Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?
The answer is usually that both defect, as they assume the other will cooperate, or stay silent, so in the long run it’s a lose-lose situation.
So how does this link to today’s mind-trap? Well, mostly, looking back, it doesn’t really, but it’s an interesting theory to explore. Game theory in-and-of itself is interesting as well. Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that deals mainly in the attempt to mathematically capture human behaviour in strategic situations... I suspect however that this causes problems because all situations involving humans will be sloppy, as is human nature. But human nature is to think we are perfect....So there is no elegant mathematical equation that can quantify one’s actions. So the pursuit of such an equation is futile. Yet we still look for it. It’s a paradox of sorts, we are looking for the wrong type of answer to the right question. We are looking for an elegant solution to a sloppy problem, so it logically follows that the answer will be sloppy as well. It amazes me that for being who think they are so advanced, we can’t even follow our own basic logic half the time.
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