Grand 04:08, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

I’m in a party’s corner, spinning full throttle on the Nash equilibrium of rock paper scissors. Full throttle in so far as alcohol will allow. Now she’s sitting across from me, “Hey, what’s going on?” I’m confused by the question and make to ask what’s meant by such ambiguities, “You’re sitting here, thinking. What are you thinking?” I begin to serialize into words the graphs my mind has drawn up for a rock paper scissors AI, but she’s gone when I’m half way through saying Nash equilibrium

It’s a losing strategy to explain strategy. I need to stop thinking about Nash equilibrium; it’s obviously not the Nash equilibrium for a party. People aren’t here to find out the depth of others’ thoughts. They aren’t here to be grilled for information about their own depths. They’re here to get drunk so that they can think even less than they usually do

I can’t get up. As soon as I do, anyone could design a ploy to ridicule. So long as I don’t make to be interested, they can’t make a show of denying me. The Nash equilibrium when dealing with irrational people isn’t minimax. Sure, this isn’t zero sum, but it can still be worked out that some will act for minimal benefit where there isn’t a community to punish their exploitation of the tragedy of the commons. Maybe that’s the issue here, I’m failing to see the community policies to being inviting, because it’s my own ineptitude which is incapable to see the entrance. That’d also explain why I’m incapable of destroying these people who assume such faith in my good will. There’s some kind of an inertia in their mass which I am unable to sway, even when they’re swarming in such discord

I’m making to offer a drink, “Who do you think you are?” I try to determine the exact semantics of identity, but before I can even begin to ask what they meant by the question, they’re gone. Is it so wrong to assume answers to questions which have only one conventional answer? Attempts at small talk end with small effect, it’s as if getting a grip requires destructive behavior. Horizon problem. The apathy of others forces melodrama. A better evaluation function is required

How may we aspire for the best in each of us, when we must prepare for the worst?

A shout into the crowd, it receives a glare and an outlier. “You don’t have to do anything,” I’m left to consider this direct attack on the constraint, but it seems the proposal is too great a sacrifice to be capable of continuing into solving the original intent. My jarbled start at explaining is cut off, “You don’t have to aspire to anything.” Great, some pretentious nihilist has decided to crusade upon my efforts to deny that the Nash equilibrium of life doesn’t carry life. “Lest I detest what must be done.” The plea to the subjective by the ego, does it know no end? My mind calls for me to flee from what can only be my enemy, but probability threshholds figure that the volatility of this conversation’s impact on my future has a greater chance of success than the already determined future I’d find in flight. Only now I’m left to determine the exact measure of success, of which the time required would likely disrupt this conversation by the thought I’ve not devoted to my responses people seem to hear while I remain deaf to myself

We’re outside, on a balcony. Apparently it was too loud inside. I still can’t hear myself. I can’t feel my hands. I can’t see us in the reflection in the window. “A lot of your attempts to apply game theory relies on ignoring perfect information. Most people decide to call a truce and cooperatively harvest information.” I’ve avoided talking about game theory, “You’ve been shouting about it the whole night”

I’m bolting through the doors. Who does she think she is? Most people veer out of my way, but then I run into some larger guy’s back. I stagger a moment, worried I might’ve made him spill his drink over whomever he might be talking to, but in a moment he’s turned around laughing, “Hey there, what’s the hurry?” I stutter to make a noise, trying to conjure up the words to describe the demon in our midsts, but the only thing conjured is the demon herself, “Me.” The guy chuckles a smirk as he turns away again. Part of me wants to resume flight, but she’s already positioned herself between me and the door. I don’t want to do anything too outrageous. “I think I’m the person who’s going to correct who you think you are.” I’m at a loss. What’s she want from me? Even in perfect information there’s the unknown information of what strategy is truly being used. That’s what reveals an irrational game: there is no perfect play. I extend my fist, her’s is already extended before mine is out. We take three takes, her two fingers extend against my open palm. She smirks at my stare for a moment, before I resume three takes. My two fingers extend out toward her two fingers. I’m the one to smirk this time, she’s unphased. I drop my stare when I realize she’s warranted the volatility of my second move and took the safest bet. I didn’t quite know I’d pull what I did until the last moment. We do another round, this time she’s kept her fist clamped to my reextended two fingers. I go to drop my hand, but end up resuming so that three takes later her palm wraps around my fist

I’m observing the front of my seat through the side view mirror of a small grey car which I can’t bear to observe any further. “The side view mirror or the car?” No. I need to escape. I make to open the door, but the lock is activated before I can open the door, and every move I make to unlock the car causes it to lock. I can make an outrageous move now, I’m not surrounded by people and she’s kidnapping me. “You didn’t run away in the parking lot.” Why didn’t I run away in the parking lot? I should have flown away into the night. Having perfect information, even of the other player’s strategy, is only useful in so far as you can maneuver a strategy which subverts them. That’s the point of minimax. “What’re we playing for?” I can’t stand these nihilist attempts at taking a step back from everything. They fill their models with so much indirection that the only thing left is their own little ideology and a bunch of option types being tried for nothing. “Nothing plus one is nothing. Nothing trumps all three” Rock breaks scissors, it doesn’t turn them to rock. It conquers, it does not assimilate. My only option is to strike, but as I make to conquer, a hand raises. Fucking paper. I move my other hand, pushing my legs to move into the driver’s seat. She accelerates the car, unbalancing me enough to slow me enough to give me time enough to reason that the speed of the car is no longer safe to force into a halt. Fucking gambits. I’m sick of this bitch, if she’s so bent on predicting me, she should’ve predicted this martyr subgame perfection

I’m dead; my body is slit with shards of glass where I’ve landed down a hill over the guard rails after barreling through the front window. The car I exited from, which did not go over the guardrail, is smashed along the front. It’s empty; my murderer opened her door while I was pushing forward and left the car a short moment before the car’s crash. She’s rolled down the other side of the road, evading the other drivers which have stopped to examine the wreck. She’s limping underneath the bridge to my side of the road. By the time she’s over my body, her chuckling is laughter, “To deviate from the predictable becomes predictable itself.” She’s dragging my body away. Am I dead? Dose claimed You’re technically asleep for the first eight hours of death. To me, that seems normal. Then that’s when loss kicks in. Lost in all your ordinary jackets. Lost and alone with you in the morning mirror. Running it’s missing fingers down the ever so organized spines of your many, many, music collections. I don’t hear my music, I don’t wear my jackets, I don’t sleep for eight hours. “You’re not dead, you’re going to wake up for the first time in eight hours.” I’m too dead to consider whether that’s a claim that I’ve always been asleep, or a claim that if I’ve never slept for eight hours; I will now. “Both”

Hour by hour. I’m walking by seven gates. I’m dying again, in a storm. I’m limp in a blizzard, buried by others. I’m being trampled by boulders as mine is pushed aside. I’m standing on a river, only to be killed and plunged beneath the surface. I’m burning six feet under in a field held by an iron curtain. I’m boiling blood, my savoring impeded by foul fruit. I’m begging for mercy, for it to end already, this torture, this torment. I’m waking up frozen. Damn

I’m waking up frozen, a dark cellar surrounding me. Around me are corpses. “The ones who didn’t make it. I was rather confused why they didn’t, until I met you.” I start at the demon’s voice before starting for her, only to find myself chained. “You don’t like gambits, and I guess that includes Pascal’s.” I refuse to go down the line of iteration and the dismissal of the infinite. My thoughts are mine, and if I cannot have them as my own, there will be none. Is it so? Or is it safe so long as I delve into the unknown information, I’ve kept my thoughts predictable by thinking of the situation at hand. “Of course, you’ve played your fair share of Smith Morras and Blackmar Diemers, and the Queen’s misnomer is certainly sound.” Ha, she thought I’d think about chess after extending to other forms of gambit, especially with the tribute names and all. How she stares, trying to pry into me. “How do you feel about the Queen’s Gambit being called a gambit?” She’s getting desperate, trying to get another hook into my thoughts. I own all of what is mine. “Stop being so self righteous about what’s only made real by your forfeit of it. Don’t you see? I make your thoughts real.” She displays her point by going beyond words. I already felt an ache from my less than comfortable position. Fine, I’ll humor her

The Queen’s Gambit is a perfect portrayl of women claiming to be more than what they are. The point of gambits in chess are to gain a position more valuable than the material you lose in their siege, yet in the Queen’s Gambit it is the acceptor of the gambit who loses material for positional advantage. White isn’t even trading off the queen’s pawn, it is black who trades their queen’s pawn for the queen’s flank. As per usual, it’s just another case of women giving only to get

“I’m asking you a question,” I have to smile at the joke’s manifestation when she gives me a strike in hopes for my answer, “Get rid of that smirk, what are you, mute?” She’s lost my trail. I am the sole manifestor of my thoughts. They are my source of information entropy for this game. “Great. I go through all the trouble, and don’t you dare think that limp’s worn off, you played harder to get than most, only to get someone who decides to go from quiet to silent. Can you at least write?” She’s handing me a freshly inked quill with paper, where’d she get that? She’s too prepared. I won’t forfeit more hooks. “Hmpf. Whatever, so I fetched an illiterate mute. Far fetch for a vamp. Have you figured that yet?” This catches my eye, though I’m quick to avoid contact. “Maybe you’ll just wither”

I’m ripping Nash apart, ignoring his communist accusations while I find delight in his red blood. I’m not a communist; communists don’t study game theory. But really, I’m just starving in a cellar, gnawing at my chains in a delirium of my aforementioned starvation. I don’t know why this is happening. In confusion, I make eye contact with my captor, holding it long enough to reveal my lost confusion. “It’s an ultimatum.” My being lost becomes confused. “Reality is a difficult thing for me to grasp, as many things still are. Forgive me for being utterly fascinated.” That doesn’t explain anything. In some respects, it may give the notion that the ultimatum isn’t posed towards me, but reality. But then, what series of queries has lead to this? What does my binding unbind of reality? “Stop questioning; I’m the one asking questions. You’re my answer.” The only answers I have for this are that there are no answers. So long as I’m the one to answer, at least. “Don’t be so modest, don’t the corpses of the great men whom you’ve succeeded give proof enough? They were dead before they came here. They never woke up, even after I told them they would. They wouldn’t listen to me; you will”

I’m not bound. “Unfortunately, it’s becoming clear that you’re not one to submit to backward induction.” Backward induction fails when forward induction disagrees. Who can claim a rational future against an irrational past? “Contradict because I can.” Irrational guise is the choice for the first player. So long as their is synchronization, there are signals

She’s decided the signals are more important than the actions. She’s not satisfied with reality, but she’s powerless against it. So she’s instead working to go beyond tapping these hooks she’s put into my mind, and instead begin pulling them to her favor

I’m the second player. We’re playing poker. The results are what one would expect where one side can never bluff and the other knows whenever it can. A slow death; I play conservatively. Even chess displays that issue, as she’s intimidated me so that I’m incapable of taking on a sharp attack. How much longer will this continue? “All up to what you desire.” Whose choice was this?

Queen’s Gambit. Accepted. Except I play a real gambit: Two Knight’s Variation. I’m not bound. English Opening. Multivariable calculus. Discrete probability. It offers a number of transpositions, while this choice might put black into familliar territory, it shows which positions black doesn’t like. Those can be applied in the future. Board pressure distribution. The derivatives cluster. Vector fields of intent push the pawns onto the same rank, away from the same rank, and onwards. A slow push into defense is weary of a sharp call to arms. The game simplifies until there are no second derivatives. I’m not bound, yet I’m still here

I’m sitting in an office while some guy rambles over some cliché detective work which lead to discovering the psycho killer of a bunch of recent disappearences. I was at first suggested as an accomplice due to the circumstances under which I was discovered, but pleas agreed that I was acting under duress. I’m being asked to testify; I agree

I’m sitting in a court being ignored while I doodle. Paper is great. People are talking. The form I’m sketching falls to the purpose of this all. I can either look at this static imitation, or look up and stare at the dynamic truth. Was the ultimatum not so much to reality, but to truth? If I’d’ve died, would I be labelled her victim, when it was really my own doing, my own attempt to murder? They’re claiming she killed the people in her cellar; they don’t ask her. Her eyes are a dignified plea to prove her right. I feel compelled to follow her silent command through some form of empathy. Have I hooked, or am I hooked? Handless games of rock paper scissors ensue. Draws

I’m ripping the place apart, the people with it, it all. Contagious to a point; they draw the lines and fire. An abstraction of a point; I’m gone

& she’s left alone

Whom did I betray to end up here? I’m frozen in a bow, awaiting reunion. A bat of wings silences horror filled cries at the condemnation of redemption sought over God for poetic purposes. I’m a testament to their renounced virtue