The Prisoner's Dilemma and Religion

[David Sklansky]

Two smart but selfish brothers get arrested the day after robbing a seven eleven. They are about to be questioned in seperate cells and are given alternatives along the lines of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Right before their questioning their father visits them both in their respective cells and tells them that if they talk they will have hell to pay when they get out plus will be cut out of the will. Because of that they both choose the normally suboptimal strategy, and are better off because of the fear of their father.

Some smart guy realized all this a few thousand years ago and took a vacation up a mountain. That's the real story. I'll let others elaborate.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
Two smart but selfish brothers get arrested the day after robbing a seven eleven. They are about to be questioned in seperate cells and are given alternatives along the lines of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Right before their questioning their father visits them both in their respective cells and tells them that if they talk they will have hell to pay when they get out plus will be cut out of the will. Because of that they both choose the normally suboptimal strategy, and are better off because of the fear of their father.

Some smart guy realized all this a few thousand years ago and took a vacation up a mountain. That's the real story. I'll let others elaborate.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, I am Dumb... what is the prisoner's dilemma?

[Cerril]

Basically it works like this, in the classic example:

Take the first sentence to start, two guys are arrested and put in seperate cells. There's no proof they committed the big crime (10 year sentence) but they were caught running a red light at 80 (1 year).

They're told this:

If you talk, tell us that the other guy committed the crime, you'll get off your 1 year sentence and walk free. He's being given the same option.

If neither talks both get 1 year.
If one talks, one gets 10 years and the other gets to go free.
If both talk, both get 10 years.

So which is right? Well in the dilemma, it's better EV to talk, since your going to jail for 10 years or not is entirely dependent on the other guy. The outcomes look like this for A and B where t=talks and d=doesn't talk.

For A
AtBt = 10
AtBd = 0
AdBt = 10
AdBd = 1

And likewise for B. So it's always in A's best interest to talk, though if both do the thing in their best interest both get the worst possible outcome.

By the way, check out some work by Brian Skyrms, a professor of mine back at UCI. One paper which may or may not be published (on the Stag Hunt) seemed to give some pretty good solutions. I could dredge up the paper I wrote for his class, or at least try to (I lost a lot of stuff in a crash recently).

[Cerril]

Interesting idea, but you make Moses out to be a great moral leader (as well as an astounding intellectual, intuitively or intentionally). That's a lot of respect no matter how you angle it. For that matter, it's a couple steps above 'religious founding father' as far as the scientific community's assessment goes.

[James Boston]

I know that people's opinions on this are always so deep-seated that I'm not going to change them, but here's a point. For thousands and thousands of year's man has had laws. Failure to adhere to those laws has resulted in harsh punishments, yet people have never stopped breaking the law. So, what if Moses did apply the prisoner's dilemma to gain compliance? Whose compliance was he trying to gain? What did Moses have to benefit by making people fear something other than himself? And why did people continue to adhere to the laws Moses set forth for so long when the results were unreckognizable until death? So while man's law, which has immediate consequences when broken, has been overlooked by so many for so long. Meanwhile, God's law has been followed for an equally long amount of time. Many people will claim that this is done to avoid critical thinking. I don't see how millions of people, over thousands of years, have been void of the ability to think for themselves and had to fabricate an almight being to explain the unexplainable. There has to be something more to it. There have always been dissenters and somehow their beliefs never took over, as logical as they may have been. You obviously don't beleive the Bible. But it does offer explanations. Jesus turned a minimal amount of fish and bread into a meal that fed the multitudes. You probably don't beleive that. I bet if you were one of the people he fed you would, and you would probably think there was something more to what that guy was saying. Miracles occur throughout the Bible. Have I ever seen one? No. All I'm trying to get at it that while you personally may not have any proof of the existence of God, the belief in God would not have survived for so long if NO ONE ever had ANY reason to believe.

[Matt Ruff]

[ QUOTE ]
Two smart but selfish brothers get arrested the day after robbing a seven eleven. They are about to be questioned in seperate cells and are given alternatives along the lines of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Right before their questioning their father visits them both in their respective cells and tells them that if they talk they will have hell to pay when they get out plus will be cut out of the will. Because of that they both choose the normally suboptimal strategy, and are better off because of the fear of their father.

Some smart guy realized all this a few thousand years ago and took a vacation up a mountain.

[/ QUOTE ]

What I want to know is where these guys found a 7-11 to rob thousands of years ago.

-- M. Ruff

[felson]

So, let me see... Christianity makes people happy by inducing them to treat each other better, because much of life is non-zero-sum. I don't think anyone ever thought of that before!

The fun thing about stories like this is that they prove very little but insinuate much more.

[Gabe]

I am awestruck.

[Matt Ruff]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting idea, but you make Moses out to be a great moral leader (as well as an astounding intellectual, intuitively or intentionally).

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, he makes Moses sound like a Mafia crew boss.

-- M. Ruff

[Antinomy]

The initial post cracked me up.

There are many situations where if everyone behaves virtuously, the total amount of a good thing is a maximum (or the total amount of a bad thing is a minimum). Unfortunately, it is often true that some people can gain an advantage for themselves if they behave treacherously while everyone else behaves virtuously. However, if too many persons realize the value of treachery, the value of virtue breaks down and the entire system collapses.

Take littering for an example. If nobody litters, there will be no garbage lying around making things look ugly. If only few people litter, they gain the benefit of not having to carry their trash around until they can dispose of it properly, and the environment stays relatively clean so that they also can enjoy the beauty of a (mostly) garbage free environment. For them, littering is a net gain.

Suppose people begin to see that the people doing the littering are gaining a benefit at the expense of everyone else and decide to start throwing their garbage around too. If enough people start littering so that the area becomes trashed, the virtuous people who don't litter will eventually realize that there is no way that their littering can really hurt the situation further, so they might as well gain the convenience value of littering themselves, and the place become a de facto dump that everyone hates--even the initial litterers. (See some vacant lots for real world examples.) Thus, if too many people litter, everyone, more-or-less, will begin to do so.

So it becomes important to control the initial littering before it cascades out of control. We do that with policing, fines, volunteer clean-up crews, and beneficial propaganda. Those interventions, however, can be expensive. Wouldn't it be great to figure out a cheaper way to stop littering?

Hmm, how about we convince people that littering is a sin? If you litter, you don't get to go to heaven. Now, expand that concept to all bad behavior. Religion is a way to convince people to behave virtuously when virtue is a long-term benefit while at the same time treachery is a short-term benefit.

Of course, religion itself can be exploited so that a few persons gain benefits at the cost of everyone else, but that is a different story.