Social wargame

InTech eBooks, 2013

The scientific discipline called game theory has now reached the age of 71, the age which reminds ordinary human individuals of retirement. Fortunately enough, profound scientific achievements do not lose their powers at the same speed as their human creators. If they provide exciting new ideas and are able to stimulate a broader scientific community, then they can become a public good, a precious intellectual heritage, which is passed on from generation to generation of researchers. And even if such theories are proven to be only special cases of a more general approach, or are even falsified, their preliminary impasses or mistakes are usually acknowledged as necessary steps towards state-of-the art knowledge. There is no need for a pension system; such a theory lives on as an ingredient of ever expanding human knowledge. When game theory entered the scientific arena in the 40s of the last century, it was a highly acclaimed new star. A star launched by one of the most admired mathematical geniuses of the century, John von Neumann. In contrast to these high aspirations, the name of the new discipline -'Game Theory' -at first sight suggested that it might be not really a serious scientific project. It reminded of playing games, of card games like poker, or board games like chess, or even of children not being able to understand how to spend time in serious activities and thus having to train their abilities in metaphorical game play. The tension between the most stern and most abstract scientific discipline, mathematics, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the reference to the homo ludens, the fun of exploring reality by acting in sheltered simulated contexts, explains to some extent why game theory immediately was attractive to many young scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. It also explains why any attempt to change this name (some more 'serious' researchers have proposed to call it Theory of Strategic Behavior) should be avoided. Game theory still thrives on its ability to be sufficiently rigorous and open to a wide range of metaphorical game play at the same time. This is why it is so charming. Additional profile came from the science onto which its two creators, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, decided to graft the new apparatus: economic theory. After the Great Depression of the world economy in the 30s, few scientific disciplines were visibly in a more disastrous state than economics. In tight cooperation with the trained economist Morgenstern, the extremely ambitious John von Neumann jumped on this subject to revolutionize it. But in doing so, the two underestimated the X Preface resistance against deep changes, which is an unavoidable characteristic of established researchers trying to defend their own, with life-long great difficulties acquired, intellectual capital. The relatively sudden dismissal of game theory as a scientific fashion, immediately after John von Neumann's death in the 50s, certainly has another root in the long-run upswing of a reconstructing world economy, which seemed to need no revolutionized economic theory. Some piece-meal social engineering based on Keynes ideas, plus the mathematical framework of Paul Samuelson's 'Neoclassical Synthesis', seemed to be good enough to run the show. In economic theory, game theory was out, and left to some mathematical 'nerds' who were mainly elaborating refinements along the lines of John Nash's equilibrium approach to game-theoretic questions. But ignorance of the economic mainstream could not kill the beast. The last three decades saw a slowly starting, but exponentially rising influence of game theory in surprisingly different fields of science. In its old domain, the social sciences (mainly political economy), it is now hard to imagine that an innovative paper can succeed without at least apologizing for why it doesn't use a more appropriate game-theoretic approach. But in many other areas -from biology via abstract network theory to ICT engineering -game-theoretic modeling has reappeared as an indispensable tool. This is the very reason why this book is called 'Game Theory Relaunched'. Which parts of game theory are used, and which kind of further development is contributed to game theory by the respective research, does, of course, assume different forms, which in turn depends on the respective discipline. Game theory is still not a finalized body of knowledge -and (as chapter 1 argues) will not be for a very long time to come. Many existing textbooks on game theory therefore spend most of their pages on describing the very specific history of refinements of Nash's equilibrium concept -and mention the actually happening renaissance of game-theoretic thought across different disciplines and engineering activities as an exotic outlier at best. The collection in this book takes a different perspective; it proceeds along the lines of currently developed game-theoretic work. At the current stage of the renaissance of game theory, all that can be done is to collect and to structure the diverse contributions: The book thus consists of four parts containing (1) social science oriented chapters, (2) chapters related to engineering problems, (3) chapters enhancing the mathematics of game theory, and (4) chapters that stress the transdisciplinary character of game theory. By working through this mosaic of building blocks of game theory, the reader can hopefully get an impression of the breadth and depth of the intellectual potential, which the founders of this theory had envisaged. All the chapters have been written by different authors spread all over the globe, and thus showing how international the game theoretic community already is these days. It has been my honor to collect and edit their contributions, but the intellectual surplus they produced is completely their own merit. Special thanks have to also go to InTech Publisher, and in particular to publishing process manager Oliver Kurelic, whose Preface XI patience and wise consultation made this book possible. This type of publishing, provided by publishers like InTech, will hopefully not only help young and innovative researchers in many countries, but also benefit students around the world. This book is dedicated to them.

Quality and Quantity, 2000

In their classic work, Von Neumann and Morgenstern defined a game as simply the totality of the rules which describe it. They did not, however, elaborate a theory of rules. Such considerations lead to conceptualizing rules and rule configurations as mathematical objects, specifying the principles for combining rules, developing the theory of revising, replacing, and, in general transforming rules and rule complexes. The mathematics is based on contemporary developments at the interface of mathematics, logic, and computer science. This article, drawing on the mathematical theory of rules and rule complexes, extends and generalizes game theory (GGT). The theory of rule complexes is used to conceptualize and analyze diverse social relationships, roles, and games as particular types of rule complexes. A social role, for instance, is the major basis of an individual's action in a game. It consists of at least four major components-which are mathematical objects-in the determination of action: value complex, model of reality (including beliefs and knowledge bases), a repertoire of acts, routines, programs, and strategies, and modalities, role-specific algorithms for determininig or generating action in game settings. The article focuses on three types of action modality: routine or habitual, normative, and instrumental modalities. The theory: (1) provides a cultural/institutional basis for a theory of games where games, social relationships, and roles are formalized in terms of rule complexes; (2) explains human action as a form of rule application or rule-following action, which underlies all modalities of action; (3) formulates the theory that actors construct an action or make choices among alternative actions by making comparisons and judging similarity (or dissimilarity) between an option or options considered and their norms and values, and, in general, determine whether or not, and to what degree, a value, norm, or goal will be realized or satisfied; (4) reconceptualizes "game" as a social form and makes a distinction between open and closed games.

Naval War College Review, 2011

: Wargaming has a long history as an important tool for military training, education, and research.1 In its broader application to nonmilitary conflict situations (see, for example, the recent books Wargaming for Leaders and Business War Games), the technique is increasing in popularity, particularly among businesses seeking strategic advantages. (As a result, we will sometimes use the terms wargaming and gaming interchangeably; in the latter case, however, we mean what is called serious gaming, not the more general sense, like gambling.) Despite that history and popularity, however, wargaming s record of success is uneven. Some games seemto succeed very well in preparing important decision makers for real-world environments in which they later find themselves. A prime example is the U.S.Navy s series of games during the 1920s and 1930s, which helped train the commanders who won the Second World War in the Pacific. Other games do not do so well; for example, the game played by the F...

Optimum. Studia Ekonomiczne

Game theory can be viewed as an important contribution to multi-agent modeling, with widespread applications in economics and other social sciences. This paper presents two distinct approaches to extending-sociologizing-classical game theory: firstly, a system/institutional approach-social science game theory (SGT), and secondly, Erving Goffman's interactionist approach (I-game theory). The two approaches are presented and compared; they are also contrasted with the classical theory. The article ends by concluding that due to the social science game theory, sociologists and social scientists are no longer forced into the classical straightjacket with its hyper-rationality, anomic players, and the absence of any social fabric (institutional and cultural formations). Moreover, the new game theory offers a reliable toolbox of social science concepts and methods for describing, analyzing, and explaining highly diverse interaction phenomena. We claim that those two approaches have already proved themselves useful for investigating and modeling a variety of interaction processes including cooperation, conflict, and negotiation.

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2022

In terms of methodology, game theory, flexibly applied, offers a broad array of systematic approaches to analysing both collective-action problems and multiple distinguishable social environments. Game theory, actually, is not a theory; it is a methodological toolbox for understanding strategic behaviour. Strategic behaviour permeates human societies, occurring whenever one person's or one group's actions affect others. Game-theoretic reasoning fits Nobel Prize economist Thomas Schelling's (2006) concept of vicarious problem-solving. Analysts (or strategic players) attribute goals to individuals, organizations, or groups, along with possible actions they might take and various obstacles and constraints. On this basis, they can infer (roughly predict) the likely behaviour of others. People engage in such inference repeatedly. A teenager might ponder: Dare I ask my friend out on a date? A parent might anticipate a child's reaction to a specific demand, request, reward, show of affection, and so forth. Note that game-theoretic modelling permits both social and material goals (status, power, health, consumption, approval, revenge, affection, money, etc.). Gametheoretic reasoning requires only an assumption that humans seek goals. Hence its breadth of application. As such, game theory offers a series of approaches to institutional and political settlement analysis. In this regard, economic historian Douglass North defines institutions as 'the rules of the game in a society' (North 1990: 3), a notion that invites game-theoretic analysis of institutions, which can also apply to PSA. Now consider how game theorists specify the 'rules' of a game. The rules of a game specify six conditions that affect strategic interactions: