Everything in daily life can be explained from the game, from the US-Japan trade war to the sudden illness this morning. Perhaps readers will think that it is ok to analyze trade disputes with game theory, but it is a bit incredible that you can also use game theory to understand your illness, because you are a person, who are you playing with?
In fact, there is not only one person, but also a participant named "Nature". "Nature" can be understood as Almighty God. Now God has two strategies to make people sick or not. Once a person is sick, he must judge God's strategy according to the information of illness, and then take corresponding strategies. God takes the strategy of making people sick, and people take the strategy of taking medicine to deal with it; God adopts the strategy of not making people sick, and man adopts the strategy of ignoring. This is a game between man and god.
"Nature" is an important hypothesis in the study of single-player games. For another example, a farmer planting crops is also a game with nature. Natural strategies can be: dry weather, rainy weather and favorable weather. Farmers' corresponding strategies are: drought prevention, waterlogging prevention and rest at ease. Of course, it is uncertain what kind of strategy "nature" will adopt, so farmers can only determine their actions according to empirical judgment or weather forecast. If it is estimated that the drought is serious this year, we can make preparations for drought prevention as soon as possible; If it is estimated that the water situation is serious, prepare for flood control early; If the weather is fine, farmers can relax.
More games in life are not single-player games, but games of two or more people. For example, one day you think it should be your wife's birthday, but you are not sure: if it is your wife's birthday, you can send a bunch of flowers, and your wife will be very happy; If you don't send flowers, your wife will complain that you forgot her birthday; If it's not your wife's birthday, you can send her a bunch of flowers, and she will be surprised. Life is the same without flowers.
In this game, we can see that "nature" can have two strategies: to determine whether today is his wife's birthday, but no matter what strategy "nature" adopts, your best action is to buy flowers.
Fighting between husband and wife is also a game. Both husband and wife have strong or weak strategies. There are four possible outcomes of this game: tough husband and tough wife, tough husband and weak wife, tough husband and weak wife, weak husband and weak wife.
According to the actual observation of life, a weak husband and a weak wife is the most stable marriage, because both sides don't want to hurt each other or feel sad, and they are often willing to make concessions on their own. Zoological research has also reached the same conclusion that docile males and females can live in harmony and live longer.
Tough husbands and tough wives are one of the most unstable marriages, and most of them end in angry divorce. Tough husbands and weak wives are the most common. Many couples quarrel like this. In the end, one side gave in. Either the husband retreats to the yard to light a cigarette or the wife hides in the bedroom and cries.
In the competitive business world, games are more common. For example, in the price war between two air-conditioning manufacturers, both sides should judge whether the other side has reduced the price before deciding whether they have reduced the price. Obviously, the goal of the game between manufacturers is to gain the largest market share and earn the most income.
In fact, this kind of competition for benefits (or utility) is the purpose of the game and the basis of the game. The most basic assumption of economics is that the purpose of economic man or rational man is to maximize utility, and all participants in the game are fighting for the maximization of their own utility. The parties involved in the game form a relationship of mutual competition and confrontation, and the outcome is determined by the effectiveness won. Certain external conditions determine the specific forms of competition and confrontation, which forms a game.
For example, the participants in a chess game aim to win the opposing army, and the purpose of war is to win. In the Colosseum of ancient Rome, gladiators fought for the only right to survive. The purpose of enterprise management was survival and development, but people competed for money in the stock market. From the perspective of economics, there is a kind of resource that people need, and the total amount of resources is scarce or limited. At this time, there will be competition, and competition needs a specific form to pull everyone together. Once this form is found, a game will be formed, and the competing parties will come together to start the game.
Sun Tzu's Art of War said: "Know yourself and know yourself, and you will be invincible." It can be seen that competitive confrontation also has the characteristics that all parties in the game have information. For example, in the last example, both sides of the game understand each other's strategies. From the perspective of game theory, it can't be said that one side knows the other side knows its own strategy, and vice versa. We can use this grammar until we type "...", which is exactly what both sides of the game have.
Therefore, we can understand that there are four elements to form a game:
1. A game must have two or more players. There is a necessary factor in the game, that is, whether a person makes decisions in a vacuum without interference. For example, a bachelor can't have a game of quarreling between husband and wife, let alone the trouble of sending flowers to please his wife.
From the perspective of economics, if a person makes a decision without interference from others, it is the most commonly studied optimization problem in traditional economics or management, that is, how a person or an enterprise makes a decision in a given situation or situation.
The simplest example of optimization is that smoking hurts the lungs and not smoking hurts. Smokers need to weigh whether they choose to smoke or not. If this smoker is not a single aristocrat, but has a wife or girlfriend, in this case, it is very likely to form a game. In other words, players are surrounded by decision makers with subjective initiative, and their choices interact with those of other players. This interactive relationship will naturally have an important impact on the thinking and actions of all parties in the game, and sometimes even directly affect the decision-making results of other participants.
In the book Game Theory and Economic Behavior by von Neumann, such a classic example is given. In Robinson Crusoe, an isolated Robinson Crusoe formed an independent economic system, which can be clearly understood by people with high school mathematics level. This is just a common problem to solve the maximum value.
Because Robinson is facing some dead data, not people with subjective will. Once "Friday" (the black servant of Robinson Crusoe) joins this system, this economic system becomes a game problem.
2. The game should have resources or benefits (resources or returns) that the participants compete for. Resources not only refer to natural resources, such as mines, oil, land and water resources, but also include various social resources, such as contacts, reputation, education and positions.
If these resources are infinitely available, then we don't need to strive for productism, because we can step into "abandoning the underground for evil money, not hiding it for ourselves, not for ourselves." "The trip to the avenue is also a public affair in the world." Datong society
Of course, it is undeniable that, on the one hand, there will be conflicts between players; On the other hand, they also contain the potential of cooperation.
It is worth emphasizing that resources are subjective. The reason why people participate in the game is that they are attracted by interests, and the expected income in the future directly affects the attraction of competitive games and the attention of participants.
The utility theory of economics can be used to explain this problem. What one needs subjectively is resources, and vice versa. For example, "children are always their own good, and wives are always others' good": their children are priceless in their eyes, but relatively worthless in front of others; Even recognized beautiful wives and children will have aesthetic fatigue, and the value of resources will continue to decline, which is the law of diminishing utility.
The most extreme example is probably the country of scholars described in the novel "The Garden of Mirrors" in the Ming Dynasty. Everyone's reciprocity makes objective resources worthless, and naturally there will be no competition and game.
3. Participants have their own strategies to choose from. The so-called strategy is to "listen to the benefits, but use the benefits to help others." Those in power will also control power because of interests. "This refers to a direct and practical response to a specific problem. Generally speaking, strategy is strategy, which is the means and methods that game participants can choose.
In daily life, strategy selection is only a way to solve problems, and it does not involve theoretical contents such as analyzing key factors and determining situational characteristics. Strategy selection in game theory is to analyze the situation and the overall situation, determine the characteristics of the situation, find out the key factors, and then make strategy selection on the most important goal. It can be seen that the strategy of the game can affect the whole body and directly affect the whole situation.
4. Participants have a certain amount of information. For example, in the story of United Lian Heng, the information between Qin and the six countries is complete.
But sometimes, the information is incomplete. As the saying goes, "something unexpected happens in the sky." For example, it is cloudy and windy today, and the Meteorological Observatory predicts that it will turn cloudy to light rain tomorrow. Do you want to take an umbrella when you go out to work tomorrow? The information of this situation is incomplete, and the information conditions of people's decision-making are uncertain. Of course, from a reasonable point of view, in real life, it is generally necessary to bring an umbrella to prevent accidents.
In layman's terms, game is a process in which an individual or an organization chooses a strategy and implements it one or more times at the same time or successively under certain environmental conditions and established rules, so as to get a certain result. We live in this world, and it is inevitable to deal with others. This is a process of interest exchange, and it is inevitable to face various contradictions and conflicts.
The so-called game theory sounds awkward and unfathomable, but its thinking is easy to understand. Simply put, game theory is to study how people make decisions and how this decision can reach equilibrium. When deciding what action to take, each participant should not only act according to his own interests and purposes, but also consider the possible impact of his decision-making behavior on others and the possible consequences of others' reaction behavior, and seek the maximization of benefits or utility by choosing the best action plan.
The game is a competitive game.
More than two thousand years ago, the brilliant Qin Shihuang unified the land of China for the first time and created the largest empire in the world at that time, which made him famous in history. Judging from the historical conditions at that time, although the strength of Qin increased greatly after Shang Yang's political reform, its economic, political and military strength was far from comparable to the sum of the six countries. In this case, the situation between the six countries and the State of Qin produced two tit-for-tat possibilities: First, the six countries adopted the policy of "uniting the vertical" towards the State of Qin, that is, all countries concluded a military covenant to jointly resist the aggression of the State of Qin. If Qin invades any country, other countries must send troops to rescue unconditionally; Secondly, the six countries adopted the "Lian Heng" policy to compromise with Qin, that is, they signed a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance with Qin to maintain bilateral peaceful relations.
Of the seven countries at that time, only Qi was second only to Qin and became the core of the six-nation military alliance. Once Qi abandons the policy of "uniting Lian Heng", the military alliance of the six countries will fall apart. The real history also proves this point. The destruction of the six-nation alliance by Qin started from Qi.
In this case, Qin and Qi have two strategic policies to choose from, namely "integration" and "Lian Heng". If Qin acquiesces in the "vertical integration" of the six countries and Qi adopts the "vertical integration" policy, the result is that the expansion of Qin's power is curbed, Qi becomes the first of the six countries and its power is expanded. Qin adopted the policy of "Lian Heng", while Qi still adopted the policy of "vertical integration". As a result, Qin and the six countries were in a state of confrontation. Qin acquiesced in the "union" of the six countries, while Qi adopted the "Lian Heng" policy to show kindness to Qin. In this way, Qin could not unify the whole country without annexing the six countries, and Qi's power did not expand. The historical truth is that Qin adopted the "Lian Heng" policy, Qi acquiesced in Qin's "Lian Heng" policy and established friendly diplomatic relations with Qin. Qi was finally destroyed, and the first emperor Qin Shihuang became famous for later generations.
The English word for "Game Theory" is "game theory". In fact, the original meaning of game is game, and the most appropriate literal translation of game theory into Chinese is "game theory". More precisely, it's a quiz.
From the story of Qin Shihuang, we can see that the game contains two completely different strategies: competition, conflict and cooperation. The so-called competition and cooperation is the abbreviation of competition and cooperation. A game is not just competition, in fact, competition contains seeds of potential cooperation, and cooperation contains seeds of potential competition.
Cooperative game does not mean that all parties have the intention or attitude of cooperation, but that there are some agreements or contracts that are binding on all parties in the game, or that all parties in the game cannot "collude" or "collude" openly.
The most typical example of cooperative game is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). 1960 in September, representatives of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met in Baghdad and decided to unite with western oil companies to safeguard oil revenue. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was born at this time. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has now developed into an international petroleum organization of some major oil-producing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It unifies and coordinates the oil policies of member countries, safeguards their respective and common interests with the aid of the oil production quota system, and stabilizes the international oil price at a fair and reasonable level. For example, in some cases, in order to prevent oil prices from soaring, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can increase oil production according to market conditions; In order to prevent oil prices from falling, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can reduce oil production according to market conditions.
For individuals, from the perspective of game theory, how to find a way to break through the predicament quickly when life and career are at a loss?
First of all, we must find a reasonable strategy, and this reasonable strategy must be based on a solid foundation in order to be practical. If someone is in trouble and you can't get out for the same reason, can you get rid of the unfavorable situation with this person and move towards a win-win situation on the basis of cooperation?
When describing four big families in A Dream of Red Mansions, a comment was used, which was called "All glory, all loss". It is because these four families have me, you, mutual cooperation and blood relationship that they have formed a solid alliance.
Then, if two people who are in trouble at the same time have this dual relationship of interest and blood, they will be easier to cooperate and have greater synergy. As the saying goes, "when two people are United, their profits will be cut off", but to achieve "unity", it is not enough to cooperate only in interests, and a blood relationship close to the family is also needed. Obviously, this can be met but not sought, because blood relationship can not be formed casually.