Modeling Bounded Rationality (Zeuthen Lecture Book Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Very well written in terms of technical coverage and originality of modelling bounded rationality and its application to game theory. However, the author develops most of his theories from either assumption and speculation or no justification at all in terms of formally depicting human rationality. It would have been a much more powerful book if there was a greater coverage of empirical evidence and bridging between psychology, artificial intelligence and economics. This lop-sided approach of modelling using solely game theoretic terminology and concepts ambiguous in their relevancy to simulating human thought and behaviour. However, there are some chapters, such as the one on knowledge representation and the other on limited memory that are the exception to this. Overall though, the book is still quite innovative and worth a read.

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The notion of bounded rationality was initiated in the 1950's by Herbert Simon. In this book the author defines models of bounded rationality as those in which elements of the process of choice are explicitly embedded. The book focuses on the challenges of modelling bounded rationality, rather than on substantial economic implications. In the first part of the book the author considers the modelling of choice. After discussing some psychological findings, he proceeds to the modelling of procedural rationality, knowledge, memory, the choice of what to know and group decisions. In the second part, he discusses the fundamental difficulties of modelling bounded rationality in games. He begins with the modelling of a game with procedural rational players and then surveys repeated games with complexity considerations. He ends with a discussion of computability constraints in games. The final chapter includes a critique by Herbert Simon of the author's methodology and the author's response.

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Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction (Second Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Herb Gintis is an economist with a strong interest in the assumptions we make about human rationality in our social, political, and economic theories. He has produced a remarkable and deceptively innovative text that could productively be used in a broad range of fields.
The topic of game theory is interesting to many people because it describes interaction between competitors, presumably helping us pick the best strategy if the circumstances are well enough understood. We might wonder whether the circumstances are well enough understood in daily life to apply the methods of game theory to our own choices, since it usually to assume that we are rational competitors trying to maximize our own gain.
Game Theory Evolving addresses this fascinating question not from a theoretical perspective so much as giving the reader the tools for investigating it themselves in two distinct but complementary ways.
First, it provides practical problem-oriented chapters for learning the principles and thinking in terms of game theoretic methods. The problems are not the usual textbook "who cares, anyway ?" type. Rather they are fun and interesting to solve and often lead to direct insights into real situations.
Second, it extends game theory into the realm of evolutionary thinking, so we not only understand strategic action but we get some deeper insight into how our historical needs shaped our behavior and even our thought processes. Game theory may help explain how we learned to cooperate and why under some conditions we tend to punish cheaters and treat people fairly even though it provides no apparent advantage to us.
Disguised as a lowly academic textbook, Game Theory Evolving is actually a basic toolkit, a passport into the remarkable modern study of evolutionary thinking about human nature, through a practical grounding in the mathematical techniques that have the potential to join our understanding of social sciences and biology.

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Geometric Transformations for 3D Modeling Review

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(More customer reviews)Pedagogically, Mortenson's presentation is easy for a reader to follow. Accompanied by generous numbers of diagrams. He gives understandable interpretations of how matrices are used to represent different types of transformations. The underlying geometrical rationale is clear.
En route, the reader is gently introduced to group theory. For finite groups. A way to bind geometry and symmetry. Interestingly, the notation he uses for the symmetries and groups is Schonflies. In 1982, this was already being phased out by crystallographers, in favour of International notation. But maybe mathematicians prefer the older style.
There is also a quick discussion of tensors. Giving rise to contra and covariant vectors. And the metric tensor is introduced as a key idea. All this is a jumping off point for physicists studying General Relativity, though it is not actually mentioned by name.

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