Game theory: hawks and doves and crows and jays, oh my!

[tantric]

when you study game theory, one of the first bits you come across is called the 'hawk dove game'. this scenario posits that there is an island of bird people, who are either of the hawk or dove clan. on this island the only source of food is a tuber that it takes two people to dig up. when two hawks score food, they fight and the winner takes all. when two doves score, they share equally. when a hawk and a dove score, the hawk takes all. now when we look at this, an all dove situation is inherently more efficient, because the hawks waste energy fighting. but if you introduce a pair of hawks to an all dove island, they will take over....but when you run the math you find that on a mixed tribe island there are always some doves - in fact, the more violent the hawk's combat, the more the doves persist. this is used to explain how ritualize threat displays evolve, among other things.

now, this is going a bit off the grid and i no longer have the math to prove it, but bear with me. next we introduce a third tribe, the crows. crows fight with hawks and share with doves. this drastically changes the equilibrium number in favor of many more doves. in exploring the evolution of altruism, i added a fourth tribe: jays flee from hawks and crows, steal from doves and share with each other. jays are the cheaters, so to speak, and they also upset the equilibrium, reducing the final number of doves.

if the goal of this is then maintaining a network of reciprocal altruism, doves and crows, then it becomes obvious that the most import trait a bird island person can have is the ability to identify the tribe of other islands, that is to say, to know who to trust. thus intelligence is evolutionarily linked to altruism. i'm talking about Biological Altruism, btw, not philosophical. evolution doesn't give a crap about your feelings

the dark side of altruism is spite (Hamiltonian spite) - actions that have a cost for the actor and a negative impact upon the recipient. this is truly human behavior, rarely seen in other animals. but there's something quintessentially human about being willing to die to punish someone who has harmed your family/people. other animals just don't do that. but in my expanded bird island scenario, it fits - this is how crows deal with jays. crows don't allow jays to flee - they attack them, even though they've already won the food, and despite doing damage to themselves, in order to make the jay's stratagem too costly. and we know this - altruistic networks cannot tolerate cheaters and betrayers, they must make sure such islanders always pay a higher price than what they gain by cheating, which will be the case as long as there are more crows than doves.

does this make any sense to anyone?

 

[thujone]

interesting, but doesn't adding more tribes pervert the intent of the game, which is an exercise in deciding a winner and loser in a zero-sum game? seems like crows are just doves that may act like hawks and jays are just hawks that may act like doves. i'm not really keen on playing out that scenario but given how the game is originally structured it seems likely that your version of it would create a stalemate situation.

 

[tantric]

for me, this was part of population biology - we set up the relationships, the initial numbers of each tribe, reproductive rates and ran it till an equilibrium as found. i'll find the math, if you're interested.

here's a good paper that goes into it: paper

 

[Foreigner]

I understand the game but I'm not sure what you're proposing for discussion?

 

[tantric]

it has to do with my position on the use of violence and force in society. i'm also considering writing up an extended document about this for laymen and presenting it as philosophy

 

[thujone]

for me, this was part of population biology - we set up the relationships, the initial numbers of each tribe, reproductive rates and ran it till an equilibrium as found. i'll find the math, if you're interested.

here's a good paper that goes into it: paper

Interesting paper, I missed the comparison to polymorphism but now that it's been brought up it reminds me of malware propagation techniques and how this sort of evolutionary game constantly plays out in the fight between whitehat and blackhat. The whitehat survives by helping their company secure the tuber (revenues) and the blackhat survives by fighting the whitehat for the company loot. There is in reality a legitimate third category, the grayhat, who by day protects the Doves (corporate entities) and by night switches to the Hawk strategy and uses the intelligence gleaned from protecting Doves to attack them.

 

[Brendan12]

tantalizing is the way of game theory..which is in ever respect for the right solution..it is an honest paradox in existence..that to win..one must specifically do something at all..
So start right here.. First thing about game theory..not only are you included..but you have to do something to take part in a game..unless the game it self is called existence..then you essentially can do whatever you want...but to do nothing..wouldnt necessarily negate your being or existence itself..its more like saying that i am basically doing nothing like a buddha or a corpse for example..but we all have to eat..and sometimes that means catching or hunting game..and then we have our duties..and our wants and needs..in a figment of desire called the quest for self actualization..

I leave that at the end of game theory..which is to make sure you are at the peak of your game so to speak..and be on point..you dont need to win every game..but likely the more you play the more precise you will become..so its proven in game theory that one can start at any place, as a level of quality of goodness at games for example..and thats why we rate each other

as adept..or master..and even Grandmaster..

The quality of the game will likely get some people..and some people live and die by games...so the question is what do i want to do..and should i invent myself some type of winning philosophy..most people dont want to lose..so i think the basic strategy is learning how to win. at games and in life..

What more could you want..but to follow your natural curiosity and see where that takes you..i could break down any game with 1,s and 0,s but that wont necessarily mean i get a chance to win at the game..some people are masters at poker..and others at bridge or scrabble.. its all int he figment of your imagination and the necessary alignments that you make as of your mindfulness

 

[neurotic]

game theory seems interesting

 

[xekc]

So, you take a thought experiment and add variables - and it makes it X times more mathematically complicated, but more realistic and thus gives you a feeling it has more predictive power. If you continue with it - you'll add more stuff (the concept of age and different behaviour for the young crow vs. old ones etc.). At some point fairly soon the model would become so complex that it's no longer computable or useful - and it would still always be incomplete.

I am not sure where you are going with this all, but I would think that the whole vector of thought towards making a more complex model from within this system to explain things - is a really tricky thing to handle well. It could be at some point your assumptions will turn into a pumpkin without you noticing. Like - let's add the island of wizards to this?

In my view our consciousness is only mostly evolutionarily defined and approaching things this way at most you'll be able to add certain historical explanations - why people built tribes and villages, why wars happened in the past, why through the last 2000-5000 years we used to behave like we did.

Developing those is great and would help us understand more about how our ways work, but I think (and I hope!) that we live at a time where through some last 100 years some sort of a tipping point is about to be reached and it will be a game changer. Metaphorically our consciousness development is reaching a wormhole - and we will either self-destruct or will have to expand our system of systems to a whole new level - and old models and predictions will no longer work. Our choices and actions will no longer be driven by animal-like scarcity or survival, like for the most of life on earth. Our science fiction will look very primitive - like viewing old sci-fi movies does now - because our understanding will evolve past the point where we're mostly well, animals.