From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 13:43:33 +0800
To: Wei Dai <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: towards a theory of reputation
Message-ID: <199511220523.VAA28300@blob.best.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 01:14 PM 11/21/95 -0800, Wei Dai wrote:
> The first step toward a theory of reputation is defining what reputation 
> is.  [...]  If these interactions are mainly economic in nature, 
> then we can represent Alice's reputation of Bob by a graph with 
> the horizontal axis labeled price and the vertical axis labeled 
> expected utility. 

Any attempt to discuss and analyze reputations using
morally neutral language is bound to wind up as boring long
winded meaningless complicated word salad.

You will wind up in the same place as the behaviorists did,
going in ever diminishing epistemological circles until you
vanish into the whichness of why and the whyness of which.

Some things, for example reputations, behavior, or the 
principle of mathematical induction, necessarily involve 
concepts that are philosophically problematical.   Any attempt
to discuss these things while avoiding philosophically
problematic concepts invariably degenerates into total fog.


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