2024-05-06

模倣子 Memetic Analysis of Faspeel Game

Faspeel Game - Memetic Index - Essay List 

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Introduction

 I want to develop the matrix for the game. I'm working on the idea that memeplexes are networks. States allow deployment of memes, which lead to other states.

I've been listening to Linked again, and there are ideas like scale-free networks, hubs (1), average connection distance, network diameter, and so on. For one thing, networks with hubs are susceptible to attacks on the hubs. In other words, racism and other social ills could be dismantled by attacking the hubs of the memeplex network. These could be identified by examination of the memetic inventory of racism, but more scientifically, these hubs could be identified statistically, and then attacked using memetic engineering techniques.

Anyway, back to the game.

Game Set-Up

Okay, so what we have are the state of the positions of the coins, which are just "Away" and "Near" and this is symmetric for both players. The coins on the board are called the "showing" coins, or "the show".

fig. 1.1. "Near"
fig. 1.2. "Away" (starting set-up)


By the way, I'm going with only a coin on the board and a single coin covering the "secret" coin and that's it. The off-the-board coins are called "the message."  The message consists of a concealed coin, known as "the secret" and a coin covering it from view, called "the cover."

Okay, so every turn a player can make one of three moves, or memes:

1. "flip!" his "showing" coin
2. "tell!" by changing his message coins (2) 
3. Move his coin on the board (the "showing" coin)
3.1. Move "away!" if close to the other player's coin
3.2. Move "near!" if at the diagonal, to next to the other player's coin
3.3. "bump!" the other player's coin, if near, resulting in scoring (3)

Memetic States of the Game

There are some three orthogonal groups of states to the game, through which the system may vary independently, but which nonetheless determine which memes may be deployed, and these deployment opportunities are state-dependent. These consist of (4):

The state systems are the state of the showing coins on the board: "Away" and "Near"

The states of the message and showing coins of each player. The "other" player can have her coin on the board showing heads or tails as well as the "cover" coin. This gives us four possible states, "Other Show-Tails & Cover-Tails" or Ott, and then "show-tails & cover heads" or Oth, then Oht and Ohh. Similarly, the "self" player can have Stt, Sth, Sht, and Shh.

State Transitions

An example of a state of this system could include:

Away.Ohh.Sth

This could just as well be written Sth.Ohh.Away or even Ohh.Away.Sth. These state systems are orthogonal, so it's immaterial the order we write them, but there may be matters of convenience or clarity of notation at play.

Again, the memes of the system may be delineated completely. We'll add a couple for the scoring, which happens with a bump! meme, resulting in a both! score, or a bust! score (where players flip coins for the score). We're going to try to model the bump! meme as producing a "compelled" state (6) which proceeds automatically to either the both! or bust! meme and then to the Away state. 

away!  move away (when near)  Near.away! => Away 
near!  move close to the other player (when far away)  Away.near! => Near
bump!  try to score on the other player (when near)  Near.bump![both!, bust!] => Away

flip!  change one's showing coin

This can take the form of four different state transitions  

Stt.flip! => Sht  "flip showing coin from tails to heads with cover coin tails"
Sth.flip! => Shh   "flip show from tails to heads with cover heads"
Sht.flip! => Stt   "flip show from heads to tails with cover tails"
Shh.flip! => Sth    "flip show from heads to tails with cover heads"

or a shorthand for all cases could be: S[t,h]x.flip! => S[h,t]x

This means "flip show from tails or heads to heads or tails while keeping the cover the same." At this point it's unclear whether we'll use this notation in laying out all of the possible deployment descriptors.

tell!  change the message coins, the "cover" and the "secret" (4).

Stt.tell! => Stt    "show is tails, cover is tails, change nothing"
Sth.tell! => Sth   "show is tails, cover is heads, change nothing"
Stt.tell! =>  Sth   "show is tails, flip cover coin from tails to heads"
Sht.tell! => Shh  "show is heads, flip cover coin from tails to heads"
Sth.tell! =>  Stt   "show is tails, flip cover coin from heads to tails"
Shh.tell! => Sht  "show is heads, flip cover coin from heads to tails"

Again, a shorthand for this could be: Sx[x,t,h].tell! => Sx[x,h,t]

Then there is bump!, which only ever produces bust! or both! and takes the bumper to the Away state. It may only be deployed from the Near state. The both! and bust! deployments are So we have:

Near.bump!both! => Away  "the bumpee's secret is the same as the bumper's showing"
Near.bump!bust! => Away   "bumpee's secret differs from bumper's showing"

So really, with bump! it really doesn't matter whether both! or bust! happens, since you wind up on the Away state anyway. This is in keeping with the "compelled state" idea.

Deployment Descriptors

We should be able to list all of the transactions. It's states, and the memes which may be deployed, by whom, and which states those lead to. It's rather easy to be exhaustive with deployment descriptors, since one in principle knows all the states and memes beforehand and it's simply a matter of putting them all together.

The positional states of the showing coins do not impact the state of either the showing coins, or the message coins, so we shouldn't need to mention these.

Away.near! => Near
Near.away! => Away
Near.bump![both!, bust!]other.tell! => Away (7,8)

Then we have the two other operations which a player may undertake: flip! and tell! These only impact the state of the player's own coins, showing and cover.

This is interesting, and perhaps helps us to manage the complexity of the memeplex. There are collections of states, "state groups" might be a good term, that do not affect one another, and are only independently impacted by meme deployments. Meme deployments that cause state changes within a state group may be affected by other state groups, but do not directly affect those groups. For instance, a bump! changes the [Away, Near] state, and the result of the scoring depends upon the state of the coins, that is the Sxx and Oxx states, but does not influence them (7).

Network Description

I like to make matrix descriptions of the networks that make up memeplexes. A state transition diagram is a visual depiction of all of the possible transitions in a memetic system, but it starts to get unwieldy for large systems with lots of states and memetic transitions. The list of all deployment descriptors is probably the most sure-fire and complete description of a system, but it can be difficult to see how the system behaves at times.

Away.Sxx.Oxx.self.near! => Near.Sxx.Oxx
Near.Sxx.Oxx.self.away! => Away.Sxx.Oxx
Near.Sxx.Oxx.self.bump![self.both!, self.bust!]other.tell! => Away.Sxx.Ox[?]
[Away, Near].S[t,h]x.Oxx.self.flip! => [Away, Near].S[h,t]x.Oxx
[Away, Near].Sx[x,t,h].Oxx.self.tell! => [Away, Near].Sx[x,h,t].Oxx

The idea of a transition matrix set is a collection of matrices, each representing a "state" of the system, with agents along one axis and available memes along the other. At the cells of the matrix is future states to which the system transitions when said meme is deployed. In this game there are only two agents, and it's a turn-taking game, so we can perhaps dispense with the "agents" axis and use it to another purpose.

One way might be to skip this more rigid representation of states and memetic transition and just start with memes--since that's the more well-known quantity--and note all of the states that are connected to or from by any of these memes.

near!, away!, bump! link states Near and Away
   near! links Away to Near
   away! links Near to Away
   bump! links Near to Away
   ...then some stuff with bust!, both! and other.tell!

flip! links Shx and Stx, or Shh to Sth and Sht to Stt
tell! links: Sx[x,t,h[ to Sx[x,h,t]
    Shh to Sht
    Shh to Shh (no change)
    Sht to Shh
    Sht to Sht
    Sth to Stt
    Sth to Sth
    
    Sht 

Deployment Decision Processes

So one big goal is to devise an internal process, using the showing and message coins, to try to develop a model of the other's behavior, to try to guess whether they are trying to signal her intent.

Network Topology Implications

One thing to look for is whether this network has interesting properties, such as being scale-free or has hubs or what-have-you, or whether it's just too small.

Summary & Conclusions


___________________________________

(1) As in memetic nexuses.

(2) Note that changing your message coins may involve actually changing nothing, or changing only one of the coins, the "cover" or the "secret", or both. It's possible to only telegraph having shuffled them to the other player, but not actually doing anything.

(3) When a player (the "bumper") decides to bump! the coin of the other player (the "bumpee"), we check the bumpee's "secret" coin against the bumper's showing coin. If they're the same, each player gets two points, if different, each player flips a coin. If both come up tails the bumpee gets three points, otherwise the bumper gets one point. Finally the bumper moves his showing coin to the "away" position and the bumpee repositions her "message" coins.

(5) I've not mentioned the "secret" coin of either player. Obviously the state of that coin is invisible to the other player. We'll try to get into how this can nonetheless be part of a player's decision modeling, both in terms of what she "knows" about own coin, and what she "thinks" about the other player's secret coin, based upon she can actually see, i.e., the show and the message, and the message he might be sending her with those coins.

(6) A compelled state is where a meme deployment puts an agent in a state where they have to choose between one or more memes to deploy. One way to denote this is with "immunomemetic notation," for example, bump!bust! => Away as opposed to something like bump! => ScoreState.bust! => Away

(7) Actually, the bump! meme changes the state from Near to Away, and it also changes the Ox[t,h] state, since the other player updates her message coins. Again, this is a compelled state.

(8) the full description of a memetic deployment is State.agent.meme! => NewState.  In most of this essay I've left out the agent, since it's implied to be the player. However, we could be specific by assigning the player whose turn it is as "self" and the other player as "other". Hence, Near.self.bump![self.both!, self.bust!]other.tell! => Away. Again we see how both! and bust! are memes in a compelled state, so in a sense they have no agent, as such, though it is still in a sense "self" the initiator.

2024-05-04

漫画 Comic-A-Day for a Year

Manga Index 

I posted this to go off on May The Fourth Be With You. I'll be back from Blaze's wedding on the 15th of June.

How did I do?

Anyway, Happy Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you)


2024-05-03

Birds & Bees

 Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais je trouve ceci infiniment touchant



2024-04-28

The Erasure of Women


Society likes to brutally control women, for probably obvious reasons. The coöption of transgender rights activism to this purpose is alarming if only in its nuclear-option-level effectiveness to this end. I have been a transsexual (and intersexual) ally for decades. One could well ask to what extent the transgender inclusion movement is a coöption of the transsexual (and intersex) rights issue. Similar dynamics seem to abound in the mental health rights domain, which hits closer to home for me, personally, where people like to coöpt mental health iconography, probably just to garner attention and special privileges for themselves at the expense of the further marginalization of people who actually wrestle with and suffer from the vicissitudes of these conditions, if only by artificially swelling the numbers of claimants and the dilution of the perceived severity (“everyone’s a little bipolar” etc). Feeling a little bit targeted or afflicted by the socially stereotyped features of another group does not confer membership in that group. It SHOULD invoke sympathy for that group and its bona fide members, but alas, those halcyon days when that was normal appear to be behind us.


2024-04-22

Alternate Lord’s Prayer

 All-father,

Who farted the heavens, (3)

Howard be thy name. (4)

Give us this day some garlic bread and

Forgive us our jokes as we forgive those who laugh at us.

Save us from self-urination, (1)

And deliver us from ego. 

For wine is dumb, and true story, I am always a drunk forever and ever.

Say "When" (2).

_____________________________-

by Johannes


_____________________________

(1) rewrite "And lead us not into tarnation" to something like "save us from urination"

(2) Aaaaaah-men

(3) whose art is the heavens

(4) Harold to Howard. Jesus H. Christ--"H." = "Howard"

AA District 22 Meeting Schedule

AA Meetings in Moscow, Idaho & Pullman, Washington Region


2024-04-21

模倣子 Faspeel Game

Memetic Index 

Introduction

The French name is “Face-pile” (Faspeel or “heads or tails”) the German is Münzspiel (“coin game”) and the Japanese is 表裏 (“hyô-ri” or “heads or tails”). Still working on Spanish—could be something like “cara mentirosa” (“lying face/coin face”).

I plan to make an illustrated explanation in at least English for how to play. 

The game was originally conceived as the simplest possible play environment to model two memetic agents interacting using a simple set of rules and trying to model one another’s intentions. It originally started with chess and finished with boiling it down to a two-by-two “board” with only one piece per player.

Anyway, stick with me and let’s see where this goes…

The Set-Up

Each player has four coins of the same type, each player having a different type, eg, four US nickels and four pennies, or four Japanese ten yen coins and four hundred yen coins. AA sobriety coins could even work. 

The point is that each of a player’s coins should be able to physically cover any of the others, and each player should have a clearly distinct coin on the board. 

So, four nickels and four pennies. 

1. Make a cross on a piece of paper. This is "the board."

fig. 1. The Board

2. Each player places a coin, face up or face down, at diagonals of the cross. The coin on the board is "the show" or what is showing.

fig. 2. Initial Board Set-Up--diagonals

3. Each player places their remaining three coins in front of themself, two of them stacked on top of each other. They may all be any combination of heads or tails. This is "the signal" or "the message". The coin hidden underneath is "the secret."

fig. 3. "The Message" and "Secret"

This will all make sense when I explain how to play.

How to Play

You score points by "bumping" into the other player's coin. This is simply being in the space next to their coin, and then if they're still there by your next turn, moving onto it. I'll explain how this works.

Each turn a player may take one of the following actions:

1. You may Move (or Bump). If you're next to the other player's coin, you may either move away to the diagonal position, or you may "bump" them. I'll explain what happens with a bump below.

2. You may Flip your showing coin on the board from heads to tails or vice-versa.

3. You may Change your "message." You can take the three coins in front of you and without letting the other player see, change whether the top two coins are heads or tails and/or whether the hidden coin is heads or tails. Place the coins back in front of you.

Bumping and Scoring

When you bump into another player's coin:

1. You place your coin at the diagonal to the other player's coin, that is, the opposite corner of the board.

2. The bumped player reveals their "secret" coin.

3.1. If your showing coin (on the board) and the other player's secret coin are the same, you each get a point (make a tally on the paper the board is drawn on, or wherever).

3.2. If your showing coin and their secret coin are different, each player flips a coin.

3.3. If both flip tails, the bumpee gets three points, otherwise the bumper gets a point.

4. The bumped player rearranges their three message and secret coins. 

5. Continue play starting with the bumped player.

The End of the Game


The game ends when one player reaches ten points.


You can play cooperatively or competitively. Example scores is 3/10 or 7/10 meaning the losing player got three or seven respectively. A "good" cooperative game might be 9/10 or 10/10, for instance.


Strategy


You can use your message coins to signal the other player. Don't tell them which signals you are using--part of the fun of the game is trying to work it out. Also, you can just send random messages or you can lie.


For instance, both message coins on heads could mean "my hidden coin is heads" or it could mean "my hidden coin is the same as my showing coin" or it could be just random. You could even try to signal things like "please flip your showing coin."


Things might be able to get sophisticated, for example, signaling the other player that your message means one thing, both coins heads or tails, coin on top of the hidden coin one thing and the other one something else, whatever, and then switching in the middle of the game in order to trick them.


It should also be easy to "run away" from the other player if you need to change your message or flip your showing coin if you want to cooperate but are not set up right, in preparation for a successful cooperative bump a turn or two later.


Notes


There may be some tweaking on what happens when a "conflict bump" happens. I've tried to set it up to be on average even with the 3 to one coin flip thing.

2024-04-12

模倣子 Complete List of Macromemetics Essays for Book

Memetic Index 

 This is a first go around of collating my various memetics essays over the years. All of these I have copied into directories as Google Docs, with the idea of putting them into a book.

There may be a few duplicates, and of course a lot of subject overlap.

I will be messing with the titles and grouping things going forward.

NumberTitle / URL
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10Dining Philosophers
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Good, clear discussion of how memes function in the brain and how resonance works and is a foundational principle for Macromemetics
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
Do Immunomemes Have a Basic Structure? Transition matrices, weighting, bullying, oppression/bullying vs. oppression
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
Memetic Loops and Residual Memetic Debt
99
100
The Ownership of a Human Being
101
102
Make-Believe: The Macromemetic Nature of Ceremonies
103Bullshit
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
Agriculture, Religion, and other Bad Ideas
111
Metamemetics and Fighting Starvation
112
Japanese Memetic Terms
113
Nudist Resort Analogy and relation to Apathy
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
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