Chemical Game Theory

Catalog description

"Chemical Game Theory" (CGT), uses well-known, rigorous principles from Chemistry and Chemical Engineering to solve strategic decision problems that could be analyzed using Traditional Game Theory (TGT). In strategic decisions, players each can choose from among two or more alternative possibilities, and the outcome depends upon the collective choices from all players. In this course we will analyze some of the premises of TGT as compared with CGT. In CGT, the players' choices are treated as metaphorical molecules, and outcomes are calculated according to chemical reaction methods. The important concept of entropic choices is introduced, and pre-bias effects are included naturally as initial concentrations of reactants. CGT is not a generalization of TGT; rather, it represents contested decision problems differently, and gives different solutions. In this article we use the formalism of Chemistry to provide a "knowlecular approach" to analyzing contested decisions. This approach has a rich capacity to represent decision-making scenarios and serve as a decision-making algorithm for contested decisions, where leadership power plays an important role.