Ever since our first ancestor had enough brain cells to ponder something more than the flavor of roast dinosaur, we have pondered over the why of our world: the real causes of observed effects.
At one time it was thought that most ordinary events in our lives were caused for the amusement of gods. Thor throws a hissy-fit and we poor mortals get zapped for no good reason. Today, in the 21st century, we laugh at such nonsense. But if we examine our own beliefs, are we all that different today?
I propose to show that there are natural forces which can lead people to anthropomorphise the causes of their problems. One cause is the influence on the mind of merely having the term 'us' in a language. The categorising of things into any set will always carry an implication of 'other'. If there is an 'us' then their must be a 'them'. And so, in our blindness to the forces of nature that are the real proximal cause of our problems, we anthropomorphise the problems and seek out a 'them' to blame.
Games in theory and in practice
From Wikipedia:
Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.
The games studied in game theory are well-defined mathematical objects. A game consists of a set of players, a set of moves (or strategies) available to those players, and a specification of payoffs for each combination of strategies. Most cooperative games are presented in the characteristic function form, while the extensive and the normal forms are used to define noncooperative games.
It is possible to bring a little psychology to bear on game theoretical models. What if there is a hidden third player in a two-player game? The player need not be human. The third player may be 'market forces'. At the highest levels of modeling, the third player will always be discovered to be the laws of thermodynamics and entropy.
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Cutting a cake is a zero-sum game in theory only. In the real world of physics and thermodynamics there are inevitable losses when a cake is sliced. As the attempt is made to produce ever finer slices for ever more players there soon comes a time when the crumbs outweigh the slices.
The Third Player Hypothesis
In a game with two players, outcomes might be predictable in terms of gains and losses if, and only if, the two players constitute a closed system.
If there is a third player representing a higher level of dynamic system, then that third player may gain at the expense of the two notional players with or without their knowledge.
A simple and common example is the house percentage. Regardless of which player wins, the house gets a percentage of the pot. Over a long enough period of play, regardless of which nominal player wins: the house will always end up with the bulk of the pot.
In the real world, where our every action is made only by consent of the laws of physics, thermodynamics owns the house, and the house percentage is low-grade heat.
Them and us
It seems to be a part of human nature that we so readily assume that some real or imagined person or group is to blame for our problems. In neglecting the influence of the laws of thermodynamics on our every single move, we delude ourselves into thinking that there are only two sides to the debate.
We, the oh so rational thinkers of the 21st century refuse to think that perhaps Dionysus is playing tricks with us. We all too easily forget that the gods which our ancestors believed in have their counterparts in the laws of physics, and so we go off looking for a human cause that just isn't there. And so we are well prepared psychologically to swallow any half-way reasonable conspiracy theory hook, line and sinker.
Nature is the third player in all of our economic games. Nature, in the form of the immutable laws of thermodynamics is in charge of the global economy, not some mega-group of power-hungry baby-eaters.
Discussion:
Instead of accusing each other of being funded by global conspirators can we all please sit down and investigate nature's rules. If we don't we won't be around to see who was right and who was wrong about anything at all.
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