All games are iterated games. Philisophical thought experiments tell you to ignore this all the time. That’s a mistake in modelling how humans, or agents in general, work. You’re not separable from your habits and metal processes. When told that “nobody will know which decision you made”, that certainty isn’t something that your brains can just accept. It would be quite unwise in many situations to believe yourself if you had a thought like that.
There’s no separate “philosophy mode” where decisions that actually matter do occur. There are no truly selfish agents attempting to maximize utility that’s given in some in-game points that’s supposed to behave linearly. Actual optimization targets like reputation, health, and money are all qualities with logarithmic utility in both directions, and highly interconnected with everything else.
Even when I’m trying my hardest to maximize in-game points, I still find myself not defecting on the last round of an iterated prisoners dilemma. “I’m just not that kind of a person”, I sometimes say. Of course I’m calculating for the next game. And that’s also what kind of person I am.
If anyone knows how to mitigate this, I’d be happy to hear. So far I haven’t seen anything at all that works. Even if the final points are not published I still keep comparing myself to others.
All games are iterated games. Philisophical thought experiments tell you to ignore this all the time. That’s a mistake in modelling how humans, or agents in general, work. You’re not separable from your habits and metal processes. When told that “nobody will know which decision you made”, that certainty isn’t something that your brains can just accept. It would be quite unwise in many situations to believe yourself if you had a thought like that.
There’s no separate “philosophy mode” where decisions that actually matter do occur. There are no truly selfish agents attempting to maximize utility that’s given in some in-game points that’s supposed to behave linearly. Actual optimization targets like reputation, health, and money are all qualities with logarithmic utility in both directions, and highly interconnected with everything else.
Even when I’m trying my hardest to maximize in-game points, I still find myself not defecting on the last round of an iterated prisoners dilemma. “I’m just not that kind of a person”, I sometimes say. Of course I’m calculating for the next game. And that’s also what kind of person I am.
If anyone knows how to mitigate this, I’d be happy to hear. So far I haven’t seen anything at all that works. Even if the final points are not published I still keep comparing myself to others.