On 1/20/2014 1:39 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 10:09:02PM +1300, LizR wrote:
On 20 January 2014 19:43, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 10:13:22PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/19/2014 7:09 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
That's not the definition. A rational agent is someone who always
chooses the optimal course of action, not that there might be a reason
for it.
Isn't "being optimal" a reason?
Yes - a specific reason, not any old reason.
Obviously I wasn't meaning just "any old reason" !
(I said the reason was to optimise the utility function... I realise there
are caveats like not knowing how to, not having time, etc)
The point about acting randomly is that clearly you are not optimising
your utility.
Except in games (like chess) you never have perfect knowledge. The definition of
rationality you cited recognized this by saying you optimised your *expected* utility.
But you can optimise your expected utility by acting unpredictably and the only way to be
sure that your action is unpredictable is for it to be random.
Brent
You a choosing something other than the optimum action,
so are behaving irrationally by definition. Yet, it could be a
beneficial strategy to do so, for all the reasons raised (fooling your
opponents, making a timely decision, and so on).
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