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(Message started by: BenVitale on Jul 26^th, 2009, 3:26pm)

Title: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Jul 26^th, 2009, 3:26pm

on 07/24/09 at 23:23:19, BenVitale wrote:

Is religion something that survived from man's primitive past ?

Are there rational explanations for the success of religions?

Or do you view religion as a category of behavior largely immune to the rational calculus?

True or False?
Religion is doomed to disappear in era of science and general enlightment?

Religion may be defined, in a broad sense, as something that provides a framework for one's values or some purpose to one's life

It appears that no one can live entirely free from a framework of meaning.

But it is a fact that not all religions require a God, as Judaism, Islam or Christianity do.

Philosophy provides a framework for one's values or some purpose to one's life ... so does Psychology

What about Economics? Economics does it, too!

Many economists explain the nature of the world in economic terms ... economists could be the new priests

Is this outrageous?

Have your say.

*********************************

Quote:

Is religion something that survived from man's primitive past ?

Quote:

towr wrote :

Many religions are the result of a cultural evolution that has gone on for thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of years. If that's what you mean.
But new one's keep popping up; like Scientology. One can't call that one a remnant of the primitive past.

Quote:

Are there rational explanations for the success of religions?

towr wrote:

There are numerous scientific explanation for why religion might exist, and is probably unavoidable in the human species.
For example, neurological research has shown that stimulating the brain in certain ways with magnetic fields produces religious experiences (e.g. a sense of presence and out of body experience). And, furthermore, people are natural pattern recognizers; even if there is no actual pattern they'll find one (this is known to Discordians as the aneristic illusion). So it's easy to think why they might sense the influence of something greater, an all-encompassing pattern.

Quote:

Or do you view religion as a category of behavior largely immune to the rational calculus?

towr wrote: Life is largely immune to rational calculus. Irrationality is a much faster and efficient method, provided the heuristics are in tune with the environment. Calculation is for organisms and (other) machines that have time to waste.

Quote:

True or False?
Religion is doomed to disappear in era of science and general enlightment?

towr wrote: Considering that the "era of science and enlightenment" started almost 400 years ago, I'd have to say that all signs indicate "NO". Our brain hasn't change significantly in a hundred thousand years; and as I've said before, neuroscience indicates our brain may by it's very nature incline us to religious/spiritual ideas. So unless our brain changes, we cannot expect religious and spiritual ideas to ever disappear.
However there is a trend away from organized religion to more individual spirituality. ... And belief in UFO's.

Quote:

Religion may be defined, in a broad sense, as something that provides a framework for one's values or some purpose to one's life
It appears that no one can live entirely free from a framework of meaning.

towr wrote: That's not just appearance. It's an inevitable consequence of being a planning (i.e. not purely reactive) agent. You cannot make plans about a world that is meaningless to you; you need to know, to a sufficiently accurate extent, how things work and affect each other. How would you ever pass through a door if you don't even know that that rectangular object with the handle implies, with great certainty, a space beyond it?

Quote:

But it is a fact that not all religions require a God, as Judaism, Islam or Christianity do.

Philosophy provides a framework for one's values or some purpose to one's life ...

towr wrote: No, it doesn't. It provides a framework for thinking. Which may include thinking about value and purpose. However, it cannot provide either values or purpose; that will need to be drawn from somewhere else.

Quote:

so does psychology

towr wrote : Psychology is descriptive, it merely purports to provide a framework for making sense of actual behaviour and thought. It does not make any judgment about what is right, or wrong, or valuable, or worthwhile to pursue. It only tries to tell you what is.

Quote:

What about Economics? Economics does it, too!

towr wrote : No, really, it doesn't. Economics merely studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It doesn't tell you what would be worthwhile to produce, or even whether you should. At most what it does is, given a purpose you already have and means you have at your disposal, tell you how you can make the most of reaching your pre-existing goal. But it tells you nothing about what your goal in life should be or what things you should value (except as a means to your goals).

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Quote:

Many economists explain the nature of the world in economic terms ... economists could be the new priests

Is this outrageous?

towr wrote : No, it's just utterly ridiculous, since economists have no values or purpose to offer, or at least not from their discipline.
Economics doesn't tell you that, say, "making money is good"; it tells you "if you want to make money, you can best do it so and so". It doesn't presume to claim it is in any way good or bad to make money, or that it's worse to aim instead for happiness and well-being, or for a better environment. It is, in principle, entirely devoid of opinion on value and purpose, as all science is.

Suppose one were to argue that people should be moral and cooperative because this will result in the highest economic benefit to all. Is this a claim of value? No. Only if we already value economic benefit will this be an argument to also value moral and cooperative behaviour. The statement itself is empty of judgment.
Rational arguments can only lead to conclusion of value and purpose if those were already included in the premise. Because there is no answer to why we should value something or hold some purpose, other than that it supports some other value and/or purpose. And when we get down to the final level, there is no reason to want anything; we just do.
Why should we want to live? To accomplish something? But why should we wish that? [/quote]

taken from the forum: religion (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=truth;action=display;num=1074532038;start=100#100)

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Jul 26^th, 2009, 3:48pm

Earlier, I wondered whether religion was doomed to disappear.

Evidence does not support that. Religion shows no sign of dying out.

But why do people believe in god? or more importantly where did it come from? why did such a belief arise in the first place?

I had been intrigued for a long time by a quote from Voltaire.

Voltaire who is a philosopher rationalist stated: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

I wondered why Voltaire did say that. Perhaps, because illusions are the first of all pleasures?

And I was intrigued by another philosopher: Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard, an existentialist, (1813-1855) did not think that it was rational to believe in God, rather one should have faith in God even if this seems to reason to be absurd. To put it another way reason has no place in faith. God is beyond reason.

Kierkegaard accepts the argument that belief in God is irrational and accept some sort of fideism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism)

Here's an interesting discussion on Faith and rationality on this site: economic expert (http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Faith:and:rationality.html)

William Alston argue that belief in God is a properly basic belief, and therefore no argument for God's existence is necessary.

Quote:

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology).

fideism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism)

Philosophy may help us clarify religious concepts, but it is limited ... philosophy cannot give us a secure foundation for religious belief.

Many people claim to have had a religious experience, to have experienced the divine directly.
This experience is direct and is of a different quality to sensory experience or intellectual discovery, it is outside of logic, outside of philosophy

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Jul 27^th, 2009, 1:09am

John von Neumann believed that if you wanted a theory -- he called it "game theory" -- that could explain life, you should start with a theory that could explain poker. His aim was to bring the rigor of mathematics to the social sciences, and that meant turning to economics, because the rational decisions of economics can be modeled using mathematics.

Von Neumann thought that he could develop a rational, mathematical explanation for much of life, and his theory would eventually be applied to the breakdown of diplomatic negotiations, the unexpected emergence of cooperation between enemies, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, even the hidden side of dating, love, and marriage.

Von Neumann explained that poker was the starting point: "Real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do. And that is what games are about in my theory."

Bluff, deception and mind reading are unpromising subjects for a mathematician ... but John von Neumann did it. He broke a new ground for us.

In the 1940s and '50s, his colleagues (including Einstein) at Princeton joked that von Neumann was a demigod who, having studied humans intensively, was able to imitate them perfectly.

To understand poker, von Neumann had to break new ground. Poker was not merely a game of chance, requiring probability, or a game of pure logic with neither random elements nor secrets, like chess. Poker, contrary to appearances, is a far more subtle challenge. In a game of poker, players bet in order to earn the right to compare cards at the showdown. But most of the important information in poker is private. Each player sees only one part of the jigsaw puzzle and must piece together the bigger picture by observing what other players do. The strongest hand takes the "pot" -- all the accumulated bets -- so the higher the betting, the more expensive it becomes to lose in the showdown. Yet in many hands of poker, especially between skilled players, there's no showdown, because one player bets aggressively enough to scare the others away. In short, there's no straightforward connection between what a player bets and the hand he holds.

It was the bluff that interested von Neumann.

Tim Harford writes:

Novices wrongly believe that bluffing is merely a way to win pots with bad cards. In the 1972 final of the World Series, the famous hustler Amarillo Slim won because he had bluffed so often that when he finally put all his chips in the pot with a full house (a very strong hand), his opponent assumed Slim was bluffing again; called (matching the bet), and lost. A player who never bluffs will never win a big pot, because on the rare occasions that he raises the betting, everyone else will fold before committing much money.

Then there’s the reverse bluff: acting weak when you are strong. In the 1988 World Series, the Chinese-born Johnny Chan (dubbed the “Orient Express” because he won money so quickly) passed up every opportunity to raise the stakes and meekly called his opponent’s bets. By the last round of betting, his opponent became convinced that Chan didn’t have a hand and bet everything he had. Chan called and turned over a straight – a strong hand – scooping up $700,000 and the title of world championfor the second year running.

Trying to deceive your opponent seems to be all about psychology, not mathematics.

-> Could there really be a rational strategy behind these bluffs and reverse bluffs, one that ignores the idea of reading or psyching out an opponent?

-> Would pure mathematics nevertheless deliver those bluffing moves?

John von Neumann thought so.

His work on game theory reached its culmination in the 1944 book, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

The book was written with Oskar Morgenstern. The book included a stylized model of poker in which two rational players faced each other in highly simplified setting.

[More on von Neumann's approach]

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by towr on Jul 27^th, 2009, 2:10am

on 07/26/09 at 15:48:55, BenVitale wrote:

But why do people believe in god?

Mostly because there parents did; but of course that is not a reason, but a cause. There are exceptions, though (indeed, there must be for it to have emerged at all). Some people become religious after religious experiences or on deciding that the evidence warrants a greater organizing principle.

Quote:

I had been intrigued for a long time by a quote from Voltaire.

Voltaire who is a philosopher rationalist stated: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

I wondered why Voltaire did say that.

Probably because he suspected the fear of God was the only thing keeping the common rabble from killing him. It wouldn't make him the only philosopher to think god a practical necessity for morality.
But while I would say there have been practical benefits from having a god as "greater organizing principle", I don't believe it to be a necessity for morality. There are sound evolutionary reasons for why social animals would have a sense of morality; and you can see varying levels of altruistic behaviour in certain species of (god-less) animals.
As a means of organizing, though, a god may be convenient. I doubt the pharaohs would have been able to convince their people to build them monuments such as the pyramids if the people hadn't thought them to be incarnations of a god on earth. And, indeed, in some other place (can't remember where exactly) where the religion changed from Hinduism to Buddhism, people stopped building such huge monument for their no-longer-god-king.

In any case, the principle of cultural evolution suggests that more successful cultures survive in the competition of nations. And since the cultures that survive are invariable religious, it suggests there is some objective benefit. It has been suggested that this may be due to greater social cohesion and (consequently) better cooperation; or perhaps religious cultures are better at bashing in the heads of heathen cultures.

Quote:

Many people claim to have had a religious experience, to have experienced the divine directly.
This experience is direct and is of a different quality to sensory experience

Is it? What makes you say that?

Quote:

it is outside of logic, outside of philosophy

What do you mean to say by this? That there is no logical or philosophical reason for these religious experiences? There is no reason for any experience; it is conceivable that a creature might behave exactly as us without having any experience while doing so. The notion of "experience" seems ephemeral, adding nothing to the causal story of behaviour. But philosophy has a grand old time thinking about it.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by towr on Jul 27^th, 2009, 2:25am

on 07/27/09 at 01:09:20, BenVitale wrote:

Trying to deceive your opponent seems to be all about psychology, not mathematics.

It's also about controlling and manipulating information; which is about mathematics.
And if you consider psychology as a set of strategies of organizing information and planning behaviour, then at a fundamental level it is also about mathematics. (Although this may be about as useful as trying to explain behaviour of a person in terms of fundamental physics.)

Quote:

-> Could there really be a rational strategy behind these bluffs and reverse bluffs, one that ignores the idea of reading or psyching out an opponent?

If you ignore "reading" your opponent, you're likely to discard valuable information. The best strategy must take into account an opponent's strategies.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by ThudanBlunder on Jul 27^th, 2009, 5:22am

on 07/27/09 at 02:10:37, towr wrote:

Is it? What makes you say that?.

A religious experience might cause one to say that.
Whereas a spiritual experience might cause one to agree with with my avatar sig. ;)

What is the difference? Well, IMO, a religious experience will contain facets of one's faith, eg. a 'vision' of the Virgin Mary. A spiritual experience will not.

I am at the moment stuck out in the Thai countryside, teaching English in a school. For my sins my only Western colleague is a self-styled missionary from South Carolina, Bible-belt country. In the staffroom she prefers to keep her nose stuck in the Bible rather than communicate with another native English-speaking human being. One day she extracted it long enough to claim that the Bible contains the answer to every question. But she couldn't even answer me how many wars have been fought in the name of Christianity. Or how Noah could have been so dumb as to take two mosquitoes onto the Ark with him. ::)

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by towr on Jul 27^th, 2009, 5:46am

I bet she can't find the value of the gravitation constant in the bible either. Ooh, or Riemann's_hypothesis.
Actually, I rather suspect it doesn't even contain the answer to the retort question "Does it?"
Let's see, the bible contains 3566480 letters (http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q10_bible-facts.html), so that's at best 16764024 bits, and therefore it cannot possibly answer more than that many distinct questions. (I bet she'll hate hearing that.) And it is less if they are not yes-or-no questions. Nor will you know which answer answers what question.

But back to the qualities of sensory experience; the quality of a tactile experience is different from a visual experience, and both are different from and aural experience, etc. So I'm not sure what to think of a claim that a religious experience has a different quality. Invariably people just say they felt, saw or heard something; and possibly knew 'something' (such as that it was god). I don't really see the difference from the illusory world the brain creates for us on a day-to-day basis.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by ThudanBlunder on Jul 28^th, 2009, 12:25am

But the more one challenges their unreasonable beliefs, the more they huddle together in prayer. ::)

on 07/27/09 at 05:46:02, towr wrote:

But back to the qualities of sensory experience.

See attachment.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by rmsgrey on Jul 28^th, 2009, 12:50am

on 07/27/09 at 05:46:02, towr wrote:

Let's see, the bible contains 3566480 letters (http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q10_bible-facts.html), so that's at best 16764024 bits, and therefore it cannot possibly answer more than that many distinct questions. (I bet she'll hate hearing that.) And it is less if they are not yes-or-no questions. Nor will you know which answer answers what question.

If you don't need to know which question(s) a given answer is for, then the following contains the answers to billions of questions:

"Yes. No. Maybe."

Of course, finding the correct method for matching any given question to its answer is decidedly non-trivial, but the answer is there...

Of course, if you construct an arbitrarily large set of questions so that each has a unique answer then any finite document is going to run into trouble giving precise answers... On the other hand "A vast multitude" covers a lot of different numbers...

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Jul 28^th, 2009, 1:20pm

Aristotle wrote: Source : philosophical quotes (http://www.radicalacademy.com/philosophicalquotations27.htm)

- Man is a political animal. -- Politics

- Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. -- Nicomachean Ethics

- Man is by nature a social animal; and an unsocial person who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either unsatisfactory or superhuman...Society is a natural phenomenon and is prior to the individual...And any one who is unable to live a common life or who is self-sufficient that he has no need to do so is no member of Society, which means that he is either a beast or a god.

According to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, relational and belonging needs are superseded in importance only by survival and safety needs

http://www.psyctherapy.com/Enrolled/images/Dressing3/maslow.gif

Sociality is at the heart of human existence.

The motivation to form and maintain close social bonds is as potent as the drive to satisfy hunger or thirst.

It is so strong that people imagine relationships with important social others, or indulge in "social snacks" (e.g., photos of loved ones) and surrogates (e.g., parasocial attachments to television characters).

Relational connectedness reflects satisfaction of close friendship needs, and collective connectedness reflects satisfaction of the need to belong to a meaningful group

People form and maintain social connections with non-human beings, such as pets, religious entities, virtual friends (on websites)

Religious deities are potent attachment figures for many individuals, and the quality of the relationship with God appears particularly important in satisfying connection needs.

To the question "Why do we believe in God?", Game Theory can help us understand why.

[Next : Game theory help us understand 'why we believe in God']

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Jul 28^th, 2009, 1:46pm

The answer is: Error Management Theory

Please read the background and definition of this theory in this PDF file (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/webdocs/EMTencyclopedia.pdf)

Error Management Theory represents the greatest theoretical achievement in evolutionary psychology.

Haselton and Nettle’s Error Management Theory offers a very convincing explanation. Their theory begins with the observation that decision making under uncertainty often results in erroneous inference, but some errors are more costly in their consequences than others. Evolution should therefore favor an inference system that minimizes, not the total number of errors, but their total costs.

And, please read Page 1 (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200803/why-do-we-believe-in-god-i
)

Page 2 (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200803/why-do-we-believe-in-god-ii
)

One of the great features of Error Management Theory is that it can explain a wide variety of phenomena. It is a truly general theory.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by rmsgrey on Sep 1^st, 2009, 4:13am

on 07/28/09 at 13:46:02, BenVitale wrote:

One of the great features of Error Management Theory is that it can explain a wide variety of phenomena. It is a truly general theory.

Being able to explain a lot of things is an attractive feature of a proposed model, but the true test of a model is how accurate its surprising predictions are - how good it is at telling us things we didn't know already...

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Sep 16^th, 2009, 12:40pm

Behavioral Economics professor, Dan Ariely, asks:

"Do fake designer sunglasses turn people into liars?" or "Do getting involved in petty acts of dishonesty – like sporting knockoff fashion – makes people more likely to commit more serious acts of fraud?"

Source: http://bigthink.com/bigthinkeditor/do-prada-knockoffs-make-you-evil

Please share your thoughts

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Sep 17^th, 2009, 11:29am

Well, I don't totally agree with the professor. He seemed to be focusing on 'turning us into liars'... and that's it...what one might conclude? That thi activity is basically wrong, and weaking our society.

I see it differently... I see some positive in this behavior.

Here's my take:

Let me start with 'piracy'.

Read article in the Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pirates-rational-choice)

They are not evil, they are very conscious and rational money-maximizers.

And, this article: Blackbeard Economics (http://www.reason.com/news/show/133219.html)

Pirates are economic actors, their behavior shaped by incentives, just like the rest of us.

Why do some people buy counterfeited?

Sure, there are economic incentives, but also, there's a very important feature: experience of buying.

If the experience of buying a counterfeited product is greater than of an original product, then this behavior will continue, and store owners will continue to suffer.

For example, I do download from time to time free movies to watch them on my computer. Do I feel bad about it? No, because I see myself as a rational money-maximizer.

I see piracy is a reaction, a way of fighting back -- a way of changing the world we live in .... It is a way of taking power away from major corporations and creating a more democratized world. A world where individuals can can express ideas and shape culture, as opposed to major monoliths of industry shoving them down our throats.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by towr on Sep 17^th, 2009, 11:54am

on 09/17/09 at 11:29:46, BenVitale wrote:

They are not evil, they are very conscious and rational money-maximizers.

That doesn't preclude evil.

Quote:

Pirates are economic actors, their behavior shaped by incentives, just like the rest of us.

So are thieves and robbers, gangs, marauding barbarians etc.
Doesn't make them nice, or an improving factor in society.

Quote:

I see piracy is a reaction, a way of fighting back -- a way of changing the world we live in

And just a minute ago you said it was rational utility maximizing.
I really do not think they have as their aim to improve the world, I think you were right the first time, and they're just out to make a living.
The exception to this are those who pirate for free, like file-sharers. There, perhaps, there is a measure of ideology. But even that is questionable in many cases. Most just want free stuff, and while sharing in turn is an inevitable part of using systems like bittorrent, there are plenty of leechers that try to get away with sharing as little as possible.

Quote:

For example, I do download from time to time free movies to watch them on my computer. Do I feel bad about it? No, because I see myself as a rational money-maximizer.

What has that to do with not feeling bad about it?
If everyone downloaded movies and no one paid to see them, they would stop being made (professionally). Because movie producers are also profit-maximizers. Your interests in getting things for free are in opposition to producers' interest of getting paid.

Also recall, if you will, the prisoners dilemma, where both parties doom themselves to a bad situation by being rational maximizers. Society is not best off if everyone maximizes their individual utility independently of others. Maximizing utility is not the same as acting morally.

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by BenVitale on Sep 18^th, 2009, 11:18am

Disclaimer: My post is for recreational and educational purposes only. I'm just a big fan of Game theory and also Number theory ... and I would like to deepen my understanding of these 2 branches of mathematics.

===================================
Towr,

You made some valid points. Yesterday, I presented my argument to an economics professor and math professor who teaches Game theory. They both smiled and asked me to reflect on Ethics of consumerism.

Sure, pirates' behavior is shaped by economic incentives, but it doesn't make it right. Pirates' economic model is an "ordered chaos" as described in the article.

True. If everybody download movies, then we all suffer. See the Prisoners' dilemma as you mentioned it. I was, conveniently, thinking of the Snowdrift game to justify my behavior.

I don't recommend committing software piracy, downloading and using software.

I'm a big fan of behavioral economics but I'm still stuck with the "Homo economicus" model ... but the assumptions of Homo economicus—that “Economic Man” is rational, self-maximizing and efficient in making choices—make no sense.

My behavior is a form of socio-political protest ... that's my excuse!

I need to think more about this stuff... I'll come back and post more thoughts.

Thank you for your feedback.

And, now for your reading pleasure here's an article: Fashion's fight against fakes: An exercise in hypocrisy (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-sinderbrand/fashions-fight-against-fa_b_234313.html)

Title: Re: philosophy/religion/economics/game theory
Post by towr on Sep 20^th, 2009, 9:47am

on 09/18/09 at 11:18:12, BenVitale wrote:

My behavior is a form of socio-political protest ... that's my excuse!

But it's just an excuse, and not even a credible one. I don't believe for a minute that you believe that that's why you sometimes download movies. If it's a protest, than you should make an effort to make sure it is noticed. Do you? And what are you trying to accomplish with the 'protest'?
Isn't it rather, that you want to see the movie and don't care to pay for it?