borges

The Equilibrium Theory of Games

Brain and Behavior pontiff | May 12, 2009

The other day I ran into a good friend from Tlön, who told me the most fascinating story about his discovery of a new theory of games. I owe my discovery of the nature of equilibrium in card games to an odd conjunction of mirrors and an encyclopedia. The mirror was in our library, and the encyclopedia was called Encyclopedia Equilibria (London, 1942, Enlarged ed. 1983). The mirror was an abomination, for in its reflection, one could see their opponents cards, and thus it led me to a crisis in belief. The encyclopedia, however, was even more of an anomaly, containing a fallaciously named…