A Beautiful Math John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature (2006) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 Freud’s Dream--Games and the brain
5 Freud’s Dream--Games and the brain
Pages 93-109
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 93... ...
In 1895, he outlined a project for "a scientific psychology," in which mental states and human behavior could be explained materialistically, in terms of the physical interaction of nerve cells in the brain. But Freud found the brain science of the late 19th century too immature to link cranial chemistry to thought and behavior.
|
From page 94... ...
The original game theorists would not have predicted that game theory could someday partner with neuroscience, or that such a partnership would facilitate game theory's quest to conquer economics.1 But in the late 1990s, game theory turned out to be just the right math for bringing neuroscience and economics together, in a new hybrid field known as neuroeconomics. BRAINS AND ECONOMICS One of the appealing features of game theory is the way it reflects so many aspects of real life.
|
From page 95... ...
Just as money replaced the barter system-providing a common currency for comparing various goods and services -- nerve cell circuitry evolved to translate diverse behavioral choices into the common currency of brain chemistry. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
|
From page 96... ...
Perhaps people really do maximize their utility -- but utility is not really based on dollars and cents, at least not exclusively. And maybe "emotional" and "rational" are not mutually exclusive descriptions of human behavior.
|
From page 97... ...
His "Human Neuro-imaging Laboratory" is a cutting-edge model of advanced technology in the service of science, with 100 or so computers, walls lined with plasma screen monitors, and stateof-the-art brain scanning machines. Montague explains it all with the speed of a Pentium processor, emphasizing the power of this new science to grasp human behavior in a precise way.
|
From page 98... ...
Why not put math to use in comprehending cognition as well as the cosmos? He began to work on computational modeling of brain processes, and then proceeded to peer deep into real brains, exploiting a technology provided by physics to revolutionize psychology.
|
From page 99... ...
But in this case, Platt and Glimcher also recorded the activity of a nerve cell in a region of the monkey brain that processes visual input and is involved in directing eye movement. (If you must know, the cell was in the lateral intraparietal cortex, or LIP.)
|
From page 100... ...
When the accessible light appeared, that nerve cell fired electrical impulses, as nerve cells do when stimulated. That nerve cell also boosted its activity as the monkey's eyes moved to gaze at that light.
|
From page 101... ...
In one experiment described by Montague and Berns, people chose either A or B on a computer screen and then watched a bar on the screen to see whether their choice earned a reward. (The bar recorded accumulated reward "points" as the game progressed.)
|
From page 102... ...
Even more intriguing, there appears to be a genetic difference between the two groups as well. So neuroeconomics thus offers economists a tool they had not possessed before, giving hope that by getting inside people's heads, science might really be on the road to finding the Code of Nature that governs human behavior.
|
From page 103... ...
In a study by Alan Sanfey and colleagues, participants in an experiment played the ultimatum game, one of the favorites of behavioral game theorists. It's kind of like a TV game show contest in which you are given a lot of money, but you have to share your windfall with a stranger.
|
From page 104... ...
. can lead people to sacrifice sometimes considerable financial gain in order to punish their partner for the slight," Sanfey and his collaborators reported in Science.10 In a commentary on that paper, Colin Camerer noted that it showed how the tenets of basic game theory do not always hold-people do not always act totally in their own self-interest (that is, maximizing their money)
|
From page 105... ...
I think it's an obvious way to study social interactions."11 Neuroeconomics does not always require scanning, though. Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, sometimes uses blood tests instead of brain scans.
|
From page 106... ...
"The more ambitious aim of neuroeconomics," writes neuroeconomist Aldo Rustichini, "is going to be the attempt to complete the research program that the early classics (in particular Hume and Smith) set out in the first place: to provide a unified theory of human behavior."13 Rustichini, of the University of Minnesota, points out that Adam Smith's great works -- Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations -- were part of a grand plan to codify the nature of
|
From page 107... ...
Modern neuroscience has begun to show how sympathy works, by identifying "mirror neurons," nerve cells in the brain that fire their signals both in performing an action and when viewing someone else performing that same action. Other neuroscientific studies have identified the neural basis of both individual behavioral propensities and collective and cooperative human behavior.
|
From page 108... ...
The merger of economic game theory with neuroscience promises more precise understanding of those individual differences and how they contribute to the totality of human social interactions. It's understanding those differences, Camerer says, that will make such a break with old schools of economic thought.
|
From page 109... ...
These are really basic questions that may affect things like how things are priced in the market and it may affect how we design laws."17 Yet while neuroeconomics may provide the foundation for understanding individual behavior and differences, it cannot alone provide the Code of Nature, or a science of human behavior like Asimov's psychohistory. History comprises the totality of collective human behavior in various forms of social interaction-politically, economically, and culturally.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.