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From: torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Prisoner's Dilemma
Message-ID: <561@umich.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Apr-86 01:11:34 EST
Article-I.D.: umich.561
Posted: Tue Apr  1 01:11:34 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Apr-86 03:02:15 EST
References: <12481@ucbvax.BERKEL <2007@brl-smoke.ARPA> <538@umich.UUCP> <2202@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Organization: University of Michigan, EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath net.sci:687 net.philosophy:4842

In article <2202@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.ARPA writes:
>Rapoport explicitly formulated
>a "game" under the standard rules (non-cooperative, etc.), then
>argued against the standard strategy on psychological grounds.
>In particular, the existence of a large mutual payoff in one
>element of the matrix that would in fact not be attained by
>players following recommended strategies somehow bothered him.
>It is clear that IF cooperation was allowed (it was prohibited)
>and IF there was a means of enforcing the cooperation, THEN the
>best mutual combined strategy would be to select the matrix
>element that Rapoport wanted.  However, he tried to argue for a
>"higher rationality" that would lead to that result in the
>absence of cooperation and enforcement.  No logical basis for
>his desired reasoning methods was given; to me, it was a blatant
>attempt to pretend that there is a rational basis for socialism.
>
>P.S.  This isn't strictly the same game as Prisoner's Dilemma,
>but the same sort of pseudo-arguments were being employed.

Sounds weird.  Maybe Rapoport meant to argue that the payoffs could
never in real life be what the PD situation requires; that a person might
*think* the payoff was bigger for the noncooperative option, but it really
wasn't?  (I may be way off, but "on psychological grounds" suggests that
maybe Rapoport thinks people would regret that the cooperative outcome
wasn't reached, and this regret should be added to the supposed payoff to
get the true payoff?)

--Paul torek							torek@umich