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Finite and Infinite Games: Difference between revisions
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===Power versus strength=== | ===Power versus strength=== | ||
{{power versus strength quote}}We speak often about power | {{power versus strength quote}} | ||
We speak often about power | |||
===Society versus culture=== | ===Society versus culture=== | ||
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There are many resonances here with some of the JC’s other favourite big ideas. | There are many resonances here with some of the JC’s other favourite big ideas. | ||
===“Complicated” versus “complex”=== | |||
{{quote|{{complicated capsule}}}} | |||
Finite games are ''[[simple]]'', or at the most, ''[[complicated]]''. Infinite games are ''complex''. | |||
===“Historic” versus “prospective”=== | ===“Historic” versus “prospective”=== | ||
Many distinctions between finite and infinite games boil down to their historical perspective: those that look backwards, concerning themselves with what has already been established and laid down — as agreed rules, formal boundaries and limited time periods for resolution necessarily do — will tend to be finite in nature; those that are open-ended, forward looking, and indeterminate — concerned with what has yet to happen, and is necessarily unknown, are infinite. | Many distinctions between finite and infinite games boil down to their historical perspective: those that look backwards, concerning themselves with what has already been established and laid down — as agreed rules, formal boundaries and limited time periods for resolution necessarily do — will tend to be finite in nature; those that are open-ended, forward looking, and indeterminate — concerned with what has yet to happen, and is necessarily unknown, are infinite. | ||
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Let me throw in some original research here: historically-focused games are ''fine'': there is no harm and much reward to be had from a game of football, as long as everyone understands the “theatricality” of what is going on; but to apply finite, backward-looking techniques to the “resolution” of ''infinite'' scenarios — necessarily forward-looking, indeterminate problems (in that you don’t even know that there is a problem, let alone what it is) is where you will get into bother. | Let me throw in some original research here: historically-focused games are ''fine'': there is no harm and much reward to be had from a game of football, as long as everyone understands the “theatricality” of what is going on; but to apply finite, backward-looking techniques to the “resolution” of ''infinite'' scenarios — necessarily forward-looking, indeterminate problems (in that you don’t even know that there is a problem, let alone what it is) is where you will get into bother. | ||
[[File:Normal vs fat-tailed distribution.png|350px|thumb|right|The ostensible similarity between normal and fat-tailed distributions, yesterday.]]It is deceptive in that finite techniques may work perfectly well much of the time, because even infinite environments largely function by reference to established order, existing rules and what is already known: they look, for the most part, like finite games — it’s just that they don’t have to, and are liable to change without notice. As long as they behave themselves, a finite approach is efficient, effective, centrally controllable and provides consistency and certainty. This is why | [[File:Normal vs fat-tailed distribution.png|350px|thumb|right|The ostensible similarity between normal and fat-tailed distributions, yesterday.]]It is deceptive in that finite techniques may work perfectly well much of the time, because even infinite environments largely function by reference to established order, existing rules and what is already known: they look, for the most part, like finite games — it’s just that they don’t have to, and are liable to change without notice. As long as they behave themselves, a finite approach is efficient, effective, centrally controllable and provides consistency and certainty. This is why [[thought leader]]<nowiki/>s are so fond of sporting metaphors. | ||
This, we think, is just an other way of noting that the middle of a [[normal distribution]] resembles the middle of a “fat-tailed” distribution and the same approaches will work passably well for both, as long as the events fall within the middle, which for the most part they do. | This, we think, is just an other way of noting that the middle of a [[normal distribution]] resembles the middle of a “fat-tailed” distribution and the same approaches will work passably well for both, as long as the events fall within the middle, which for the most part they do. | ||
=== As single-round and iterated prisoner’s dilemmas === | === Formal versus substantive === | ||
We have argued elsewhere that the great curse of [[Modernism|modernity]] is the primacy of [[Substance and form|form over substance]]. In [[Finite game|finite games]] the distinction between the two can be trivial; in an infinite game it is not. | |||
In a backward-looking, proven, data-complete universe, ''substance is simply a specific articulation of form''. The universe is solved; there is an exclusive optimal move and it can be derived from first principle. Substance follows from — is dependent on — form. Form is an axiom; substance is its articulation with numbers. If you have right equation — that is to say, if you follow the right form — you will get the right answer. Indeed, without the right form you have almost no chance of getting the right answer, and none at all of knowing that you have it. This depends on the universe being bounded, all rules determined, all [[Unknowns|knowns known.]] It depends, therefore, on ''the conditions existing for a [[finite game]]''. | |||
Where the universe is not bounded, where rules are unknown or changeable, where unknowns swamp knowns<ref>[[Signal-to-noise ratio|All data is from the past]]. Seeing as there is an infinite amount of data from the future, the portion of the available data we have is, effectively, nil. </ref> — where the [[Infinite game|game is ''infinite'']] — ''substance is not a function of form''. There are no equations, axioms or formulae to follow when interacting with [[Complex system|complex adaptive system]]<nowiki/>s. It will be tempting to rely on formulae that tend to work most of the time — the [[Black-Scholes option pricing model|Black Scholes option pricing model]] works most of the time, at least [[Long-Term Capital Management|until it does not]] — but this is a lazy and, at the limit, dangerous, economy. We need a different approach. Instead of the trained — those best equipped to carry out complicated instructions — we need the ''educated'': those best equipped to [[OODA loop|observe, orient, decide and act]]. These people are necessarily skilled, experienced and therefore ''expensive''. | |||
=== Top-down versus bottom-up === | |||
{{Quote| | |||
You know, man, when I was a young man in high school<br> | |||
You believe it or not, I wanted to play football for the coach | |||
And all those older guys<br> | |||
They said that he was mean and cruel, but you know<br> | |||
I wanted to play football for the coach. | |||
:Lou Reed, ''Coney Island Baby''}} | |||
Finite games tend to favour a top-down game management, with a coach and a captain. Infinite games are bottom up: every player must constantly assess her immediate environment and work out what to do based on the information she currently has. | |||
Where [[form]] dominates, we should concentrate our resources at the centre, where we formulate rules, work out [[algorithm]]s and devise playbooks, since if we get this right, success is a matter of execution, and failure comes from failure to follow the form. This has a few implications. Firstly, it means the brilliant minds belong to those at the top of the organisation: they do the most inspired thinking. Secondly, there is no more sacred quest than the creation of excellent process. Our most talented personnel are those who can write and maintain formal rules. Thirdly, those at the edges of the organisation whose job is not to formulate policy but to follow it — those who must put the leadership’s plans and algorithms into practice must not think: they must, so far as possible: quickly, flawlessly, cheaply. If you are in a finite game environment, the ''last'' thing you want them to do is make things up as they go along, as that will upset the plan. ''They must act like machines''. | |||
If we are in a wicked environment | |||
=== As [[Single-round prisoner’s dilemma|single-round]] and [[Iterated prisoner’s dilemma|iterated prisoner’s dilemmas]] === | |||
A finite game can be part of an infinite game but not vice versa. One could regard a sports franchise an an organisation playing an infinite game through the medium of finite games: here its immediate interests in each distinct match — to comprehensively, theatrically, thrash the opposition — is tempered by its wider interest to keep the infinite game going by creating a compelling sporting contest in which there is the drama that one might not, at any time, win. To carry on that wider, infinite game, one’s opponents must not only survive, but ''flourish'' to the point where they can and will beat you in a finite game, thus supplying theatre if not really drama: an unbeatable team is unsatisfying for winners, losers and spectators alike. | A finite game can be part of an infinite game but not vice versa. One could regard a sports franchise an an organisation playing an infinite game through the medium of finite games: here its immediate interests in each distinct match — to comprehensively, theatrically, thrash the opposition — is tempered by its wider interest to keep the infinite game going by creating a compelling sporting contest in which there is the drama that one might not, at any time, win. To carry on that wider, infinite game, one’s opponents must not only survive, but ''flourish'' to the point where they can and will beat you in a finite game, thus supplying theatre if not really drama: an unbeatable team is unsatisfying for winners, losers and spectators alike. | ||