3 ms·

I don't understand what they mean by "the next best one" after having discarded X number of candidates. "Best" relative to what?

• leif 17y ago
  In the partially ordered set of partners (ordered by <=), given some ordering {p_k}, choose p_N from {p_(X+1), ..., p_100} s.t. p_i <= p_N for all i in {1, ..., X}.
• gojomo 17y ago
  I believe the assumptions are that there is a reliable fitness function giving an overall score, but only one candidate can be evaluated at a time, and once you reject a candidate, you can never go back. So "the next best one" means the first to reach a new high value after the initial run of X. (And note that the first X candidates have no chance -- no matter how high they score -- because you don't even start with any hint of the overall distribution.)
  • jerf 17y ago
    It should be pointed out that while the article sort of munged this point, it is a particular math problem in game theory that, like other game theory problems, has applications of interest well beyond what the problem is "about", whereas it's actually useless in the real world. (How often does Prisoner's Dilemma actually come up for you?) So, if it sounds like an unreasonable assumption that there is a universal fitness function, well, sure. It's a math problem, not a real description of real life. 100 potential partners isn't terribly realistic either. It's either much lower ("the set of people I have dated") or much higher ("the set of all people I have ever met that might be a suitable candidate", and remember, in the face of "love at first sight" that's a very large set for most people, well into the thousands). I find it sort of annoying when people propagate that error, but meh, whatever.