From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 10:15:15 MDT
James writes
> I just replied to your post because it was the latest one
> that used the terms Left and Right as if they were some
> reified Thing.
Just out of curiosity, do you consider Hot and Cold to be
reified Things?
> I'm absolutely not against political discussion: like I
> said, I think it can be relevant to us, but getting
> emotionally involved with your "side", be that "Left" or
> "Right" is almost a guarantee that no opinions will be
> changed, no resolutions will be made, and polarisation
> will render the discussion quite meaningless to onlookers.
Entrenchment, as you know, happens without labels too.
When at work, for example, a certain proposal appeals
to some people and not others, it seems to me that
almost exactly the same thing transpires. Probably it's
only when the same teams keep cropping up against each
other that they acquire labels, but it would be interesting
to know if the labels really do make things worse. So far,
I've not seen much indication that they do.
> Cooperation clearly evolved at some point, memetically or
> genetically, but the animal instinct to split the world
> into two simple groups still prevails occasionally. Maybe
> even most of the time. [Yes!] I consider "Me vs. Him",
> "Us vs. Them", "This tribe vs. That tribe", "This nation
> vs. That nation", "This ideology vs. That ideology" to be
> manifestations of the same thing.
And when it's naturally absent, there often appears to be a
real need for it, e.g., the intense rivalry between high
schools, or even siblings, and the parties appear even to
take steps to create it.
> Whatever the cause is, I believe it is a quirk of natural
> selection that should, at least in principle, yield to
> superrationality.
Does anyone believe in "superrationality" in game theory
anymore? I can't tell from a quick reading of
agi@v2.listbox.com/msg01025.html">http://www.mail-archive.com/agi@v2.listbox.com/msg01025.html
where our friends appear to be debating it, although Wei Dai
reflects what I read in game theory papers these days:
Hofstadter was wrong about superrationality. Once, in 1985
or so, I wrote him about it, and we exchanged a few letters
(he was always incredibly good that way). What I would like
to do now---though I won't because it would be "rubbing it
in"---would be to write him and ask whether he would Cooperate
or Defect against the 1983 version of himself if he could go
back in a time machine. *OBVIOUSLY* Doug 2003 should Defect,
since he knows that the 1983 version is going to cooperate.
Lee
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