fitness

01Feb10

Talking about “the last mile”, Sendhil Mullainathan, looks at how some of mental models stop us thinking rationally.

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Tags: anthropology, brain, choice, dilemma, economics, emotion, happiness, illusion, mind, neurology, paradox, perception, psychology, Sendhil Mullainathan, TED, video, zemblanity

honesty

20May09

So when people play a game like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, what do they actually do? According to Peter Lunn in Basic Instincts, about half  “co-operate” He mentions how honesty boxes work on a similar principle (see BBC article). Is this a kind of “superationality” at work? – that we know that we’ll get more out […]

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Tags: anthropology, choice, dilemma, honesty, logic, Lunn, mind, morals, paradox, prisoner, psychology, zemblanity

three monks no water

17May09

We all know that sometimes it does work like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Take this Chinese story, Three Monks No Water: Everyone is somehow “forced” to settle for less than the best, even if it is an “equilibrium”.

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Tags: choice, dilemma, logic, monks, morals, prisoner, psychology, zemblanity

actual behaviour

14May09

Yes, it doesn’t correlate with human beings’ actual behaviour. Behavioral economics, the branch of economics that looks at people’s actual economic behaviour, has a well-known example that has basically the same structure as the prisoner’s dilemma. It’s called a public goods game.  Both players get €10. They can keep it, or put it into a […]

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Tags: anthropology, choice, dilemma, logic, Lunn, morals, psychology, zemblanity

the trap

12May09

… what the whole story is I don’t know, of course. But one of the great things about wikipedia is the links, the “see also”, that sometimes take you off in a new direction. For instance, there’s a link to Adam Curtis’s documentary The Trap: But there was a small problem with Nash’s equations. They […]

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Tags: anthropology, choice, dilemma, history, Laing, logic, morals, Nash, paradox, prisoner, psychology, video, zemblanity

prisoner’s dilemma

10May09

It’s kind of magic, the prisoner’s dilemma. It gets you thingking about how people relate and why (although some people I know don’t like it). Here’s one version. You and your partner either Co-operate or you Defect. You both co-operate -> you get two each. You Defect while he co-operates -> you get three, he […]

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Tags: anthropology, brain, dilemma, happiness, logic, mind, morals, paradox, prisoner, psychology, zemblanity