Posted March 05, 2012
dmetras: Ahh, ok. I stand by the 1/2 position. More awakenings from a tails landing doesn't change the toss-up probability. The coin will always have two sides.
RealWeaponX: Individually it may seem that you have a 1/2 chance of it being heads, but in the long run it is always going to be twice as likely to be tails. This is in some ways similar to Monty Hall - with the MH problem, you are statistically more likely to win if you swap after the first box is open, but only in long run stats. Individually, your first guess is as good as your second, as you may have picked correctly. So, in both cases, individually it may as well be a guess (1/2 in SB, 1/3 in MH), but statistically speaking there is a "correct answer".
In the case of Sleeping Beauty, she is specifically asked for a statistical probability of the coin having landed heads, therefore the answer is always 1/3.
Edit: I re-read the first post, just to make sure, and it says that Sleeping Beauty is made aware of all details of the experiment before it starts. Therefore, she would certainly have all the more reason to take the 1/2 position.
Post edited March 05, 2012 by dmetras