You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

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

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (123)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: James_Miller 22 July 2014 09:40:56PM *  1 point [-]

In a classical game all the players move simultaneously.

I'm not sure what you mean by "classical game" but my game is not a simultaneous move game. Many sequential move games do not have equivalent simultaneous move versions.

"I hope you agree that the fact that player 2 gets to make a (useless) move in the case that player 1 chooses A doesn't change the fundamentals of the game."

I do not agree. Consider these payoffs for the same game:

A 3,0 [And Player Two never got to move.]

B,X 2,10000

B,Y 2,2

C,X 0,1

C,Y 4,4

Now although Player 1 will never pick A, its existence is really important to the outcome by convincing Player 2 that if he moves C has been played.

Comment author: twanvl 23 July 2014 09:29:12AM 0 points [-]

I do not agree. Consider these payoffs for the same game: ...

Different payoffs imply a different game. But even in this different game, the simultaneous move version would be equivalent. With regards to choosing between X and Y, the existence of choice A still doesn't matter, because if player 1 chose A X and Y have the same payoff. The only difference is how much player 2 knows about what player 1 did, and therefore how much player 2 knows about the payoff he can expect. But that doesn't affect his strategy or the payoff that he gets in the end.