Ontology of player & evolutionary game in reductive vs effective theory

In my views of game theory, I largely follow Ariel Rubinstein: game theory is a set of fables. A collection of heuristic models that helps us structure how we make sense of and communicate about the world. Evolutionary game theory was born of classic game theory theory through a series of analogies. These analogies are either generalizations or restrictions of the theory depending on if you’re thinking about the stories or the mathematics. Given this heuristic genealogy of the field — and my enjoyment of heuristic models — I usually do not worry too much about what exactly certain ontic terms like strategy, player, or game really mean or refer to. I am usually happy to leave these terms ambiguous so that they can motivate different readers to have different interpretations and subsequently push for different models of different experiments. I think it is essential for heuristic theories to foster this diverse creativity. Anything goes.

However, not everyone agrees with Ariel Rubinstein and me; some people think that EGT isn’t “just” heuristics. In fact, more recently, I have also shifted some of my uses of EGT from heuristics to abductions. When this happens, it is no longer acceptable for researchers to be willy-nilly with fundamental objects of the theory: strategies, players, and games.

The biggest culprit is the player. In particular, a lot of confusion stems from saying that “cells are players”. In this post, I’d like to explore two of the possible positions on what constitutes players and evolutionary games.