[EM] Introduction (cont.)

Roy One royone at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 10 09:42:36 PDT 2001


Richard Moore wrote:
> We weren't really thinking much about low-quality 
> information cases. It's always good to have someone come 
> along with fresh insight on these matters, so thanks!

Thanks for putting all the effort into bringing me up to speed. You
do make good arguments for the applicability of strategy, even when
the probabilities are poorly known.

The fact that strategy changes probability, which affects strategy is
a feedback loop and either it would be a good topic for a chaos
theorist, or I'm just dropping buzzwords. It reminds me of the story
of the judge who told the convict that he would be executed on or
before a particular date, but he wouldn't know when.

The convict reasoned that he couldn't do it on the given date,
because he would have to know, when that day arrived, that it was the
day. Then, having ruled out the final day, the same argument applied
to the day before. He thus ruled out all days, but was, in fact,
executed on a day he didn't expect it.

In my mind, the feedback loop should be similarly self-defeating. Of
course, it's possible that chaos theory isn't as neat and tidy as I
want it to be (or that it isn't even the right buzzword).

Roy Johnson

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