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arXiv · 2401.01968

Sheaves of Probability

Owen D. Biesel
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Abstract

What does it mean for multiple agents' credence functions to be consistent with each other, if the agents have distinct but overlapping sets of evidence? Mathematical philosopher Michael Titelbaum's rule, called Generalized Conditionalization (GC), sensibly requires each pair of agents to acquire identical credences if they updated on each other's evidence. However, GC allows for paradoxical arrangements of agent credences that we would not like to call consistent. We interpret GC as a gluing condition in the context of sheaf theory, and show that if we further assume that the agents' evidence is logically consistent then the sheaf condition is satisfied and the paradoxes are resolved.

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Owen D. Biesel. 2024-01-03. Sheaves of Probability. https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.01968

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