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James_Miller comments on A simple game that has no solution - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: James_Miller 20 July 2014 06:36PM

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Comment author: James_Miller 23 July 2014 04:34:32AM 1 point [-]

But this does not make sense because then player 1 will know that player 2 will play X, so Player 1 would have been better off playing A or B over C.

Comment author: LimberLarry 23 July 2014 05:11:49AM 0 points [-]

You seem to be treating the sub-problem, "what would Player 2 believe if he got a move" as if it is separate from and uninformed by Player 1's original choice. Assuming Player 1 is a utility-maximizer and Player 2 knows this, Player 2 immediately knows that if he gets a move, then Player 1 believed he could get greater utility from either option B or C than he could get from option A. As option B can never offer greater utility than option A, a rational Player 1 could never have selected it in preference to A. But of course that only leaves C as a possibility for Player 1 to have selected and Player 2 will select X and deny any utility to Player 1. So neither option B nor C can ever produce more utility than option A if both players are rational.

Comment author: LimberLarry 23 July 2014 04:48:14AM 0 points [-]

Exactly, but B is never a preferable option over A, so the only rational option is for Player 1 to have chosen A in the first place, so any circumstance in which Player 2 has a move necessitates an irrational Player 1. The probability of Player 1 ever selecting B to maximize utility is always 0.