Summer school in game Theory, 31 August - 5 September 2019

The actions of atoms, molecules, animals, humans, individuals, and societies can all be ascribed to the pursuit of a universal goal: maximum payoff. Maximizing payoff comes in many flavours: from reaching the lowest free energy level to increasing reproductive success, from maximum monetary profit to nourishing our emotional needs. This pursuit is the driving force that propels animate and inanimate entities. Diverse fields of studies, from physics to biology and from psychology to sociology, all have been in search of models to understand and predict the states which their objects of study assume.

Game theory purports to provide a satisfactory framework for understanding behaviors in objects, encompassing atoms and societies, and doing so not by isolating single entities but by investigating a theater of entities. In this theater, the payoff of each particle or organisms is not merely a function of its decisions, but depends on the decision made by all the players.

Our goal in organizing the Game Theory Workshop is to offer an introduction to the principles and basic concepts in game theory. Hopefully, this crash course guides participants to dive deeper into this theory and utilize it in their own respective scientific backgrounds. Our long-term goal is that the participants would extend the use of the game-theoretical approach to model the interactions between genes and environments, inheritance and culture, and extend this framework to neuroscience, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, social sciences, psychology, sociology, and even physics.

This summer school will cover the following topics:

• Game theory is an attempt to model the mathematics of a strategic situation - i.e., conflict of interests. How do rational players interact according to this theory?
• Different types of games, including: normal-form games, sequential games with complete or incomplete information, continuous games, Bayesian games, and dynamic games. The solutions to each of these game types will be discussed.
• In many cases, competition does not benefit players. We shall discuss cooperative games as a substitution for competition.
• Evolutionary game theory.


During the final day of the school, a select number of researchers present their original researchs and explain how they utilized game-theoretical framework to answer scientific questions.