Normally I do not report on or respond to the day’s news. This blog is about what the news of decade or a century ago turned out to mean. And no end of people are reporting on the day’s news, most of whom have researched it far more thoroughly than I am willing to do. But, prematurely, I am going to report on what this offensive seems to have turned …
Month: May 2023
War and game theory
Jesus as game theory: In a world of imperfect information, one tit for two tats. Old Testament marriage and family law as game theory: If you are stuck with with each other, the deal is going to generate value even if the value very unequally distributed, but if not stuck, prisoner’s dilemma. Negative sum actions are likely to be individually beneficial. It might seem obvious that if everyone could correctly …
The Logos
Around 350 years before Christ, paganism had died among the intellectuals. Not long after, it died among the common people, for we read writers in the late Roman Republic ridiculing attempts to motivate the common soldiers by appeal to faith. They believed the ordinary soldier was even more cynical than themselves. So the philosophers set to work manufacturing a replacement. For Aristotle, “logos†(“wordâ€) was rational and responsive debate, and …