On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 10:18:32PM -0800, meekerdb wrote: > > But I see nothing that would imply that a rational agent is > predictable or that he could not make a random choice. > > Brent >
Because assuming that more than one choice is available, and that they all having differing values of utility, making a random choice has only a probability of 1/n of being the rational choice. I can concede that making a random choice amongst options of equal and optimal utility could satisfy the definition of rational as a borderline case, but I like the picture of Robby the robot saying "that doesn't compute" and promptly blowing a fuse. (Let me know if I've got my SciFi wires crossed here, please). But it is still the case that a strategy of sometimes choosing less optimal actions at random can in some situations lead to a better payoff than always playing the rational choice. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
