[extropy-chat] Superrationality

[Lee Corbin]

Chris writes

> > Lee Corbin wrote:
> >
> > My reasoning: if you know the other person
> > is going to cooperate, then according to the 
> > table, you must defect.  Likewise, if you know
> > that the person is going to defect, then you
> > must defect. (Failure to do so simply means 
> > that you aren't reading the payoff table, or 
> > don't know what it means.) Only in the case 
> > that you don't know what the person will do-
> > --and, most importantly, there is reason to 
> > believe that his behavior is correlated with 
> > yours---can you logically cooperate.
> 
> Then might we say that superrationality is prescriptive, rather than
> decisive?

Well, were it in our power to redefine what Hofstadter meant, then
yes, it might be an improvement to call it advice---or, what is the
same thing in game theory, a strategy.

> I agree that in the case of iterated PD, with side-channel
> communications unavailable, it's really a cut-and-dry outcome,

:-)  Well, it can't be *too* cut-and-dried, or else so many careful
thinkers could not have been misled. 

> but as far as informing us toward real-world decisions it
> leaves a lot to be desired.  Any communications before or
> during the PD, between agents,...

Oh, yes, and that changes everything! The context of "superrationality"
was and is a Non-Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Or, as Russell wrote

> > The good news is that iterated PD leads towards mutual cooperation
> > ("Tit for Tat" is the name usually given to the strategy, or family
> > of strategies, that tends to evolve); you don't even need side
> > channels. It's only the unrealistic one-shot variant that leads
> > towards mutual defection.

There remain many striking semi-real life scenarios, however, in which 
the NIPD arises.

But it's amazing how zany even some geniuses can be about this sort of
thing: Raymond Smullyan, for example, said that he would *not* cooperate
in the NIPD even with his reflected mirror image!

Lee