The Scientific American has an interesting article this week about the Traveller's Dilemma, a peculiar game theory scenario in which real live humans don't appear to opt for the path of rational self(ish) interest after all. (It is set up so that they should logically tumble down a staircase of backward induction to reach the Nash Equilibrium, which in this case the lowest value on offer.)
The piece's author Kaushik Basu asks if altruism might be hardwired into our minds after all. "Altruism, socialisation and faulty reasoning guide most individual's choices" and "What is interesting is that the rejection of formal rationality and logic has a kind of meta-rationality to it."
Hmm, maybe, but I'd still wager you'd get different results if you played the game in different cultural contexts. Might try it out on a couple of likely-looking chapines next time I'm out there.
1 comment:
Bill Whittle has opined at great length about this very subject over at EjectEjectEject. Another superb essay which is really trying to solve the problems of the world rather than stew in analysis paralysis.
The SciAm article is key. It is easy to read and well worth it. Why is irrationality the best approach in some situations? Here's the answer.
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