Finished Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb today, a rainy miserable Saturday just like every other Saturday the last couple weekends here in Massachusetts. When will the weather get better? As before, I like to post interesting quotes:

“… Jacob Bronowski wrote in 1973, ‘You must see that in a sense all science, all human thought, is a form of play. Abstract thought is the neotony of the intellect, by which man is able to carry out activities which have no immediate goal in order to prepare himself for long-term strategies and plans.'” [pg 39]

“It’s no exaggeration to say that society is founded on cooperation. Whether to litter — leave a tip — shoplift — stop and help someone — lie — conserve electricity — etc., etc. — all are dilemmas of individual gain and the common good. Some commentators have speculated that irrational cooperation is the cornerstone of of society, and without it life would be, as Hobbes put it, ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'” [pg 227]

On the TIT FOR TAT strategy that Robert Axelrod used in the iterative prisoners dilemma game: “… one of the more surprising findings was that TIT FOR TAT won without ever exploiting another strategy. ‘We tend to compare our scores to other people’s scores,’ he explained. ‘But that’s not the way to get a good score. TIT FOR TAT can’t beat anybody, but it still wins the tournament. That’s a very bizarre idea. You can’t win a chess tournament by never beating anybody.” [pg 241]

Pages 249 & 250 describe real-life examples of iterated prisoners dilemmas in the lives of stickleback fish (read more about that here) and the vampire bat of South America.