Game theory, moksha, maximisation and a crazy grad. student
We all seek happiness. A simple question that often arose in me was, why? Why do we seek to be always happy? I think because it is in our nature to be happy and we seek it. Then what is it that prevents us from being happy all the time? If its our nature to be happy, why do we have to seek it? It was a hard question for me, never completely understood it.
It seems that the world has a more basic law than second law of thermodynamics(maximisation of entropy or loosely speaking disorder) that drives it : Maximisation of
happiness. It seems to work for every living thing and there are no contradictions know till date (IMHO).
Then how can this law explain selfish behaviour, which seems to bring a lot more misery to the world than the happiness?
Consider an interesting possibility, that is commonly examined in game thoery problems: Insufficient information (can we call it ignorance?)
If we impose maximisation of happiness law on the game thoery scenario where the prisoners do not have the clear picture of what the other prisoner will do, you have got the selfish behavior..As this is driven to maximize personal happiness, which is of course the best possible course to take if we do not have the big picture in mind. This is in striking resemblance to what vedanta says.. Ignorance is the cause of all miseries. If one does not have sufficient information/ understanding of the global happiness function then logically one tries to maximise it locally(personally!).
Maybe the people who understand the nature of the happiness can apply maximisation globally and become free from the local effects. Is it the moksha that a hindu desires or the nirvana that a buddhist seeks? Whats my choice of maximization? its definitely global. What is the form of function? Your guess is as good as mine!
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It seems that the world has a more basic law than second law of thermodynamics(maximisation of entropy or loosely speaking disorder) that drives it : Maximisation of
happiness. It seems to work for every living thing and there are no contradictions know till date (IMHO).
Then how can this law explain selfish behaviour, which seems to bring a lot more misery to the world than the happiness?
Consider an interesting possibility, that is commonly examined in game thoery problems: Insufficient information (can we call it ignorance?)
If we impose maximisation of happiness law on the game thoery scenario where the prisoners do not have the clear picture of what the other prisoner will do, you have got the selfish behavior..As this is driven to maximize personal happiness, which is of course the best possible course to take if we do not have the big picture in mind. This is in striking resemblance to what vedanta says.. Ignorance is the cause of all miseries. If one does not have sufficient information/ understanding of the global happiness function then logically one tries to maximise it locally(personally!).
Maybe the people who understand the nature of the happiness can apply maximisation globally and become free from the local effects. Is it the moksha that a hindu desires or the nirvana that a buddhist seeks? Whats my choice of maximization? its definitely global. What is the form of function? Your guess is as good as mine!
@
posted by atma_tripta at 9:47 PM
2 Comments:
sadists are an exception to your maximum-happiness rule. the great british philosopher and logician, bertrand russell, had similar ideas expressed in his book 'the conquest of happiness'. so you are in good company!
Thinking about it...sadists may not be an exception after all.
If a sadist thinks that the maximisation of happiness can be achieved by creating misery for others, he would do it. I would say, sadists are the people who think that by pushing the happiness levels of others to -infinity, they can maximise their own. While a normal person would be indifferent(0?) to others fate, someone who has seen this would try to push the global maximisation to +infinity.
Iam deligthed to know Bertrand Russel thought the same way!:)
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