It’s true that I keep associating you with Ayn Rand and with libertarians and cowboy capitalists, because of your resort to game theory. We’ve talked about this before, and you’ve said that you’re much more neutral on those economic questions than are those ideologues. The question that raises for me, then, is whether we still need game theory to make the kinds of analyses and predictions you want to make, given that game theory has been at least hijacked by such ideologues.

I don't see the hijacking. On the contrary, Objectivists go bananas when I suggest that their narrow self-interest is best served by voluntarily submitting to plus-sum coordination. They may or may not cite some aspect of game theory in some of their decisions, but they don't understand coordinated games.

In any case, you speak in game theoretic terms, whereas I speak largely in terms of naturalistic, existential, cosmicist philosophy. Perhaps my way of speaking presupposes game theory or perhaps game theory presupposes a certain ideology. We’d each deny that that’s so for our chosen theoretical language. Regardless, what matters is whether those languages make for important, consequential differences in how we understand the world.

I would apply a different metaphor, which I think gets to the heart of our disagreement. I don't see our languages as "different" except in the sense that yours is a translation of mine to make it more accessible. I believe that "If I have four apples, and you take away three, one is left" "presupposes” (if I understand the term) that 4-3=1 . Would you claim that you are not doing math because you are talking about apples and not abstractions? Game theory is an abstraction of decision-space. Your philosophy strikes me as the "Four apples" of that space.

Still, I have some problems with game theory as a theoretical framework. You’re treating it like game theory is as fundamental as physics, which strikes me as odd. Sure, there can be a geometry or logical structure of strategies. But strategies are emergent, not fundamental in nature.

Strategies emerge, but if we can agree on their pay-offs, game theory will apply to them as fundamentally as the laws of physics apply to natural and man-made forces and masses. That we cannot agree on pay-offs means that, like all algorithms, game theory is subject to GIGO. But so are philosophies like Utilitarianism. How can we define "justice" in English any more precisely than we can do so in game-theoretical terms? At the end of the day, the disagreement is always about pay-offs. Game theory helps us realize that truth.

Thus, when you say that “strategies compete,” I think that’s an anthropomorphism.

Well, it's a metaphor, but I submit that it's a good one. We do what works best, if we can discern that it is working best. I think "strategies compete" captures that phenomenon satisfactorily without actually imbuing strategies with animus. Genes aren't "selfish," but I get Dawkins's drift.

Strictly speaking....

Why would we be strictly speaking? We are trying to understand each other, not Mr. Webster.

There’s a danger of doing so, since Darwin arguably carried over some connotations of nineteenth century capitalism to his understanding of how animals generally relate to each other. Natural selection doesn’t require those connotations for biological understanding, but the connotations surface in social Darwinism, in Nazism, and in American libertarianism.

Do you mean we can't handle the truth? Just about all good ideas are appropriated by bad people who try to turn description into prescription. We both know that much of civilization is about using our natural ability to cooperate to channel our natural inclination to be selfish. That an idea has the possibility of being misused - I again refer to Modern Monetary Theory - has nothing to do with its accuracy as a description of the bottom-most turtles.

Is baseball really a plus-sum endeavour? Within the team, yes, but within the league, no, because only one team wins the playoffs, and teams don't share their profits.

I disagree. I even wrote an article about that. https://remarklj.medium.com/home-field-advantage-and-media-bias-b423d7e74f0

Similarly, humans often cooperate outside formal games, which is good for us. But by doing so we typically succeed at the expense of all other species. So is the whole affair of life on this planet still plus-sum, or when we shift to the larger context, does our strategy of cooperation look like a move in a zero-sum struggle for dominance?

That's really the policy question for the ages. It comes down to identifying the "game" and valuing the pay-offs. When we mine, does the dirt lose? We are part of a food chain. If we create a zero-sum game in which we win and our prey loses, we run out of food. But if we have controlled hunting and ranching, where any individual transaction may be zero-sum as between the human and the animal, the outcome may be plus-sum for both species.

Certainly, homo sapiens has caused extinctions. My claim that nature "prefers" plus-sum outcomes is tautological, because nature no more "prefers" than strategies "compete." Nature isn't a thing any more than a strategy is a thing. Both are reifications. But dominance is not always zero-sum. How many plants and critters exist almost entirely because homo sapiens dominates them? As I said, the trick with game theory is defining the pay-offs.

You say the logical nature of game theory is as “absolute” as the second law of thermodynamics. On the contrary, this core distinction in game theory seems to me relative. In that respect, game theory is like neoclassical economics which rationalizes consumerism by ignoring the downsides as externalities.

But that's on neoclassical economics (as you define it), not on me or game theory. I don't ignore externalities. I include them in the pay-offs and favor regulation to favor the positives and deter the negatives. (You really can't resist making a Randian of me, try as you might.)

To that extent, game “theory” is propaganda or ideology, not science.

Is geometry science? Game theory is math and logic. In that regard Thermodynamics may be a bad choice. Maybe that's why I have switched to geometry. Thermodynamics is about how things are. Geometry is about how things can be thought about. At least, that's the distinction that comes to mind now.

You’re interested only in the scientific uses. Fine, but would you agree that whatever you can explain with game theory I can explain with naturalistic philosophy that needn’t resort to game theory?

Does "If I have four apples" "resort to" arithmetic? Or is it just a statement about the nature of apples? I offered you a way to test your hypothesis. Just keep asking "why" until you get to "because that produces the best result I can think of." That's game theory. You're just putting it in narrative form, like any other good myth.

We’d both be talking about evolution at some level, since we’d both take on board the sciences, but you’d prioritize the language of game theory in certain reductive moves, while I’d operate with a looser vocabulary.

Yep. But I would call the moves "abstracting" or even "reductionist," not "reductive."

Again, the question is whether you’d capture something I’d be missing, or whether the general use of game theory does more good than harm.

You are asking whether agreeing to use game theory produces a plus sum outcome? I smell a Russell's paradox!

Leaving aside the domain of formal games like checkers, I wonder whether you think there’s some specific phenomenon that game theory explains that I can’t understand without presupposing game theory.

That probably depends on the meaning of your terms. I would refer you to the sections of The Selfish Gene that analyzes the distribution of certain traits among certain species of birds. It's been a while, but I think Dawkins shows how the distribution of those traits conforms to a game-theoretical recommendation. I believe Dawkins's point is that diversity is a strategy, and game theory is useful in analyzing the distribution of diverse traits. I suspect the same thing can be said about diversity in philosophical values, which I would analogize to diversity in how individuals value pay-offs.

One of my favorite metaphors is the markings on a bowling alley that the best bowlers use to line up their shots. Those bowlers do not aim at the pins. They aim at the spots, confident that if they hit the spots, the ball will hit the pins. I regard your version of philosophy as spot bowling. You could do it even if you couldn't see the pins. Game theory just says that the spots are where they are because the pins are where they are, and not because there is something inherently special about the spots themselves.