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Chaos and the Explanatory Significance of Equilibrium: Strange Attractors in Evoluhonary Game Dynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Brian Skyrms
Brian Skyrms*
Affiliation:
University of California—Irvine
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Extract

The classical game theory ofvon Neumann and Morgenstern (1947) is built on the concept of equilibrium. I will begin this essay with two more or Jess controversial philosophical claims regarding that equilibrium concept:

  1. (1) The explanatory significance of the equilibrium concept depends on the underlying dynamics.

  2. (2) When the underlying dynamics is taken seriously, it becomes apparent that equilibrium is not the central explanatory concept.

Type
Part XI. The Dynamics of Rational Deliberation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1992 , 1993 , pp. 374 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

The existence of this strange attractor together with a preliminary study of the route to chaos involved was first reported in Skynns (1992a). This paper contains further experimental results. I would like to thank the University of California at lrvine for support in the form of computing time and Linda Palmer for implementing and running programs to determine the Liapunov spectrum. I would also like to thank Immanuel Bomze, Vincent Crawford, William Harper and Richard Jeffrey for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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