Open AccessDemystifying the Mystery Room
Author(s) -
Wenmackers Sylvia
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
thought: a journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.429
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 2161-2234
DOI - 10.1002/tht3.408
Subject(s) - demonstrative , probabilistic logic , formalism (music) , indexicality , connection (principal bundle) , conditional probability , computer science , existential quantification , bayesian probability , artificial intelligence , mathematics , epistemology , linguistics , philosophy , discrete mathematics , statistics , art , musical , geometry , visual arts
The Mystery Room problem is a close variant of the Mystery Bag scenario (due to Titelbaum). It is argued here that dealing with this problem requires no revision of the Bayesian formalism, since there exists a solution to this problem in which indexicals or demonstratives play no essential role. The solution does require labels, which are internal to the probabilistic model. While there needs to be a connection between at least one label and one indexical or demonstrative, that connection is external to the probabilistic model that is used to determine the relevant conditional probability; hence, it does not complicate the update procedure.