Re: Bag of Tricks: Choosing actions via the matching law

Simon wrote:

> > Being no expert i don't have an answer to this. While there doesn't seem to
> > be a provably optimal solution for the static version of the problem, one
> > popular strategy is to use a Boltzmann Distribution
> > (http://www-anw.cs.umass.edu/~rich/book/2/node4.html) over the actions. This
> > formula has a temperature parameter that can be used to vary between random
> > selection of actions and selection of the current best action. In the
> > dynamic problem, one would expect this temperature to be controlled so as to
> > start high and converge on a plateau somewhere. The Boltzmann formula
> > "looks" somewhat similar to the matching law but it is not the same. Whether
> > there are experimental comparisons out there, who knows.
>
> The theory of the dice tells us that all people are made up of
> multiple conflicting personalities. We are never a unified or rational
> self, we merely supress our possible selves within an apparently
> unified self.  We desire to drink and remain sober at any one time in
> differing proportions, a part of ourselves wants to sing, another to
> sit and yet another to roll on the ground.  We suppress our minor
> desires within the overarching self that we present to the world.  The
> solution to this problem of human nature is to play out all our
> possible selves by listing all of our possible actions on a piece of
> paper and rolling a dice to determine what course of action to follow
> in any situation. At least this is one of the dice mans beliefs.
>
> The Diceman by Luke Rheinhart

You use percentile dice or  some of those weird  30-sided ones ???

As usual, the devil is in the details,  as "listing all of our possible actions on
a piece of
paper"  will take you longer than your lifetime......

Oops - dice just rolled  "putting head thru TV" -- be back in a sec........



(flipping a coin before doing anything is simpler -- The CoinFlippers Life  by
Wotan Oneeye)