Tomorrow

[Nick Thompson]

All --

Since my sabbatical is nearing its end, i wanted to get some feed back on some ideas we have been moving a head on while I still have time to tweak them.

Owen, Steve, and I, with assists from Carl and Frank, have been working on a new strategy in the PD game that is an improvement on Tit4Tat.   Unlike Tit4Tat it is an unconditional altruist, but breaks up a partnership if the partner isnt "nice".   Owen has written a magnificent applet and I have been running experiments on it .  OUr new strategy bests T4T in most situations and suggests thereby a less onerous basis for cooperation than recognition and reciprocity.   The applet, however, is so versitile that it is possible to raise many interesting questions on it, one of which is the effect of changes in the slope of grandients in pd-like games.  We have apparently found that adding numbers to all the cells, multiplying numbers to all the cells, or even squaring the cells has relatively little effect, but cubing completely tilts the balance toward "nasty" strategies.    I am curious to know what anybody thinks of both of these tentative findings.

Carl and I have been struggling  off and on all year with the concept of epigenisis and an attempt to come up with a computer program that displays it.    The word is one of those that if you use it, you have, in the minds of others, anyway, committed yourself to an idealogy about development.  But it also represents a really long standing attempt to engage in some sort of sane discourse about development stripped of the nature-nurture dilusion.   It is the view that development proceeds as a dialectic between the organism at any point and the environment at that point, interacting to produce the oroganism at the next point and the environment at that next point, and so forth.   We are BADLY in need of models that exhibit this property I always think of chess games; Carl as another example which I will let him  tell you about.  But I would really like to come up with about a dozen of them.  Tomorrow would be nice.  I am thinking of a book entitled MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT.  

But I am not pushing.  

Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
[hidden email]
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
[hidden email]
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[Jochen Fromm-2]

The following books are probably a good start for developmental biology:

J.M.W. Slack et al., From Egg to Embryo (1991) Cambridge University Press
Lewis Wolpert et al., Principles of Development (2002) Oxford University
Press
Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology (2003) Sinauer Associates

I do not know if this is the kind of development you mean
but you may find some good inspiration here.

-J.

________________________________

Carl and I have been struggling  off and on all year with the concept of
epigenisis and an attempt to come up with a computer program that displays
it.    The word is one of those that if you use it, you have, in the minds
of others, anyway, committed yourself to an idealogy about development.  But
it also represents a really long standing attempt to engage in some sort of
sane discourse about development stripped of the nature-nurture dilusion.
It is the view that development proceeds as a dialectic between the organism
at any point and the environment at that point, interacting to produce the
oroganism at the next point and the environment at that next point, and so
forth.   We are BADLY in need of models that exhibit this property I always
think of chess games; Carl as another example which I will let him  tell you
about.  But I would really like to come up with about a dozen of them.
Tomorrow would be nice.  I am thinking of a book entitled MODELS OF
DEVELOPMENT.  
 

[Frank Wimberly]

Nick,

 

Sorry there wasn't an opportunity to talk about this this morning.  Keep me
informed, please.

 

Frank

 

---

Frank C. Wimberly      140 Calle Ojo Feliz     Santa Fe, NM 87505

[phone] or [phone] (cell)

[hidden email] or [hidden email] or
[hidden email]

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 2:29 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Tomorrow

 

All --

 

Since my sabbatical is nearing its end, i wanted to get some feed back on
some ideas we have been moving a head on while I still have time to tweak
them.

 

Owen, Steve, and I, with assists from Carl and Frank, have been working on a
new strategy in the PD game that is an improvement on Tit4Tat.   Unlike
Tit4Tat it is an unconditional altruist, but breaks up a partnership if the
partner isnt "nice".   Owen has written a magnificent applet and I have been
running experiments on it .  OUr new strategy bests T4T in most situations
and suggests thereby a less onerous basis for cooperation than recognition
and reciprocity.   The applet, however, is so versitile that it is possible
to raise many interesting questions on it, one of which is the effect of
changes in the slope of grandients in pd-like games.  We have apparently
found that adding numbers to all the cells, multiplying numbers to all the
cells, or even squaring the cells has relatively little effect, but cubing
completely tilts the balance toward "nasty" strategies.    I am curious to
know what anybody thinks of both of these tentative findings.

 

Carl and I have been struggling  off and on all year with the concept of
epigenisis and an attempt to come up with a computer program that displays
it.    The word is one of those that if you use it, you have, in the minds
of others, anyway, committed yourself to an idealogy about development.  But
it also represents a really long standing attempt to engage in some sort of
sane discourse about development stripped of the nature-nurture dilusion.
It is the view that development proceeds as a dialectic between the organism
at any point and the environment at that point, interacting to produce the
oroganism at the next point and the environment at that next point, and so
forth.   We are BADLY in need of models that exhibit this property I always
think of chess games; Carl as another example which I will let him  tell you
about.  But I would really like to come up with about a dozen of them.
Tomorrow would be nice.  I am thinking of a book entitled MODELS OF
DEVELOPMENT.  

 

But I am not pushing.  

 

Nick

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Professor of Psychology and Ethology

Clark University

[hidden email]

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/

[hidden email]

 

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