In case some FWers have been tempted to eschew the relevance of Game Theory, let me briefly explain the difference between ordinary (ludic) games and game-theory games. Games theory is already proving of great importance and will continue to be, as and when new games are discovered.
Ordinary games such as poker, chess, mah-jong are what are called zero-sum games. There's always a winner and a loser. The sum of the results are zero. Even if money is involved and it's a gambling game, nothing is gained or lost at the end from the total of the initial assets of the participants. (However, one might mention that mah-jong was once banned in China for many years because too many sons of rich fathers gambled with their family estates!) In games theory (which could be called 'model theory' just as aptly) the experiments usually involve non-zero-sum games. One participant's gain is not necessarily another's loss. The gains and losses do not sum to zero. Sometimes both participants gain from adopting appropriate strategies. Trade is a good example of a non-zero-sum game. Often these strategies involve co-operation between participants even though, formally, they may be thought to be on opposite sides. (One example of this is something that happened quite frequently in WW1 when English and German snipers faced each other from trenches at quite close quarters. Being continually harrassed by their respective officers to shoot as often as possible, the shooters on both sides learned to aim at non-living targets in the opposite trench. The German and English shooters were unable to discuss this strategy with one another, of course, so they co-operated by shooting at suitable targets repeatedly with great accuracy to show that they weren't stray or random shots! While all this was going on, soldiers on both sides could then afford to move about in their trenches with a greater degree of safety than otherwise.) (For those who are not acquainted with the WWI, I'll also mention that ludic games were also played between German and English soldiers on one Christmas Day. When their officers were not around they played football against each other. Naturally both were playing to win this time! The officers were apoplectic when they found out!) If anybody wants to read a good book on the relevance of game theory in a wide variety of situations, economic and otherwise, I recommend "Non Zero" by Robert Wright, Little Brown, 2000) (Oh well! while I'm at it, here's another war story involving an incident in WW2 this time which has no relevance to any sort of game -- but just shows how courteous English people are. This was told me by the soldier concerned and concerns WW2. He'd parachuted down at the Battle of Arnhem Bridge and was part of a temporary occupation of troops in the town. He'd been placed on guard outside a house in the basement of which his officers were pouring over maps and trying to decide what to do next. As my friend stood outside the door, a German soldier walked up to him with his hands in the air to surrender. My friend took his rifle from him (propped it up against the door!) and then went down to the basement to ask his officer what to do with the prisoner. "Oh we're too busy. Tell him to bugger off!" So my friend went back and dutifully told the German soldier to leg it. Then he called him back: "Here you are. You forgot your rifle.") Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ “Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.” John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
