The tournament results show that in a Prisoner's Dilemma situation it is easy to be too clever. The very sophisticated rules did not do better than the simple ones. In fact, the so-called maximizing rules often did poorly because they got into a rut of mutual defection. A common problem with these rules is that they used complex methods of making inferences about the other player-and these inferences were wrong. Part of the problem was that a trial defection by the other player was often taken to imply that the other player could not be enticed into cooperation. But the heart of the problem was that these maximizing rules did not take into account that their own behavior would lead the other player to change.
Robert AxelrodRelated topics
account change common complex defection easy heart lead making ones problem rut show simple situation take tournament trial wrong RulesRelated quotes
I have presented the periodic table as a kind of travel guide to an imaginary country, of which the elements are the various regions. This kingdom has a geography: the elements lie in particular juxtaposition to one another, and they are used to produce goods, much as a prairie produces wheat and a lake produces fish. It also has a history. Indeed, it has three kinds of history: the elements were discovered much as the lands of the world were discovered; the kingdom was mapped, just as the world was mapped, and the relative positions of the elements came to take on a great significance; and the elements have their own cosmic history, which can be traced back to the stars.
Peter Atkins
Do everything simply and meekly. Do nothing with an ulterior motive. Don't say, I'll do this in order to have that result, but do it naturally, without taking cognizance of it. That is, pray simply and don't think about what God will bestow on your soul. Don't make any calculations. You know, of course, what God bestows when you enter into communion with Him, but it is as if you don't know. Don't discuss the matter even with yourself. So when you repeat the prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”, say it simply and ingenuously and think of nothing other than the prayer. These are very delicate matters and the intervention of the grace of God is required.
Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia
Every organism represents a system, by which term we mean a complex of elements in mutual interaction. From this obvious statement the limitations of the analytical and summative conceptions must follow. First, it is impossible to resolve the phenomena of life completely into elementary units; for each individual part and each individual event depends not only on conditions within itself, but also to a greater or lesser extent on the conditions within the whole, or within superordinate units of which it is a part. Hence the behavior of an isolated part is, in general, different from its behavior within the context of the whole... Secondly, the actual whole shows properties that are absent from its isolated parts.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
What this book is about is a kind of analysis that is characteristic of a large part of the social sciences, especially the more theoretical part. That kind of analysis explores the relation between the behavior of individuals who compromise some social aggregate, and the characteristics of the aggregate.These situations, in which people's behavior or people's choices depend on the behavior or choices of other people, are the ones that usually don't permit any simple summation or extrapolation of the aggregates. To make that connection we usually have to look at the system of interaction between individuals and their environment, that is, between individuals and other individuals or between individuals and the collectivity.
Thomas Schelling
It is mutual fear and distrust that mostly generate world tensions and these can be traced in no small measure, like other root causes of worsening world conditions, to different people's conflicting and often intolerant, value-belief differences ... Whereas in the past science did little, if anything, to remedy this situation and in some ways made things worse, our reformed "macro-determinist" science that includes consciousness and subjective values ... provides common universal ethical foundations on which all nations could work to build a World Government or at least a World Security System to help control nuclear developments and other global threats that require international collaboration.
Roger Wolcott Sperry