Evolutionary Games In Natural Social And Virtual Worlds

Authors Daniel Friedman and Barry Sinervo show how to use theoretical developments in evolutionary game theory to build useful models describing parts of the worlds we live in --- the natural world of biology, the social world of politics and economics, and the virtual world that is emerging from our connected electronic devices.

Authors Daniel Friedman and Barry Sinervo show how to use theoretical developments in evolutionary game theory to build useful models describing parts of the worlds we live in - the natural world of biology, the social world of politics, economics, etc., and the virtual world that is emerging from our connected electronic devices.

Over the last 25 years, evolutionary game theory has grown with theoretical contributions from the disciplines of mathematics, economics, computer science and biology. It is now ripe for applications. In this book, Daniel Friedman---an economist trained in mathematics---and Barry Sinervo---a biologist trained in mathematics---offer the first unified account of evolutionary game theory aimed at applied researchers. They show how to use a single set of tools to build useful models for three different worlds: the natural world studied by biologists; the social world studied by anthropologists, economists, political scientists and others; and the virtual world built by computer scientists and engineers. The first six chapters offer an accessible introduction to core concepts of evolutionary game theory. These include fitness, replicator dynamics, sexual dynamics, memes and genes, single and multiple population games, Nash equilibrium and evolutionarily stable states, noisy best response and other adaptive processes, the Price equation, and cellular automata. The material connects evolutionary game theory with classic population genetic models, and also with classical game theory. Notably, these chapters also show how to estimate payoff and choice parameters from the data. The last eight chapters present exemplary game theory applications. These include a new coevolutionary predator-prey learning model extending rock-paper-scissors; models that use human subject laboratory data to estimate learning dynamics; new approaches to plastic strategies and life cycle strategies, including estimates for male elephant seals; a comparison of machine learning techniques for preserving diversity to those seen in the natural world; analyses of congestion in traffic networks (either internet or highways) and the "price of anarchy"; environmental and trade policy analysis based on evolutionary games; the evolution of cooperation; and speciation. As an aid for instruction, a web site provides downloadable computational tools written in the R programming language, Matlab, Mathematica and Excel.

Evolutionary Psychology and Digital Games: Digital Hunter-Gatherers is the first edited volume that systematically applies evolutionary psychology to the study of the use and effects of digital games. The book is divided into four parts: Theories and Methods Emotion and Morality Social Interaction Learning and Motivation These topics reflect the main areas of digital games research as well as some of the basic categories of psychological research. The book is meant as a resource for researchers and graduate students in psychology, anthropology, media studies and communication as well as video game designers who are interested in learning more about the evolutionary roots of player behaviors and experiences.

This book aims to provide insights into how ‘second lives’ in the sense of virtual identities and communities are constructed textually, semiotically and discursively, specifically in the online environment Second Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft. The book’s philosophy is multi-disciplinary and its goal is to explore the question of how we as gamers and residents of virtual worlds construct alternative online realities in a variety of ways. Of particular significance to this endeavour are conceptions of the body in cyberspace and of spatiality, which manifests itself in ‘natural’ and built environments as well as the triad of space, place and landscape. The contributors’ disciplinary backgrounds include media, communication, cultural and literary studies, and they examine issues of reception and production, identity, community, gender, spatiality, natural and built environments using a plethora of methodological approaches ranging from theoretical and philosophical contemplation through social semiotics to corpus-based discourse analysis.

By weaving fictional narratives and problem solving into everyday life, alternate reality games (ARGs) may be able to fill gaps left by traditional studies in the behavioral and social sciences. Researchers are exploring new ways to address concerns such as ecological validity, inconsistent replication, and recruitment of large and diverse sample populations. ARG-based research design, using familiar tools and multimedia venues to engage players in meaningful interaction within complex near‐real‐world environments, offers methods that can make a difference. This book examines the potential strengths of ARG‐based social science research, the challenges that remain to be overcome, and potential starting points for testing these possibilities.

The odyssey of a group of “refugees” from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds. Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games; they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within online games and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop a sense of community that transcends the game itself. In Communities of Play, game researcher and designer Celia Pearce explores emergent fan cultures in networked digital worlds—actions by players that do not coincide with the intentions of the game’s designers. Pearce looks in particular at the Uru Diaspora—a group of players whose game, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, closed. These players (primarily baby boomers) immigrated into other worlds, self-identifying as “refugees”; relocated in There.com, they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world. Ostracized at first, they became community leaders. Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the sometimes messy process of ethnography. Pearce considers the “play turn” in culture and the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked digital games every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude to creativity.

This textbook for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Evolutionary Game Theory covers recent developments in the field, with an emphasis on economic contexts and applications. It begins with the basic ideas as they originated within the field of theoretical biology and then proceeds to the formulation of a theoretical framework that is suitable for the study of social and economic phenomena from an evolutionary perspective. Core topics include the EvolutionaryStable Strategy (EES) and Replicator Dynamics (RD), deterministic dynamic models, and stochastic perturbations. A set of short appendices presents some of the technical material referred to in the main text.Evolutionary theory is widely viewed as one of the most promising appraoches to understanding bounded rationality, learning, and change in complex social environments. New avenues of research are suggested by Vega-Redondo, and plentiful exmples illustrate the theory's potential applications. The recent boom experienced by this dscipline makes the book's systematic presentation of its essential contributions vital reading for newcomer to the field.

The book is a compendium of thinking on virtuality and its relationship to reality from the perspective of a variety of philosophical and applied fields of study. Topics covered include presence, immersion, emotion, ethics, utopias and dystopias, image, sound, literature, AI, law, economics, medical and military applications, religion, and sex.