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1911–2007 Russia
Anatol Rapoport (May 22, 1911 – January 20, 2007) was a Russian-born American Jewish mathematical psychologist. He was one of the founders of the general systems theory.
Russia Academics Biologists Mathematicians Psychologists Also known as: Rapoport, Anatol
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Game theory applies to a very different type of conflict, now technically called a game. The well-known games such as poker, chess, ticktacktoe and so forth are games in the strict technical Bark and counterbark sense. But what makes parlor games games is not their entertainment value or detachment from real life.
Whether game theory leads to clear-cut solutions, to vague solutions, or to impasses, it does achieve one thing. In bringing techniques of logical and mathematical analysis gives men an opportunity to bring conflicts up from the level of fights, where the intellect is beclouded by passions, to the level of games, where the intellect has a chance to operate.
The American Revolution was ignited by the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’, a slogan suggested by democratic ideals... Ought not the present day version of the old slogan be ‘No annihilation without representation?
(Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.
Prisoner's dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation (1965)
For a general semanticist, communication is not merely words in proper order properly inflected (as for the grammarian) or assertions in proper relation to each other (as for the logician) or assertions in proper relation to referents (as for the semanticist), but all these together, with the chain of 'fact to nervous system to language to nervous system to action.
In the US. Infantry Manual published during World War II, the soldier was told what to do if a live grenade fell into the trench where he and others were sitting: to wrap himself around the grenade so as to at least save the others. (If no one "volunteered," all would be killed, and there were only a few seconds to decide who would be the hero.)
Anatol Rapoport (1988)
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