mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (12/08/85)
>I would like to see some more discussion on the subject of >the "Prisoners Dilemna". I just acquired the book, >"The Evolution of Cooperation", by Prof. Robert Axelrod. >It seems quite interesting. > > -Tom Look at the two or three articles by Hofstadter in his "Metamagical Themas" in Scientific American a year or two ago. He reported experiments on the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game in an evolutionary context. Without going into detail, the algorithm that survived best in a free-for-all competition was one that always cooperated except when confronted with an opponent who cheated the last time they met. Incidentally, this relates to the "might makes right" question addressed in a posting I just completed. Under the circumstances of the game, all participants had equal "might", but it was best never to use that might first. This corresponds to the Libertarian principle of "no first use of force." There might be some value in a discussion of this point. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (12/17/85)
By far the most important book on game and decision theory is *Games and Decisions* by Luce and Raiffa. Chapter 2 is indispensable since it provides an axiomatization of the concept of von Neumann - Morgenstern utilities, which is at the basis of game theory. Game theory is a misnomer for the theory of interdependent choice-making. It deals with situations in which the choice or payoff of each affects the choice or payoff of all, and vice versa. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes