Prisoner’s Dilemma Can Only Solve So Much
Having reflected on a blog post from a current classmate, I researched the theory of Subjective Expected Relative Similarity (SERS). The application of Game Theory and particularly the Prisoner’s Dilemma, has allowed researchers to apply such studies to evolutionary biology questions. An article, calling cooperation in evolutionary biology into question, primarily focuses on the animal’s motivation for selecting selfless strategies despite how jeopardizing these strategies are. Interestingly enough, the prisoner’s dilemma displayed that an organisms acting entirely in their own self-interest would still create a cooperative community. But how so?
We see a few examples including the vervet monkey, bats, and bacteria. We begin to question if cooperation is really the best strategy. In the case of the monkey, known for their scream to alert others of harm, we learn that for a single encounter, staying silent is the safer option. It is crucial to look at the bigger picture. Overtime, more monkeys are more likely to survive if they warn their neighbors. Again, this brings attention to the fact that if there is only one non-cooperative individual, they are more likely to be ignored from the community. Overtime, individuals will learn to be cooperative as this is the dominant trait, for survival.
I continued researching and came across interesting work done by Ilan Fischer, and his SERS theory. He claims that cooperation is a rational response to the interaction of organisms, and his theory is the only one to support it. The claims include, an organism should only cooperate whenever their opponent is sufficiently similar to themselves. Through tests, it was proved that participants playing with high similarities cooperated more of than those with less similarities, also, those who believed their opponent would respond more similarly cooperated more often then those who believed they would respond differently.
This was very interesting because we note that prisoner’s dilemma does not include all factors of nature, simply because there are too many and it is too complex. This research connects with the work in lecture and is applying it to more in depth research theories. Game Theory is the foundation to solving this evolutionary question, and the relationships and networks between the individuals playing are then taken into consideration for further exploration and understanding.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150212-game-theory-calls-cooperation-into-question/
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.408.464&rep=rep1&type=pdf