Molyneaux’s Question, Cellular Automata and the Prisoners’ Dilemma—and the Road Ahead

Dag Soeroboe
University of Bergen, Norway

In my project at NKS Summer School 2003, we considered Cellular Automata (CA) under mathematical constraints derived from the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD). An algorithm for simulating play between the 256 elementary CA in a round-robin iterated PD tournament was implemented, and the results for each CA were computed and plotted. Results suggested that the CA can be grouped in four categories with respect to outcome under the experimental setup in the study.

It seems to me that more research is needed in order to find out how CA can be applied to the study of rationality paradoxes in useful ways, and I will give a brief outline of some of the philosophical theories and questions I have encountered since NKS Summer School 2003.

Created by Mathematica  (April 20, 2004)