http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/gintis-s-Game-Theory-Evolving-tp522394p522395.html
> Hi,
>
> Has anybody any thoughts to share about Gintis's new book? I have
> like some of Gintis's work as presented at conferences. But I am
> struggling with this book because, despite an aura of
> userfriendliness, the book seems to leave huge steps out. It seems
> to be a compilation of dozens and dozens of games with groovy names
> and silly stories. Is this what game theory IS when one gets close
> to it? Is it true that game theory consists of story upon story
> as counterintuitive as the prisonner's dilemma game story. ( To
> "cooperate" means to me to be a "cooperative" witness; to defect,
> would be to renege on an agreement with the DA to cooperate;
> teaching students what these words mean to game theorists is like
> making them drink Jamestown Kookaid;). I have learned that there
> are more categories of games I have to worry about, and I suppose
> that is good. I have learned that there are simultaneous games in
> which the players move at the same moment and serial games in which
> one player moves and then the other. Also there are symetrical
> games in which, for instance your payoff playing strategy A with me
> is the same as my strategy playing Strategy A with you. So, I have
> learned that the game I have spent most time thinking about ...
> Tragedy of the Commons type games lke PD games.are actually a
> narrow category of games, Simultaneous, symetrical, two player
> games. (Please dont hesitate to correct me on any of this)
>
> So, I wondering, within the scope of simultaneous symmetrical two
> player games, are there a zillion games that differ only in subtle
> changes in their payoff tables AND in their groovy names and silly
> stories? Could all of this be collapsed into a 4d space (one
> dimension for each value in a 2x2 table and the space analysed?
> The goal would be to identify interesting regions in this space.
>
> I understand about the importance of metaphors in science and about
> the value of "surplus meaning" in models, even including the stuff
> which is just plain facetious. I KNOW that one cannot disprove
> Darwinism by demonstrating that there is no great FarmerInTheSky
> called NATURE who is doing the "selecting". But if this game
> theory literature is as it appears in Gintis's book, is it not
> surplus meaning gone wild????
>
> Feel free to jerk on my chain here: I just dont get it.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> nickthompson at earthlink.net
> EarthLink Revolves Around
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