In Barry Smith’s analytic metaphysics course this week I presented some of my work on a game theory ontology and a potential application. See a video discussion below. (The class session only allowed for twenty-three minutes for both presentation and Q&A so hang on because I talk a little fast!). I also refer in the slides to work by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, which can be found discussed here. Questions came from Brian Donohue, John Beverly, Uriah Burke, and Ben Lawrence.
Here is a chart from Google’s Ngram showing the frequency of “Game Theory” and “Decision Theory” over the last few decades in published books. Interesting to note the drop from 1970s through the 80s that then re-emerges, I imagine, due to the rise of modern computers–all while “Decision Theory” has a small hump in the 70s and undergoes a steady decline.
The discussions of matrices also seem less important now than they must have seemed previously, while the discussions of decision trees has become increasingly important. Perhaps “decision trees” are also a synonym for flowcharts?
I’m presently working with some colleagues on a new project concerning game theory, and I’m looking into various databases that contain information about game theory. If you know of any available, online data sets, drop me a line or leave a comment.
