> "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?"
> "..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." > "..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." Yes, I am afraid that really comes close to what game theory is. And yes, most of the games from game theory resemble games played by children and are very primitive (simultaneous and symetrical two player games). Wikipedia gives a good overview over the most popular "games": the prisoner's dilemma, the hawk-dove game, the minority game, the ultimatum game, the rock-paper-scissor game, the matching pennies game, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_in_game_theory Since game theory was invented to study strategic situations in the cold war, it appears outdated to many scientists. In a certain sense game theory has failed dramatically to predict and prevent the nuclear arms race in the cold war. A huge pile of atomic weapons that still exists today on both sides is certainly not the result of an optimal strategy. Or is it ? All these simple strategic games with 2x2 payoff matrix and binary behavior are well known, and I doubt that there are still many spectacular insights that can be gained by studying them, especially for psychology. The behavior of real agents is more complex than binary strategies suggest, whereas the reasoning capabilities of humans are certainly less complex than those assumed in many strategic games, which do not really help us to find the best strategy in a real life situation. Reality is infinitely more complex than the most sophisticated strategic game, and questions like "What will the other player do if he knows that I know that he knows etc." are less important than short-term decisions on a gut level. Such an infinite regress happens more in Philosophy, and less in daily life. Nevertheless, the simplicity of strategic games in game theory is striking compared to general agent-based models. According to my personal experience, the most difficult thing in agent-based modelling is the extensive search to find simple models with complex results. It is easy to create complex micro-rules with simple results, where the experimental results are more confusing than enlightening and in the end only confirm the setup of the experiment itself. In the strategic games from game theory the problem to find simple models with complex results is probably even harder: there is a smaller number of models since they are already as simple as possible, and the classic models have now been examined for more than fifty years. However, the question if there are a zillion games that differ only in subtle changes is interesting. I think this is the right way to deal with complexity and diversity: to identify interesting regions in the huge space of possibilities and to classify them according to their common properties. As long as we consider closed systems with a few states, we can not expect arbitrary complex and marvellous structures. History also shows us that whenever you put some autonomous agents together, the only thing you get for free in the short-term is constant conflicts, fights and wars. Complex systems usually do not arise from simple interactions between agents, only disorder and chaos or simple spatial patterns like stripes, heaps, grids or simple networks. Everything else requires a very long process of evolution or a sophisticated, deliberate design. So it should be possible to group the different games into a finite number of meaningful classes, alhough I think that the basic classes of strategic two player games have already been found. -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
