Game (Theory) of GOD!!!

 

Game Theory, as discussed or taught in the subject of Operations Research, Decision Science, or Management Science has a lot of applications and implications in real life. Here, we discuss one novel application of the same.

For example, most of us believe in God, while, we are not even sure whether a God exists in reality or not. We believe in God, because that is the way we are conditioned or taught to think from the very childhood. While we are all rational and educated beings and tend to have an opinion on the veracity of facts regarding other issues communicated to us, this is one aspect we take as gospel truth.

We will use the concept of saddle point to illustrate this concept and how our belief system works. An illustration of the payoff table to be used for the same is reproduced below. For learning more about the concept of saddle, point one can refer to the youtube channel link given at the end of the blog.

Basically, we have two players in this game, each having access to two strategies in this particular example (In real life, both the players could have access to a differing number of strategies, an observation which is not important at this point of time). Here, Human (Player A) has two strategies (options) available to him – either to Believe in God or Not Believe in God. God (Player B), similarly has two strategies (options) – either He ‘Exists’ or ‘Does not Exist’.

‘Human (Player A)’ is the maximising player, who tries to maximise his/ her payoff (we humans are ‘greedy’, there is no end to our desires and needs ) and follows a MAXIMIN strategy. The other player (Player B) is ‘God’ who follows a MINIMAX strategy.

Let us assume the maximum payoff is 100 million. The payoff table is made from the perspective of ‘Human (Player A)’. The number 85 in the table means that 85 million is going into the pocket of Human (as profit for him) and the same for all the other values viz. 60, 20, and 40.

To find the payoffs, let us start from the top left cell of the table…if human believes in God and God actually exists, God is likely to be very happy and is likely to reward Human with a very high payoff, say 85 million. Moving to the next cell on the right, here Human believes that God actually exists while there might not be any God in reality, the payoff in this case is likely to be slightly lesser than the first case, but since belief is quite powerful and we work hard based on our belief system,  the payoff is likely to be slightly lesser, say 60 million, and so on for the rest of the table.

Now the heuristic for finding a ‘saddle’ point is as follows:

In every row, we will put a circle around the minimum figure. So for the first row, we put a circle aound 60, and in the second row around 20. In the column, however, we will put a square around the maximum value. So, in the first column we put a square around 85, and in the second column around 60. Wherever, the circle and the square intersect, we have the saddle point.

 
Thus, we have a saddle point at 60, proving thereby that Humans will always believe in God, while in reality, God may not actually exist.

Games having a saddle point are also called games having a pure strategy. Games, that do not have a pure strategy have a mixed strategy, where each strategy has a certain probability of being used as opposed to pure strategy where both the players always follow the ‘saddle point’ strategy.

The concept can be used to simulate the behavior of any two parties in a given situation, say, whether the teacher should set an easy paper for the exam vs. students should study for the exam OR whether kids should listen to their parents vs. should parents be strict or lenient with their kids, two players in the car market or say automobiles and their behaviour and so on. The idea is for one to be able to identify a maximising player (Player A) and a minimising player (Player B), the strategies available to them and the payoffs.

In the next post, we will try and take some other situations. Readers are invited to comment on their ideas regarding the same, and give suggestions as where they think the concept can be successfully applied. 

Requesting readers to experiment with different payoffs and share the results. As always, waiting for your comments and reactions!!!

 

Some interesting material on Game Theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRK9DAo6ffU --> Finding a  Saddle Point in a given payoff table

https://ncase.me/trust/ --> Simulation of human behaviour using Game Theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM --> Interesting video on Game Theory

 


 

#GameTheory #BeliefSystems #RationalChoice #StrategicThinking #DecisionTheory #PhilosophyOfReligion #Theology #BeliefInGod #FaithAndReason #PhilosophyOfMind #ThoughtLeadership #CriticalThinking #AcademicBlogging #DeepThinking #IntellectualDebate #BloggingCommunity #MindsetMatters #ExploreIdeas #BigIdeas #CuriousMind #Philosophy #Mathematics #GameOfLife #StrategicPhilosophy #TheoryOfGames

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