From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: forwarded message from Andi Sutherland
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:30:45 -0800
FYI, the talk by Martin Shubik is probably guaranteed to be
interesting. Shubik is a game theorist, and was at RAND in the 1950's,
where they were attempting to apply Von Neumann's and Morgenstern's
game-theoretic based economics (ie., neo-classical economics,) to a
wide variety of social issues.
Already, game-theoretic solutions were beginning to "crack" and one of
the first major "cracks" was in a very simple iterated game, "Shubik's
dollar bill auction." It is like any other auction, in that the high
bidder gets to buy the dollar, but the second place bidder has to pay
whatever he bid to the auctioneer.
Don't play the game with friends-unless you want them as enemies-the
game will escalate to bid values that are well beyond a dollar, ie.,
the "winner" will pay more than a dollar for a dollar, and second
place will pay more than the dollar for nothing.
Which means that the agents in the game are not rational-or are they?
(Actually, it is a game that has a process that forces escalation,
like the nuclear arms race, and no matter where you are in the game,
you are better off upping the bid. No matter what.) And how does the
bidding go? I'll give you a hint. It is a fractal.
John
BTW, the "crack" became a "broken" when Kenneth Arrow, (also of RAND
at the time, now at Stanford,) using iterated game methodologies
formally showed that in a social system, the determination, (or
ranking,) of priorities is intransitive, (for which he won a Nobel,)
which means there is no rational, or scientific, or logical way to do
it. And when a society tries? (If you said it would be anything but a
fractal scenario, go wash your mouth out with gin.) One of the
significant contributions of Brian Arthur, (now working with Arrow,
who is also now with SFI,) and two Russian mathematicians in about
1990, was the formalization that such systems will have fluctuations
that are fractal, (Brownian, to be exact,) in nature.
The implications of Arrow's and Arthur's work are still unclear in the
agenda of administration of a society.
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From: Andi Sutherland <ars@santafe.edu>
To: activities-announce@santafe.edu
Subject: Visitors/Events - Weeks of 3/24 & 3/31
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:26:18 -0700
MEMORANDUM
DATE: March 22, 1997
TO: SFI Staff and Researchers
FROM: Andi Sutherland
SUBJECT: SFI Visitor/Event UPDATE - Week of 3/24 and 3/31
Tea will be served Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3:30.
Monday, March 24
Selectron meeting. 8:30 - 9:30, Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room.
Science Luncheon. 12:15 p.m., Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room.
Tuesday, March 25
Selectron meeting. All day (except lunch). Robert N. Noyce Memorial
Conference Room.
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Henryk Fuks, titled "Cellular
automata models for diffusion and transport phenomena in complex systems."
Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room, 12:15 p.m.
Wednesday, March 26
Selectron meeting. All day (except lunch). Robert N. Noyce Memorial
Conference Room.
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Martin Shubik, Yale University.
Title to be announced. Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room, 12:15
p.m.
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Norman Margolus, titled
"Introduction to the Cellular Automata Machine." Location to be announced.
4:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 27
SFI Colloquium Series presents a second talk by Martin Shubik, Yale
University. Title to be announced. Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference
Room, 12:15 p.m.
Friday, March 28
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Barak Pearlmutter, University of New
Mexico, titled "Maximum Likelihood Methods and Advances Independent
Components Analysis." 4:00 p.m., Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room.
*****************************************************************************
Monday, March 31
Science Luncheon. 12:15 p.m., Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room.
Tuesday, April 1
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Peter Stadler. Title to be
announced. Robert N. Noyce Memorial Conference Room, 12:15 p.m.
Wednesday, April 2
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Kay Nieselt-Struwe. Title to be
announced. Small Conference Room. 12:15.
Faculty Meeting. 1:00 p.m., Small conference room.
Friday, April 4
SFI Colloquium Series presents a talk by Charles Curtin, University of
New Mexico, titled "Toward a non-equilibrium agent-based theory
of ecosystem structure and dynamics." Robert N. Noyce Memorial
Conference Room, 4:00 p.m.
Arriving Visitors
Henryk Fuks, University of Illinois, 3/24-26, hosted by Melanie Mitchell
Peter Stadler, University of Vienna, 3/25-4/6, hosted by Erica Jen
Lee Smolin, Pennsylvania State University, 3/25-31, hosted by Stuart Kauffman
Fontini Markopoulu, Pennsylvania State University, 3/25-31, hosted by
Stuart Kauffman
Kellie Evans, York College, 3/27-31, hosted by David Griffeath
Masaki Sasai, Nagoya University, 3/31-4/21, hosted by Ellen Goldberg
Carlos Puente, University of California, Davis, 4/1-9/30, hosted by Erica Jen
Kay Nieselt-Struwe, Max Plank Institute, 4/2-4, hosted by Peter Wills
Janko Gravner, University of California, Davis, 4/5-15, hosted by David
Griffeath
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--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/