Rescuing Game Theory

By Kolton L. Krein

Game Theory, although best understood after having tackled the subject,

may be defined as an attempt to make sense of the logical foundation for group
interactions in areas as diverse as political philosophy, evolutionary biology,

economics, war, racism, the act of caring for future generations, and many others.

Providing a necessary foundation to the Game Theoretic model is John Nashs Nash

Equilibrium Proof (NEP), which states that for any game there exists at least one

joint strategy that is in equilibrium.

Such an instance of equilibrium can be found in a game of Prisoners Dilemma

(PD): Lets say youre assigned to work on a group project with another classmate.

Both you and your classmate hate each other. At the end of the project you must

both privately submit a partner evaluation to the teacher which will contribute to

the others overall grade. Specifically, if you both submit bad reviews, your overall

grade will be low. If you both submit good reviews, your overall grade will be high. If

one submits a good review while the other submits a bad one, then the student that

obtained a good review will receive a high grade while the student that obtained a

bad review will receive a low grade. Hating each other, youre going to give your

partner a bad review, and likewise, theyll give you a bad review. Yet, in an attempt

to save your grade on the project, you could both try to agree that neither will give

the other a bad review; however, since you cannot undoubtedly trust that your

partner will submit a good review, submitting a bad review would still be the better

strategy since no matter what your partner does you can fare no worse by doing so.

Equally, your partner knows this, so you both end up writing a bad review anyway,

or in game theoretic terms, defecting on each other instead of cooperating. Hence,

with regard to the NEP, mutual defection is the joint strategy that is in equilibrium

for this particular case.

That being said, The Deer Hunter Paradox (DHP) in part seven of Game

Theory and Philosophy Talk to Each Other by Paul Viminitz, is a perplexing logical
puzzle with no identifiable strategy that is in equilibrium. Thus, if the DHP is found

to be free of error, it would disprove the NEP, causing the entire collection of game

theory work to collapse. Therefore, in order to salvage the many underlying

explanations we have for war, evolutionary biology, economics, and so forth, finding

an error within the DHP will be of immense importance.

The logical puzzle of the Deer Hunter is as follows: American soldiers have

been captured and stored under a hut by eight Vietcong members (VC). For the

VCs amusement, they transfer the soldiers above the hut in pairs, and then force

them at gun point to play alternating Russian roulette (ARR). The ARR game is

played with a gun that has one bullet randomly placed in a revolving chamber. The

gun is passed to one of the soldiers (or players) who then places the gun to their

head and pulls the trigger. If the player survives, the gun is passed to the next

player who must perform the same task, and so on until one of the players is dead.

If a player refuses to play the ARR game, the VC places that player in a pit of rats,

which will make for a death much slower and more painful than that of a bullet to

the head. Two players, Mike and Nick, are the last remaining captives of the VC and

are placed against one another for ARR. Being the last two players, the winner of

the ARR game will be relocated to a prisoner-of-war camp that is much less cruel. To

the VCs wonder, Mike requests to make the game more interesting by placing three

bullets in the six revolver gun. After some consideration, the VC agree and place

three bullets in the revolver, spin the revolver, then hand the gun to Mike. Ordered

to play first, Mike places the gun to his head and pulls the trigger, leaving an empty

chamber. Ordered to play second, Nick takes some time and needed motivation

from Mike to finally place the gun to his head and pull the trigger, leaving yet

another empty chamber. The gun is then passed back to Mike for round three in
which he turns and fires the gun on the VC, allowing Nick to grab a VCs rifle, and

together they kill off all of their captors and proceed to return home.

The Deer Hunter is complicated and requires a great deal of analysis in order

to understand the significance of the problem. After the VC loaded the gun, there

exist 18 realistic possible arrangements in which the revolver could be loaded.

Unrealistic arrangements such as the 135 and 246 are ruled out because the order

provides no intrigue to the VC if the round 1 (R1) player survives. That is, the ARR

game is played because it provides amusement for the VC. Amusement is preserved

due to the anticipation of not knowing who will be killed. If the VC selected either

one of the alternating sequences, then after R1 the VC would undoubtedly know

that the R2 player will be killed, and thus, cause them to be disinterested with ARR

in the first place. Eliminating the alternating sequences, and being that the gun is

not spun after each round of play, the possible arrangements originally consist of

123, 124, 125, 126, 134, 136, 145, 146, 156, 234, 235, 236, 245, 256, 346, 345,

356, and 456. Now, by playing round 1 and surviving, Mike leaves an empty

chamber which reduces the possible arrangements to only nine: 234, 235, 236, 245,

256, 345, 346, 356 and 456. And accordingly, by playing R1 Mike is raising the

expected rebellion utility (ERU), meaning that as the number of possible

arrangements decrease, the possibility of the players rebelling increases. To put it

another way, Viminitz states that in complying in R1, the first player plays a 9/18

chance of incurring death for a 9/18 chance of raising the average ERU of an R2

rebellion by the difference between the two average ERUs. (Ch. 52). Proceeding

through the rounds, the survival of R2 reduces the possible arrangements to 346,

345, 356, and 456, and the survival of a 3/4 chance of death in R3 reduces the

possible arrangement to only 456 - at this point the game cannot be played
because the ERU is at the absolute highest it could be. Knowing this, the paradox

states that since the ERU will be highest at the end of R3, rebellion would have to

occur. If the VC are assumed to be competent and will be for the purposes of the

Deer Hunter - in the sense that, given enough time, they would be able to see the

error of their ways, then the VC should not have let the R3 player have the gun

since R3 warrants rebellion. But, if that is the case, then the R2 player should have

rebelled instead of surrendering the gun at the end of R2 since there is really no

difference in rebelling at the beginning of R3 or the end of R2. But, if that is also the

case, the VC should not have let the R2 player have the gun after R1. And if that is

the case, then the R1 player couldnt let the gun out of his hands at the end of R1

meaning he would have to rebel - which in turn would mean that the VC couldnt

give the R1 player the gun in the first place.

Viminitzs proof for this unspun three-in-six game consists of 25 lines. The

proof begins by asserting that 1) one can either comply or rebel, that 2) every

action is either rational or irrational, and that 3) if its rational for a player to rebel

its irrational for the VC to let that player have the gun, and noting that 4) its

categorically irrational to comply in R4 (Ch. 55). Following from these premises, the

proof extends to conclude that 25) its irrational for the VC to let the R1 player

have the gun from the outset (Ch. 55). Now, the only difference between the proof

for the unspun three-in-six game and the proof for the unspun one-in-six game is

the additional recursions or number of lines in which it takes to reach the

conclusion. For example, line 4 of the unspun one-in-six game would simply change

to its categorically irrational to comply in R6. The proof then extends to conclude

the same as the unspun three-in-six game: that it is rational to rebel in R1, and

therefore, it is irrational for the VC to let the R1 player have the gun. However, it is
also irrational to rebel in R1 since rebellion with a 1/6 gun against eight armed VCs

yields a <1% chance of survival. By way of this, determining the best strategy

seems contradictory.

Specifically, the argument indicates that there is no Nash equilibrium

because there can be no joint strategy for a situation where it is both rational and

irrational to rebel with a 1/6 gun. Given unlimited computational capacity in this

circumstance, an individual cannot arrive at one option more readily than the other.

Whereas, again, in the PD game, the joint strategy of mutual defection is clear since

each player will eventually come to settle on that strategy because there is nothing

to gain by changing their own strategy. The choice matrix of a PD, which organizes

the preferred outcome of a player with regard to the options of defection or

cooperation, clearly demonstrates this. That is to say, a player changing from

defector to cooperator would result in a worse option for the choice matrix because

the other player is still defecting. The other player is still defecting because he has

nothing to gain by changing his strategy to cooperation since he cannot count on

the fact that the other player will undoubtedly change his strategy to cooperation.

Defectio Cooperati
n on
3
Defectio
n 3 4

1
1
Cooperati
on 4 2

2
 Now, either there is no Nash equilibrium in the Deer Hunter because it is

simply not a game which is a whole other topic for discussion - or, and what is

more likely considering it results in a paradox, one of the premises must be wrong.

Premises 8, 14, and 20 in the proof are independent of premises 1, 2, 3, and 4. In

fact, all three of these independent premises appear to be false.

Line 8 of the proof says if its irrational for the VC to let the R4 player gave

the gun, its irrational for the R3 player to let it out of his hands at the end of R3

(ch.55). Indeed, it is irrational to let the R4 player have the gun by virtue of line 4 of

the proof. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily irrational for the R3 player to let the

gun out of his hands. Intuitively, handing over the gun containing a three-in-a-row

sequence seems unwise since this would yield the best chance of a successful

rebellion. However, Viminitz noted that often in game theory you must forget your

intuitions and just do the math (Ch. 31). So, disregarding intuition, if the R3 player

lets the gun out of his hand, the VC will either spin the gun or give the gun to the R4

player to play. If the VC gives the R4 player the gun without spinning it, the R4

player will either choose to play the gun and lose with 100% certainty, or rebel. In

either case, the R3 player places himself in the more optimal situation since in the

former he wins, and in the latter his opponent becomes the primary target of the

VCs response to the rebellion instead of him. Now, if the VC spins the gun instead,

the unspun game is then turned into a series of spun games:

One-in-six spun example:

Player
1
 1 1 1 Player
( )( )( )
, ,
6 6 6
1

Series Series Series

1 2 3
OR
P1 , P2 , P1 , P2 , P2 , P1 , P2 , P1 , P1 , P2 , P1 , P2 ,
P1 1 1 1 1 1 P2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1P11 1 1
( 6 , 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 ,) ,( 6 , 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 ,) ,( 6 , 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 ,)
Series Series Series
1 2 3

Three-in-six- spun:

P1, P2, P2, P1, P1, P2,

P1 P1
3 3 3 P23 3 3
( 6 , 5 , 4 ) ,( 6 , 5 , 4 ),( 36 , 35 , 34 )
Series Series Series
1 2 3

Turning the unspun game into a spun game also stands to be a more optimal

situation for the R3 player because, not only can the spun game theoretically

continue forever, in the next series of the unspun game the current R3 player could

be faced with only a 3/5 gun, whereas the other player could be faced with both a

3/6 gun and a 3/4 gun. Well, there goes the intuition, now heres the math:

3/6 Bulle
t
R1 3/5 Bulle
t 3/4 Bulle
3/6 No R2
t
Bullet 2/5 No R3
Bullet No
1/4
Bullet
 ( 36 ) X ( 25 ) X ( 34 )= 203

( 12 )+( 203 )= 1320 =65

( 12 ) X ( 35 )= 103 =30
( 100 ) ( 65 +30 )=5 Remainder

Thus, the R3 player will risk only a 30% overall chance of incurring death in

the second series of ARR, whereas the other player will have to risk a 65% overall

chance of incurring death, with a 5% chance of no incurred death. So, even if the R3

player cannot predict what the VC will do after passing the gun, each possible

option is in favour of him, thus, it is certainly rational to give up the gun in R3,

demonstrating that premise 8 is false. And, by virtue of premise 8 being false,

premise 14 and 20 fail with it. Even if Viminitz refuted the arguments made against

premise 8, similar logical reasoning can be applied against both premise 14 and 20.

With similar logical flaws present in all three cases, the Deer Hunter proof cannot

stand.