Comments on: Worldly philosophers

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 07:34:10 +0000

This paper models X lulls you into a receptive frame of mind, the proscenium arch of the rigorous imagination. The rest, love-making as a signaling game, is utterly familiar to those of us old enough to have been surfeited with psychoanalytic suggestiveness.

By: DJW

DJW — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 22:53:18 +0000

Game theorists really like to talk about signalling. Semioticians can probably tell us more interesting and useful things about non-overt human communication, but they won’t be able to model it. No great loss, if you ask me….

By: tcb

tcb — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 20:26:08 +0000

Henry, attitude makes all the difference. When I re-read it with the expectation that it’s a joke, it was much more entertaining.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 19:23:24 +0000

That’s economics-speak? Really? I would have thought it was some other kind of speak – semiotics or something. Clearly I don’t read nearly enough game theory.

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:55:48 +0000

I had the opposite reaction (maybe I’ve been hanging around with economists too long). I imagine that the paper is at least in part an exercise in droll humour (‘pince-sans-rire’ as the French say), and wanted to buy the author a pint for pulling it off so well. I’ve always been keen on the use of game theory for intellectually subversive and/or artistic purposes; I reckon that if Alfred Jarry or the old Oulipo crowd were around today, they’d be pulling off outrages like this paper left, right and center.

By: tcb

tcb — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:42:06 +0000

Gag. In the same spirit as “Fooling the Shrinks,” couldn’t we give homeless psychotics jobs writing scholarly papers on sex and see who notices?