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How superstitious should NPCs be?

Not at all -- NPCs doing dumb things would weaken the challenge of the game.
Total votes: 6 (8%)
A little bit -- it would help make the social world feel more plausible.
Total votes: 63 (81%)
Very superstitious -- it would be fun to see NPCs doing crazy things.
Total votes: 9 (12%)
Total votes: 78
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Re: Very Superstitious

#61
Hadrianus wrote:So basically intelligence and education would have a negative correlation with superstitious beliefs?
That's a fallacy without basis, that is normally arrived at by circularly defining a "superstition" as "things smart people don't believe in."

It's the I, you, him problem. Of course you think you're rational and reasonable. Of course you think "common knowledge" in your vicinity is perfectly reasonable. But smart people are no less susceptible to any of the mental tricks and errors that make "superstitious" thinking happen, and nor are their friends. You cannot reason yourself out of a belief that you did not reason yourself into.

Pretty much the only thing that works against superstitions and irrationalities at any level is being aware of your own flaws, checking yourself for errors, and getting other people (preferentially people who don't have anything in common with you) to check you for errors too. But hardly anybody does that at all, and nobody does it consistently, or with enough frequency to make a difference. It's far too difficult to engage in that kind of costly, time consuming effort at all times, especially when we have a brain that is very good at making shortcuts that, most of the time, get us where we need to go.

The idea that approaching things "scientifically" gives you some kind of get out of basic human error is a common superstition among those who like thinking about things in that way, for example. Of course as any history of science shows, not only is it no guarantee that even the smartest minds will not find themselves waylaid by some temptingly elegant piece of nonsense (as, indeed, the history of scientific racism, or the story of Isaac Newton, can make clear), but as science enters the public realm it, itself, becomes part of the tapestry and mythology that makes up the public culture; part of the story that people tell themselves.

You don't think you have any superstitions because fish have no word for water. Look back on yourself from another culture, or 100 years in the future, and you'll be amazed at how things that seem sensible and logical to you seem just as absurd as horoscopes and voudou. Put yourself in the context in which astrology and religions emerged, and you'll be similarly amazed at how sensible those things appear, at how strange it seems that all those people outside look at these elegant truths but cannot understand them.

Hubris is possibly the most common superstition of them all.
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Re: Very Superstitious

#62
McDuff wrote:
Hadrianus wrote:So basically intelligence and education would have a negative correlation with superstitious beliefs?
That's a fallacy without basis, that is normally arrived at by circularly defining a "superstition" as "things smart people don't believe in."

It's the I, you, him problem. Of course you think you're rational and reasonable. Of course you think "common knowledge" in your vicinity is perfectly reasonable. But smart people are no less susceptible to any of the mental tricks and errors that make "superstitious" thinking happen, and nor are their friends. You cannot reason yourself out of a belief that you did not reason yourself into.

Pretty much the only thing that works against superstitions and irrationalities at any level is being aware of your own flaws, checking yourself for errors, and getting other people (preferentially people who don't have anything in common with you) to check you for errors too. But hardly anybody does that at all, and nobody does it consistently, or with enough frequency to make a difference. It's far too difficult to engage in that kind of costly, time consuming effort at all times, especially when we have a brain that is very good at making shortcuts that, most of the time, get us where we need to go.

The idea that approaching things "scientifically" gives you some kind of get out of basic human error is a common superstition among those who like thinking about things in that way, for example. Of course as any history of science shows, not only is it no guarantee that even the smartest minds will not find themselves waylaid by some temptingly elegant piece of nonsense (as, indeed, the history of scientific racism, or the story of Isaac Newton, can make clear), but as science enters the public realm it, itself, becomes part of the tapestry and mythology that makes up the public culture; part of the story that people tell themselves.

You don't think you have any superstitions because fish have no word for water. Look back on yourself from another culture, or 100 years in the future, and you'll be amazed at how things that seem sensible and logical to you seem just as absurd as horoscopes and voudou. Put yourself in the context in which astrology and religions emerged, and you'll be similarly amazed at how sensible those things appear, at how strange it seems that all those people outside look at these elegant truths but cannot understand them.

Hubris is possibly the most common superstition of them all.
So nothing has a negative effect on supersticious belief? My what a sad world we live in! Or you live in!
Sorry to say but all you’ve given me is a bunch of stories bassed on your own word, which is not worth much to me.
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Re: Very Superstitious

#63
Hadrianus wrote: So nothing has a negative effect on supersticious belief? My what a sad world we live in! Or you live in!
Sorry to say but all you’ve given me is a bunch of stories bassed on your own word, which is not worth much to me.
you havent provided anything but your word.
you can start to disregard others words as nonsense when you provide anything besides "stupid people believe stupid things".

<°(((><
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Re: Very Superstitious

#64
Oh, it's not just based on my word. You can try looking up Daniel Kahneman, who's a good primer on cognitive fallacies. You can also look up, as I suggested, the history of scientific racism and phrenology to see how "scientific" thinking can propagate some incredibly dubious beliefs through a culture.

You seem to believe that superstitions are all bad, by the way. Some, like belief in a Just World, seem so at first, but can be considered positive adaptions because they increase contentment with injustice, which is necessary for a happy life (although not for a struggle against injustice). Hedonic Adaption can have the opposite effect, leading us to believe that we "deserve" something better than we have, and thus spurring us on to work for it.

Irrationality is a complicated subject to study. Perhaps if you did so you would have less trouble accepting that most people, including yourself, don't live up to a mythical, rational ideal you previously considered yourself to typify?

Hmm, actually, on second thought, that's probably not true either...
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Re: Very Superstitious

#65
McDuff wrote:Oh, it's not just based on my word. You can try looking up Daniel Kahneman, who's a good primer on cognitive fallacies. You can also look up, as I suggested, the history of scientific racism and phrenology to see how "scientific" thinking can propagate some incredibly dubious beliefs through a culture.

You seem to believe that superstitions are all bad, by the way. Some, like belief in a Just World, seem so at first, but can be considered positive adaptions because they increase contentment with injustice, which is necessary for a happy life (although not for a struggle against injustice). Hedonic Adaption can have the opposite effect, leading us to believe that we "deserve" something better than we have, and thus spurring us on to work for it.

Irrationality is a complicated subject to study. Perhaps if you did so you would have less trouble accepting that most people, including yourself, don't live up to a mythical, rational ideal you previously considered yourself to typify?

Hmm, actually, on second thought, that's probably not true either...
You are addressing points which I never made. Like for example the statement that all superstitions are bad. Sorry I never said that. Straw man argument.

What I was talking about was those characteristics which negatively influence ones tendency towards superstitious belief. I have no idea where your recent rants came from. Perhaps it was one of your unavoidable superstitions.

I am getting the impression that the only reason you are giving out these rants is for the sake of arguing with me. If so you might as well tell me what your problem is with me and I shall try to repair whatever fault is my own
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Re: Very Superstitious

#67
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Hadrianus wrote: So nothing has a negative effect on supersticious belief? My what a sad world we live in! Or you live in!
Sorry to say but all you’ve given me is a bunch of stories bassed on your own word, which is not worth much to me.
you havent provided anything but your word.
you can start to disregard others words as nonsense when you provide anything besides "stupid people believe stupid things".

<°(((><
All I’ve given is questions and suggestions in that case my word does not matter.
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Re: Very Superstitious

#69
It seems that the way to do AI is with neural nets. Perhaps for a few seconds, the game could run a genetic algorithm at each major system within "X" jumps of spawn to acquire a variety of AI "flavors." The simulation would be done at worldgen without rendering, so it goes at lightning speed. This would allow some emergent behavior to arise prior to any actual play, some of which may include "superstitious" behavior. When new AIs are spawned, the net is duplicated (with some mutation) from its parent colony's children, and those AIs which prosper shift the population towards the more prosperous net. This means that superstitions which stay more or less true will continue. Additionally, some transfer between populations may occur, ensuring variation within each population and possibly extinguishing superstitions. The susceptability of individual populations to superstition could be easily defined by a simple trait that indicates the speed at which the nets embrace change. Hidebound nets may die off, while those which change too quickly may not possess the neccessary pattern recognition to take advantage of patterns in the universe.
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Re: Very Superstitious

#70
IIRC, the testbeds which josh made to rapidly run the AI did feature evolutionary improvements. As for neural-net pattern recognition , I'm pretty sure that stuff is a little too computationally intensive for the hundreds or thousands of AI simultaneously inhabiting the game.

The AI of course needs to be aware of their surroundings, and be able to access strategies for how to deal with their surroundings, and it would be great if we could run dedicated evolutionary testbeds for days or weeks or months on end, throwing different (random and human designed) situations at the AI to give it more strategies to have access to.

As for superstition mutations, I definitely think they would be a great addition, but it's hard to say what exactly a "superstition" is for the AI

is it a pattern of movement? placing more trust in one sensor than others? hiring or refusing to hire specific contractors based on pre-judgement? Generalizing from one actor to a whole group?
Superstitions of course survive when they have either a benefit, are harmless, or are more beneficial than harmful. Harmful superstitions may in fact slowly drive a superstition to extinction, while yet surviving for numerous generations.

The Shaker movement in America for example, believed in celibacy and only gained members by adoption and conversion. This belief drove them into extinction as they simply couldn't replace their members quickly enough. (Yes the movement does still technically exist, but the active people on these forums would outnumber them)

an AI that didn't believe in procreation, however that happens (which we don't know how or even if it would) and could only gain members through a hiring process would have a far harder time than one which could simply create new members.
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Re: Very Superstitious

#71
I agree with Hyperion that actual NNs are probably too computationally expensive for a game like this with potentially many actors.

That said, being able to do something like genetic variation is one of the reasons I created the "How Long Should NPCs Live?" poll. How do advantageous behaviors spread? If NPCs live forever unless killed by another character, then behaviors can't really be propagated; they have to be passed on in real time by some deliberate mechanism. If NPCs "breed" reasonably quickly, however, then you have a chance to pass on behaviors, either as whole things or perhaps with some kind of crossover functionality operating on individual components of behaviors.

Regarding superstitious behaviors specifically, here's another explanation of what I mean by that. This is just how I imagine it might work; it's by no means anything I think Josh might include in Limit Theory.

"Behaviors" are patterns of actions that an NPC can express. Which behavior an NPC picks to express is determined by a function. That function constitutes a "belief" about the world.

Beliefs are statements about what the NPC considers to be true about the world -- in other words, beliefs are models of reality describing dynamics. A model converts inputs (observed phenomena) into outputs (consequences) according to rules intended to mimic real-world processes. So the "goodness" of a model (which is to say, a belief about the world) depends on at least three things:
  • How closely does the functional structure of this model match real-world processes?
  • How accurate is the filtering of the model? Does it only and fully consider inputs that are relevant and meaningful?
  • How closely do the inputs to the model match real-world phenomena?
In terms of the behavior of NPCs in a game, this means that to be effective in the world, they need to have models about the world that do (at least) three things:
  • The model's processing function is good.
  • The model's processing function operates on just the important inputs.
  • The NPC can accurately observe inputs from the world.
Finally, after all this, we can define "superstition": a superstition is an NPC's internal model (belief) about world dynamics that is substantially different from the physical truth about those dynamics. And practically speaking, superstitions exist either as functions hard-coded by the developer, or they arise when an NPC generates an internal model of the world based on multiple experiences.

Let's take a game example: an NPC pilot is fired on by another character.

The target NPC may now make a choice among numerous behaviors. How he makes that choice is where belief, and superstition, come into play.

Suppose the NPC is being fired on by multiple sources. The NPC will probably "want" to make a choice among numerous possible behavioral options (in order to satisfy a survival motivation, even one that's just hard-coded).

The simplest version of a belief here is just an if-statement: if fired on, run. A more complex choice might be to assess the threat quickly using the most immediate data. That's a belief about the world: given certain inputs, apply a particular model.

In this case of simple survival, the belief is probably an OK one. "Fight or flight" is a relatively simple decision function operating on a small number of accurately-observable inputs. What about more complex situations?

Suppose an NPC visits a space station three times, and immediately after leaving the station discovers a high-value ore source. Observational input 1 is "I have visited station X"; observational input 2 is "I found a high-value ore location"; and "input 2 follows input 1 closely in time" is a reasoned input. An NPC that is capable of generating new models about reality -- that is, new beliefs about how particular inputs interact to produce particular outputs -- might generate an internal model that says, "going to Station X causes good ore finds to happen."

That would be a a superstitious belief. And acting on that belief is what we'd call superstitious behavior.

The thing to see here is that, really, any internally-generated belief about the world is capable of being a superstition! What makes a theoretical model not-superstitious is that its inputs are real and accurate (not imagined or distorted observations); its inputs are relevant and meaningful to a choice that needs to be made; and the function for operating on those inputs is a "reasonably" close match for the actual processes operating in that world. (Note that a model could still be good in theory even if its inputs are bogus; I include input quality here as a component of NPC beliefs because observational accuracy strongly affects NPC decision-making efficacy.)

Deciding whether a model's functions are a "reasonably" close match for real-world processes is a subjective assessment. (What's close enough?) That means there's a gray area between superstition and truth. Even if there's a gray area, though, there are still endpoints. One endpoint we call "effective" if its outcomes reliably improve the character's state when tested; the other is "superstitious."

All the above is in support of the one idea I'm trying to express in this thread, which is that I wonder about the extent to which NPCs in LT will be able to reason about their world.

If NPCs are capable of generating models for action based on observation of object properties in space and time, then I'm arguing that those models are equivalent to "beliefs," and that it's possible for some of these beliefs to be of sufficiently low quality as to appear to produce superstitious behaviors.

And the larger question from that is, would a game that tolerated some amount of superstitious behavior in its NPCs feel like fun for some players? Or would it just feel "broken" to nearly all players?
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Re: Very Superstitious

#72
There is the disadvantage that I can't cross my fingers when I'm playing a game with trackball and keyboard. Although I have been known to utter those words, "wish me luck" to no one in particular when approaching a taxing event/situation.

If it were possible, I wouldn't deny such things or similar when it comes to NPC's. :angel:

Edit: What happened to Hadrianus?

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