping Beauty Problem are in fact beliefs in two
different propositions, i.e. there is no need to explain the (un)change of
belief.Comment: 7 pages, MSWord, to appear in The British Journal for the Philosophy
of Scienc
Tales Newly Told
Tepper, Sheri S. Beauty
Revealing the Beauty behind the Sleeping Beauty Problem
A large number of essays address the Sleeping Beauty problem, which undermines the validity of Bayesian inference and Bas Van Fraassen's 'Reflection Principle'. In this study a straightforward analysis of the problem based on probability theory is presented. The key difference from previous works is that apart from the random experiment imposed by the problem's description, a different one is also considered, in order to negate the confusion on the involved conditional probabilities. The results of the analysis indicate that no inconsistency takes place, whereas both Bayesian inference and 'Reflection Principle' are valid
Magical elements in the narrative structure of fairy tales
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e ExpressãoO desconhecido foi sempre de reflexão para o homem que, através de sua produção artística, procura explicar fenômenos que direta ou indiretamente estão associados a poderes e mistérios que regem nossas vidas. A literatura é um dos veículos da imaginação que possibilita expressar as perplexidades e angústias do espírito humano, e ao mesmo tempo encontrar respostas para alguns dos mistérios que não podem ser compreendidos pela razão. Os CONTOS DE FADA são produtos da liberdade imaginativa/criadora do homem à procura de respostas (soluções) para problemas existenciais. Os contos de fada em sua simbologia, através do seu componente fundamental, a magia, transmitem mensagens de grande interesse para a vida. Estas mensagens são principalmente expressas por meio de duas situações que, em geral, promovem o eixo-condutor da narrativa dos contos de fadas: uma situação problematizadora e uma situação solucionadora. Nessa dissertação os contos de fadas são analisados a nível de organização estrutural - como uma variedade do discurso narrativo - e a nível de sua simbologia. O estudo da estrutura narrativa dos contos mostra a presença de elementos mágicos - ou existentes maravilhosos, em três categorias estruturais: Orientação/Ação Complicadora/Resolução. Analisando essas estruturas narrativas em relação à presença dos existentes maravilhosos conclui-se que há duas possibilidades quanto ao seu comportamento mágico. Existentes maravilhosos podem ser realizadores de duas ações distintas que criam situações de desequilíbrio e/ou equilíbrio que se manifestam em contos de fadas como problemas e/ou soluções. Ações problematizadoras (situações de desequilíbrio) em contos de fadas são solucionadas direta e/ou indiretamente por meio de magia. Isto é, a solução depende não somente da interferência da magia, mas também da atitude das personagens (humanas) ao enfrentar as mais diversas e adversas situações. Assim, as personagens obrigatória para o seu desfecho satisfatório e/ou feliz. É sobretudo neste sentido que parece estar centrada a simbologia dos contos de fada - a mensagem de que problemas são inevitáveis, porém, possíveis de resolução. Por sempre ser encontrada a solução dos problemas enfrentados pelas personagens centrais é que se revela a mensagem maior dos contos: haverá sempre um final feliz! Em síntese, este estudo pretende mostrar o papel da magia, evidenciado pela função dos existentes maravilhosos (principalmente as fadas) através de uma possível correlação entre a estrutura narrativa e a mensagem dos contos de fada
The triumph of the (m)other : the feminine dichotomy in "Sleeping Beauty"
Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-65).The tale of 'Sleeping Beauty' offers a familiar fairy tale narrative that features a beautiful sleeping princess, a wicked witch and a dashing prince who saves the day. This formulaic narrative has its roots in oral tales that date back to thousands of years ago. The fact that this narrative has survived so many different centuries, combined with the simplicity of the fairy tale model which makes it particularly accessible and thus particularly applicable, is perhaps why contemporary scholars argue that the literary fairy tale model might be seen as an ahistorical urtext that moulds the fabric of society and acts as a metaphor for navigating shared human experiences
Perspective Reasoning and the Solution to the Sleeping Beauty Problem
This paper proposes a new explanation for the paradoxes related to anthropic reasoning. Solutions to the Sleeping Beauty Problem and the Doomsday argument are discussed in detail. The main argument can be summarized as follows:
Our thoughts, reasonings and narratives inherently comes from a certain perspective. With each perspective there is a center, or using the term broadly, a self.
The natural first-person perspective is most primitive. However we can also think and express from others’ perspectives with a theory of mind.
A perspective’s center could be unrelated to the topic of discussion so its de se thoughts need not to be considered, e.g. the perspective of an outside observer. Let’s call these the third-person perspective.
First-person reasoning allows primitive self identification as I am inherently unique as the center of the perspective. Whereas from third-person perspective I am not fundamentally special comparing to others so a reference class of observers including me can be defined.
It is my contention that reasonings from different perspectives should not mix. Otherwise it could lead to paradoxes even independent of anthropic reasoning.
The paradoxes surrounding anthropic reasoning are caused by the aforementioned perspective mix. Regarding the sleeping beauty problem the correct answer should be double halving. Lewisian halving and thirding uses unique reasonings from both first and third-person perspectives.
Indexical probabilities such as “the probability that this is the first awakening” or “the probability of me being one of the first 100 billion human beings” also mixes first- and third-person reasonings. Therefore invalid.
Readers against perspectivism may disagree with point 1 and suggest we could reason in objective terms without the limit of perspectives. My argument is compatible with this belief. Objective reasoning would be analytically identical to the third-person perspective. My argument would become that objective reasoning and perspective reasonings should not mix. In the following I would continue to use “third-person perspective” but readers can switch that to “objective reasoning” if they wish so
Flamingo, Spring, 1953, Vol. 29, No. 3
Monthly magazine of creative and other writings from undergraduates and faculty of Rollins College, sponsored by the Rollins English Department.https://scholarship.rollins.edu/flamingo/1130/thumbnail.jp
The Nighthawk Review, 2008
An annual publication featuring student work from Utah State University Eastern Campus.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/nighthawkreview/1011/thumbnail.jp
Reawakening Sleeping Beauty: Fairy -Tale Revision and the Mid -Victorian Metaphysical Crisis.
Despite growing scholarly recognition of subversive social and political content in Victorian fairy tales, their significance in relation to the oft-cited Victorian spiritual crisis remains largely unexplored. This interdisciplinary study addresses that critical gap by examining three literary revisions of Sleeping Beauty from the early 1860s as pointed efforts to enter the intensified religious debate following the publication of Charles Darwin\u27s Origin of the Species. The three revisions---Charles Dickens\u27s novel Great Expectations (1860--61), Christina Rossetti\u27s narrative poem Goblin Market (1862) and George MacDonald\u27s fairy-tale The Light Princess (1864)---all appropriate the popular Sleeping Beauty narrative to create a vivid and emotionally compelling model of human interaction with an invisible spiritual world. Each features a narcissistic individual who acquires the unselfish ability to love others only after awakening to and embracing ultimate spiritual reality. The revisions not only depict an encounter with the supernatural realm as transformative, but they concurrently portray the material world as relatively insubstantial and incapable of satisfying human need-producing sharp critiques of Victorian materialism. The primary interest of these metaphysical revisions lies in their alternative perspective on the contemporary crisis of faith, attributing growing religious uncertainty not to contemporary theory in science and other intellectual disciplines but to a failure of the imagination and philosophical inconsistency---or even hypocrisy---within religious orthodoxy. Collectively, the Sleeping Beauty revisions indict Victorian society for smugness, superficiality, obsession and delusion. Moreover, through their deliberate contrast with contemporary literary and artistic representations of Sleeping Beauty, the revisions argue that this fairy tale has become a false societal emblem of material advancement and domestic security
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