I made a post yesterday in which I equated "emotional tension" to force
and quality and "scapegoating words" to flux and quantity. This morning I
remembered to think of force as potential difference and to think of flux
as "flow of something." I'm now thinking that equating quality and
quantity with force and flux probably was wrong.
On another tangent, for several days I've been thinking about Robert
Axelrod's work, "The Evolution of Cooperation," and the relationship
between cooperation and competition.
Axelrod used the "Prisoner's Dilemma" to test different strategies for
using cooperation and defection against each other. Two players (or
strategies) are engaged in the game. They have to choose between two
options, which are cooperate or defect. If both cooperate, they can earn
three points apiece as reward. If both defect, they get only one point
each, which is the punishment for failing to join forces. If one player
defects while the other cooperates, then the defector receives five points
(the temptation) while the trusting cooperator receives no points at all
(commonly known as the sucker's payoff).
Using the Prisoner's Dilemma in role plays with teams as an exercise to
help learn about negotiation theory is a lively way to increase entropy
production, but care must be taken to emphasize a game spirit, otherwise
people in their relations can get hurt.
The model that proved most successful in Axelrod's experiment was
"tit-for-tat, submitted by Anatol Rapoport, a Canadian concert pianist,
game theorist, and peace promoter during the cold war between USA and
Russia." Tit for tat never "won" in a single game, but induced
cooperation more quickly than other strategies, thus "winning on the
average" when counterparts' strategies were unknown.
Axelrod summarized the principles of a tit for tat strategy, I believe, as
follows: 1) be nice, i.e., don't defect first 2) be provocable, i.e., if
your counterpart defects, then you defect in turn, 3) be forgiving, i.e.,
if your counterpart turns nice, then be nice in return, and 4) be simple
or transparent, i.e., engage in a pattern that your counterpart quickly
will come to understand.
Ironically, wholeness impaired, the rational strategy for a one-time
transaction, a single iteration of the game, is to defect, no matter what
the other player does. Against a cooperating player one earns five points
by defecting, but only three points for cooperation -- best to defect.
Against a defecting player one earns one point if one also defects, but
zero points if one cooperates -- again best to defect.
Not to read too much into the Prisoner's Dilemma exercise where the
situation is a bit contrived -- although there is the potential of
Prisoner's Dilemma in any transaction -- and where the
information/communication environment is artificially impaired, but it was
thinking about the exercise, reciprocity and being nice, provocable,
transparent, and forgiving as background that my curiosity about At's
"Digestor model" once again was peeked when I read in LO16341:
>Evolutionary growth happens close to equibrium when some
>organisations in the new order grow by feeding on lesser
>organisations, either those of the new order whith insufficient
>qualities or those of the previous order with a lack in
>qualities. It is then when a member of the organistion should
>have the opportunity not to "rise up, rebel, and protest the
>behavior of the organization", but to "stoop down, honour and
>protect the behaviour of the organization".
I wonder, then, how do we combine our dual roles as predators and model
ubuntu creative and learning citizens of Gaia? And what is the "Digestor
model?"
Best wishes,
Dan Chay
chay@alaska.net
--Heidi and Dan Chay <chay@alaska.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>