RoR: Forum

Michael,

Turning toward the findings of the study now, evolutionary game theory is similar to economic game theory, it has to do with the production and trade of resources. Resources allow you to go that extra step and live like a human being (a being who engages in personal growth who develops and achieves personal aspirations). So, in these studies, when people are successful at the game it is an indication that the strategy they are using is one that would be successful in human life. Researchers assign ranges of values for things -- and assess results over these ranges. Here are some I just made up:

1) Nutrition/Basic Needs
If you play Ultimatum (proposer proposes how a windfall should get divided; responder either accepts their share or, in spite or in mere reciprocal-punishment, rejects the windfall for both people), and if you continually fail to get your responder to accept offers, then you slowly "go hungry" and the size of the windfall decreases. Starting with a fitness of 10, you will lose 0.1 in fitness for every round in which:

a) you as proposer: fail to get a positive response
b) you as a responder: fail to accept an offer

2) Market Competition
If others are playing Ultimatum all around you, and if they are much more successful than you are, and if they pass a minimum level of fitness -- then they get to reproduce, passing on one-third of their game strategies inside their hypothetical, genetic material.

3) Population Competition
If others who are doing very much better than you, if they are also, therefore, reproducing more than you are -- and if their offspring either learns or inherits the inclination to do well, too -- then they may crowd you and your offspring out of a hypothetical, geographic area. Let's say that for every doubling of numbers of them vs. the number of "you" (you and all your offspring), they take 0.1 units in fitness away from you.

4) Personal Charity
If others who are doing very much better than you are doing, are doing so well that even after having offspring they have surplus value, then they can choose to divert funds to causes in which they believe -- altering the very landscape of the value exchanges that will occur in the future (possibly putting you at an even greater disadvantage should you choose to persist in bad behavior). Let's say that they reward good behavior more than what was instituted at the beginning of the game, doubling the windfall of other highly-moral (rational) players.

5) Communication
If others who are doing very much better than you are doing, are also allowed to blow the whistle on you for your bad behavior, pointing out where you cheated others, then for every 1% of the population who discovers that you are a cheat, you lose 0.1 units of fitness.

In this 5-rules world that I just created, you can test whether it might be a good thing to cheat your neighbor for a quick buck. You can test whether it might be a good thing to develop a reputation as an honest trader, or whatever. You can check to see how human players respond to trade, scarcity, threats, alliances, etc. by altering how it is that they interact with one another over time. Once you get a benchmark set of behavior from testing real humans, you can run computer simulations out to millions of individual trades and to tens of thousands of generations of trading partners.

So in these studies it's not reproduction per se that is favored, because within your own life-span you can learn to alter your behavior (2) and eventually even your environment (4). Eventually or with large enough numbers, only the best environments -- the best environments for human beings -- get naturally selected.

Ed

p.s., Setting ranges on values can go wrong because humans aren't simple puzzles, but humans are still puzzles -- they are merely complex puzzles. What that means is not that we should not try to solve the puzzle (finding the right amount of change in fitness that a given act should bring), but that we should refrain from over-confidence in apportioning the variables. Over time we will only get closer and closer to how it really is to be a human interacting with other humans on earth.

Post 61

Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - 11:38pm

Ed

I think that if you studied evolution more carefully, our capacity to reason was a product of natural selective pressures from the environment that assisted in our ability to reproduce more successfully as a species by adapting to our environment. Humans really aren't any different from non-human animals in this regard. In other words your distinction is arbitrary

Do you agree
(Edited by Michael Philip on 3/06, 11:39pm)

(Edited by Michael Philip on 3/06, 11:40pm)

Post 62

Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 12:42am

I agree that our capacity to reason was a product of evolution. But the exercise of reason can't be separated from volition. Nor from the act of creating concepts. And those choices made in the selecting values and in the building of character become traits that effect survival.

That I belong to a species with a rational capacity may be based upon biological evolution, but the traits I generate by my choices are not genetically transmitted. That is, neither my character nor my values are going to be encoded in my germ cells. Statistically, an individual's offspring are more likely to share his or her values and character traits, but that is accounted for my cultural/familial transference - not genes.

Please notice that we don't dominate other species on this planet by means of reproduction. Survival for humans under most modern societies are only about reproduction to the extent that a geographic or political area is seen as sustaining it's numbers by an adequate birth rate, or the population is declining, or the numbers are increasing. If they are increasing it is a question of whether the increase is in excess of that cultures ability to acquire enough food/medicine/shelter/etc. to avoid premature death.

We exercise reason, build upon our knowledge base which we pass on to the next generation, and this is how we survive. Our reproduction isn't any longer a significant part of a natural selection process for humans where we are in a blind competition with other species, or even within our species as allele variants. Not in a significant fashion. It isn't that genetic evolution went away. It is that it became secondary. When reason began to operate and the base of knowledge began to grow, a new selective process began - Memes are the unit of selection in this new process and they are faster and more powerful in determining survival within the human ecology.

Clearly our phenotypes still need reproduction and clearly genes are the units in this area and are still of importance in medical/physiological issues. But the fate of our species is now determined by memes - by the direction cultures take. If a nation state passed a series of laws whereby those who showed signs of intelligence or learning would not be allowed to reproduce, and enough time passed, genetic evolution would take any allele frequency difference between the intelligent and the not-intelligent and put that change into play. But that would be a case of meme's (bad political memes) driving that situation.

If people don't grasp that there are three separate forces at work shaping our future there will always be areas where they will get things wrong or miss more subtle points. Genetic evolution, Memetic evolution, and the agency of individuals as they make choices.

Post 63

Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 5:25am

Michael,

I agree fully with what Steve said. Regarding the natural selection process for human rationality, researchers currently disagree about the origin. I'm in the 'Aquatic Ape' camp in that there is evidence of fishing chimpanzees. This means that, by mere accident, chimpanzees were wading in water and catching fish. In what might be described as a flashpoint, this allowed for the first existence of humans (the human brained required fish fat in order to originate on planet earth) -- a mutation of these fishing chimpanzees. After the first existence, a snowball effect can develop wherein rationality usurps fecundity with feedbacks:

1) smarter ape (by the accident of mutation)
2) smarter ape forages better
3) smarter ape capitalizes resources
4) smarter ape not only reproduces more in the long run, but also increases viability of offspring (so that each reproduction "means more").
5) process feeds into itself until the advent of anatomically modern humans

Ed

Post 64

Saturday, March 9, 2013 - 9:30am

I did not realize that the Aquatic Ape was debatable. It seems obvious by inspection. And we are not alone. Given how cats feel about water, why do they like fish?

I think that some Catastrophic Fire brought us (1) to the sea and (2) they or maybe others coming to eating burned meat and therefore (3) learn to control and create fire.

Post 65

Sunday, March 10, 2013 - 2:47pm

Mike,

I don't know why cats like fish when they don't like water, though their brains are more like human brains than are the brains of other 4-legged species. I think your hypothesis about a great fire is intriguing -- and would explain both coastal life and the onset of fire use; which are questions scientists care a lot about. Here are references regarding the debate on how human brains could have ever developed in the first place. It kicked off in 1980, with the Holloway review claiming that there is more than one way to get to a big brain:

1980
Within-species brain-body weight variability: a reexamination of the Danish data and other primate species.
"... while allometric trends do exist within species, and particularly males, evolutionary pressures leading to larger brain size were probably very diverse, and that any one homogenistic theory is unlikely."

1996
The possible role of long-chain, omega-3 fatty acids in human brain phylogeny.
"I propose that one of the key factors in human encephalization was increased HUFA intake, especially long-chain, omega-3 fatty acids from aquatic and terrestial meat source. This provided the needed neural membrane fluidity and transmitter/receptor functions for rapid acquisition of more advanced human traits and allowed the expansion of H. erectus into more northern climates."

2000
Dietary lean red meat and human evolution.
"... diets high in lean red meat can actually lower plasma cholesterol, contribute significantly to tissue omega-3 fatty acid and provide a good source of iron, zinc and vitamin B12. A study of human and pre-human diet history shows that for a period of at least 2 million years the human ancestral line had been consuming increasing quantities of meat. During that time, evolutionary selection was in action, adapting our genetic make up and hence our physiological features to a diet high in lean meat. This meat was wild game meat, low in total and saturated fat and relatively rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)."

2007
Docosahexaenoic acid, the aquatic diet, and hominin encephalization: difficulties in establishing evolutionary links.
"As brain tissue is metabolically and nutritionally costly to develop and maintain, early hominin encephalization has been linked to a release of energetic and nutritional constraints. One such nutrient-based approach has focused on the n-3 long-chained polyunsaturated fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is a primary constituent of membrane phospholipids within the synaptic networks of the brain essential for optimal cognitive functioning. As biosynthesis of DHA from n-3 dietary precursors (alpha-linolenic acid, LNA) is relatively inefficient, it has been suggested that preformed DHA must have been an integral dietary constituent during evolution of the genus Homo to facilitate the growth and development of an encephalizing brain. Furthermore, preformed DHA has only been identified to an appreciable extent within aquatic resources (marine and freshwater), leading to speculation that hominin encephalization is linked specifically to access and consumption of aquatic resources. The key premise of this perspective is that biosynthesis of DHA from LNA is not only inefficient but also insufficient for the growth and maturation demands of an encephalized brain."

Docosahexaenoic acid biosynthesis and dietary contingency: Encephalization without aquatic constraint.
"... we sought to examine the nutritional, physiological, and archeological premises underlying the perspective that access to an aquatic diet rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) was critical to human brain evolution (Carlson and Kingston [2007]: Am J Hum Biol 19:132-141). In our report investigating links between omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids and hominin encephalization, we concluded that the regular consumption of aquatic resources rich in preformed DHA may not have been essential given a varied diet of wild terrestrial foods (Carlson and Kingston [2007]). This assessment was based primarily on evidence of potential physiological adaptations in modern humans to ensure sufficient availability of DHA during critical periods of brain growth. While modern human physiology provides critical information regarding DHA as a constraint in evolving a large brain, it is also important to consistently contextualize interpretations within a framework of eclectic foraging diets rather than nutritionally limited modern agricultural populations or even modern foragers. We contend that current interpretations of Pleistocene hominin nutritional ecology do not uniquely support a shore-based foraging niche as claimed by Cunnane et al. ..."

Docosahexaenoic acid and shore-based diets in hominin encephalization: a rebuttal.
"... propose that preformed dietary docosahexaenoic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid in fish) did not have a significant role in hominin encephalization. Their position hinges on claiming that humans are able to make sufficient docosahexaenoic acid from the plant-based "parent" omega-3 fatty acid-alpha-linolenic acid. They also suggest that hominin fish consumption occurred too late to have materially influenced encephalization. The authors quantify here a summary of the published data showing that humans cannot make sufficient docosahexaenoic acid to maintain normal infant brain development. The authors also provide evidence that the fossil record shows that some of the earliest hominins were regularly consuming fish. Hence, we reject Carlson and Kingston's position and reiterate support for the concept that access to shore-based diets containing docosahexaenoic acid was necessary for hominin encephalization beyond the level seen in the great apes."

2009
Why are there so few smart mammals (but so many smart birds)?
"... the reduction in production with increasing brain size is not fully compensated by the increase in lifespan. Consequently, the maximum rate of population increase (rmax) is negatively correlated with brain mass. This result is not due to a confounding effect of body size, indicating that the well-known correlation between rmax and body size is driven by brain size, at least among homeothermic vertebrates. Thus, each lineage faces a 'grey ceiling', i.e. a maximum viable brain size, beyond which rmax is so low that the risk of local or species extinction is very high."

2010
Encephalization, expensive tissues, and energetics: An examination of the relative costs of brain size in strepsirrhines.
"The results reveal that Daubentonia, the most encephalized and thus human-like of the lemurs, does not experience an energetic trade-off between brain and body during ontogeny, but does exhibit a trade-off between extensive brain growth and possibly reduced intestinal growth. Also, maternal energy is utilized."

2011
Energetics and the evolution of human brain size.
"We found that, controlling for fat-free body mass, brain size is not negatively correlated with the mass of the digestive tract or any other expensive organ, thus refuting the expensive-tissue hypothesis. Nonetheless, consistent with the existence of energy trade-offs with brain size, we find that the size of brains and adipose depots are negatively correlated in mammals, indicating that encephalization and fat storage are compensatory strategies to buffer against starvation. However, these two strategies can be combined if fat storage does not unduly hamper locomotor efficiency. We propose that human encephalization was made possible by a combination of stabilization of energy inputs and a redirection of energy from locomotion, growth and reproduction."

Ed

Post 66

Monday, May 27, 2013 - 8:10pm

I'm reading Rosenthal's Complete Idiot's Guide to Game Theory, published by Alpha. On p 222, he mentions a technique which I think could be useful for taxation and politics. It's an auction-like mechanism. Here's an adaptation of Rosenthal's example:

5 divisions in an organization want to buy and benefit from a new technology. The new technology costs $50 million and each division will have to pay more of the share of the $50 million if they are expected to benefit more from the new technology (i.e., to "pay your fair share"). It turns out however, that asking the head of each division how much they benefit is a moral hazard -- because they are tempted to lie and say they won't benefit much ...

... which means that they won't be expected to pay much for it.

Instead of asking each division head to forecast their benefit, he suggests having an auction. Here are the 5 divisions and how much they would actually save from implementing the new technology:

1) $15M
2) $25M
3) $7.5M
4) $20M
5) $17.5M

Total savings = $85M

It would be "collectively rational" for these 5 guys to partner-up and pay for the technology, because there is $35M in savings from doing that. It would maximize expected value. But getting them to admit how much they each benefit can be a problem. Instead, run things like an auction.

Round 1 (to each individual division): Would you be willing to pay $10M for the technology. Keep in mind that if you say no, then you will be excluded from benefiting from the technology.

Outcome of Round 1:

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) No
4) Yes
5) Yes

Round 2 (to divisions 1, 2, 4 and 5): Would you be willing to pay $12.5M for the technology?

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Excluded from benefit
4) Yes
5) Yes

Voila! The auction is over and everyone -- everyone who was willing to pay for it -- benefits from it!

Here's how it could work politically and with taxation:

Both state senators fill out a line-item form for Federal Tax in their state, with the auctioned cost of each program (Defense, Justice, Carbon Tax, Planned Parenthood, etc.). Senators which decline to buy-in to any given federal program will forfeit their state's "right" or "privilege" in reaping benefits of the program. Adjusted auction prices are sent out again to all states who bid on the first auction for any particular program -- until the program is paid for (by the people who want it). Upon successive rounds, if the feds can't get the "buy-in" from the remaining states, then the federal program is cancelled. The auction is publicized so that voters know the choices picked by every senator in the country. People will be allowed to move into states that they like, and to vote for senators that they like.

The process is repeated for the state level of government.

The process is repeated for the local level of government.

In this plan, no state or local government could ever be a "free rider" getting sweet-heart deals, golden parachutes, kick-backs, or whatever. People would simply get what they are willing to pay for (and not any more or less than that). Campaigning would consist only of photo-copying your intended line-item sheet. Accountability would consist of simply verifying that you checked each box appropriately. It'd be a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom (i.e., instead of what we have in place right now).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/27, 8:12pm)

Post 67

Sunday, June 16, 2013 - 4:25pm

Research Update ...
---------------------------------------------------------------

Tooby & Cosmides have now thrown their huge hats into this research arena!:

What are punishment and reputation for?

Why did punishment and the use of reputation evolve in humans? According to one family of theories, they evolved to support the maintenance of cooperative group norms; according to another, they evolved to enhance personal gains from cooperation. ... The circumstances in which punishment is deployed and withheld-its circuit logic-support the hypothesis that it is generated by psychological mechanisms that evolved to benefit the punisher, by allowing him to bargain for better treatment.

Recap:
The reason we punish bad behavior (as when we alter our behavior toward another in response to a defection/crime) is selfish -- we do it because it is better for us to do it.

Theories claiming that the evolutionary role of punishment is to maintain group norms are not necessarily correct -- a possibility which explains how you can still get nearly 100% cooperation when only 1 in 4 people are willing to punish defection/crime. Only 25% of us would need to be interested in justice, in order for 100% of us to benefit from free trade/enterprise (e.g., from free market, or unregulated, capitalism). All that we would need to prove -- in order to prove that deregulation would work -- is that 1 in 4 of us "care."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Overpunishing is not necessary to fix cooperation in voluntary public goods games.

Experimental and theoretical research has shown how the combination of voluntary participation and altruistic punishment-punishing antisocial behaviors at a personal cost-provides a solution to the problem, as long as antisocial punishment-the punishing of cooperators-is not allowed. Altruistic punishment can invade at low participation and pave the way to the fixation of cooperation. Specifically, defectors are overpunished, in the sense that their payoff is reduced by a sanction proportional to the number of punishers in the game. Here we show that qualitatively equivalent results can be achieved with a milder punishing mechanism, where defectors only risk a fixed penalty per round-as in many real situations-and the cost of punishment is shared among the punishers. The payoffs for the four strategies-cooperate, defect, abstain, and cooperate-&-punish-are derived and the corresponding replicator dynamics analyzed in full detail.

Recap:
If you participate with others voluntarily (i.e., if you participate under free-market mechanics) and if some of us alter our behavior after witnessing a crime, then we actually work together to produce great outcomes. We can even set up a fixed penalty system (i.e., a "rule of law" against force and fraud) which hardly costs us anything individually. However, if arrogant, progressive, control-freaks gain power, then forget about it: we won't get the great outcomes, and the costs will skyrocket anyway (pay more, get less).
---------------------------------------------------------------
Does insurance against punishment undermine cooperation in the evolution of public goods games?

In some public goods systems, punishment is undermined by an insurance system where speculators buy a policy that sequentially covers all punishment costs. ... This however only happens if the costs of the insurance are lower than the expected fines faced by a defector. We argue that an insurance of this type is not viable and conclude that under realistic assumptions speculation does not destabilize cooperation.

Recap:
Sometimes, gangsters bribe their way out of punishment, in order to maintain their prior level of crime/defection against innocent people. But under realistic assumptions, this behavior is not, on average, adaptive (i.e., they don't win in the long run). You would have to have an institutionally-entrenched Leviathan -- the kind which current, progressive leaders of America are advocating -- in order for that kind of ruthless, string-of-corpses corruption to pay off in the long term. It is important for us not to ever get an institutionally-entrenched Leviathan in this country.
---------------------------------------------------------------
If cooperation is likely punish mildly: insights from economic experiments based on the snowdrift game.

Punishment may deter antisocial behavior. Yet to punish is costly, and the costs often do not offset the gains that are due to elevated levels of cooperation. ... Using the snowdrift game as the basis, we have conducted a series of economic experiments to determine whether severe punishment is more effective than mild punishment. We have observed that severe punishment is not necessarily more effective, even if the cost of punishment is identical in both cases.

Recap:
Harsh punishment -- i.e., the kind reserved for use by mean bureaucrats in regulatory governments -- isn't necessary for maintaining cooperation in human populations. Instead, if we each do our own part -- actually, if even only 1 in 4 of us does something to retaliate against criminal behavior -- then everybody wins (except for arrogant, progressive, control freaks -- many of whom are Republicans).
---------------------------------------------------------------

:-)

Ed

Post 68

Monday, June 24, 2013 - 10:56pm

here is a comment I received on FB and decided to share here:

"Since humans evolved for millions of years in relatively small tribal groups where each individual knew everyone else on a more or less face-to-face basis, the question about "which system (capitalism or socialism) is more consistent with the nature of man" does not lead in the direction Randian Objectivists think it does. This is one of the ways in which Rand's clueless and largely uneducated pseudo-philosophy sabotages the advocacy of markets and liberty. Hayek understood this. Rand did not."

Post 69

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - 2:15am

"Since humans evolved for millions of years..." Is the person referring to genetic evolution? If so, what's his point?

If he is talking about some form of cultural evolution, then what does the fact of "knowing everyone else on a more or less face-to-face basis" have to do with our cultural evolution from the law of the jungle, to organized and ritualized rule by force, to rationalized theft by government (including socialism), to Capitalism (the only political system where force and theft, whether committed by private individuals or governments is outlawed)?

As for saying, "...is more consistent with the nature of man..." - we are best suited to an environment that maximizes liberty. It frees us to act on our choices, and pursue our dreams. That is Rand's philosophy and her view of man's nature. What does this person think human nature consists of? Tribal mysticism? Tribal brutality? Are we more human, if we behave more animal like? Is this person an anarchist, a socialist, what? (And what is FB?)

What is a "Randian Objectivist"? Is that something different than just an Objectivst? If so, what is the "Randian" part?

Michael, why do think anyone here would want to see this "clueless and largely uneducated pseudo-philosophy" you are sharing?
------------

Summary:

Length of time humans evolved --- small tribal groups where they knew each other --- system most consistent with human nature --- not what Randian Objectivists think --- Rand's philosophy sabotages advocacy of markets and liberty --- Hayek understood this. Each place I put the three dashes (---) represents a non-sequitor, or missing bit of logic. Notice that this person doesn't seem to be aware that they are making themselves unintelligible by failing to express the logical connections between those concepts. It is not as bad as word salad but not unlike schizophrenic thinking.

Post 70

Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - 9:29pm