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You said "a lot of human behavior is explained by game theory". Why can't we say that all human behavior is explained by game theory? How do we differentiate be

by slibhb 5y ago

You said "a lot of human behavior is explained by game theory". Why can't we say that all human behavior is explained by game theory? How do we differentiate between an instance of behavior that is explained by game theory and one that isn't? It's useful and interesting to say "here's a theory that predicts ways in which people actually behave". It's begging the question to claim the theory actually explains human behavior, which remains opaque.

lisper 5y ago
> Why can't we say that all human behavior is explained by game theory? We can. But game theory turns on the parameters of the payoff matrix, and those are "hidden variables" that are hard to measure. But they are constrained by ESS requirements, which is the thing that makes game-theory non-vacuous. It's analogous to saying that weather is explained by fluid dynamics.