大家好,我是德研社的创始人姜沈励,
今天我们继续学习《Thinking in bets》这本书1.6节。
在上一节1.5中,我们介绍了史上最伟大的扑克爱好者:《Thinking in Bets》1.5:史上最伟大的扑克爱好者:冯·诺依曼,今天我们重点阐述和展开冯·诺依曼对于扑克、象棋和人生的观点。
冯·诺依曼
开始今天的课程之前,我们看一个新闻:《104岁老奶奶抽烟又喝酒,声称“劝她戒烟戒酒的医生都死了》
104岁老奶奶:劝我戒烟戒酒的,都比我先走一步_腾讯视频
大家看了作何感想?
社长我做这个系列课程可不是为了鼓励抽烟喝酒,而是要教大家如何正确地分析决策与结果之间的关系。选择戒烟戒酒并不能确保你长命百岁,抽烟喝酒也有可能像那位老太太一样健康一生,但是,借用百度人工智能科学家毕然的总结,虽然老天让我们不确定哪天会突然离去,但我们还是需要“听天命、尽人事”。因为尽人事(选择更健康的生活方式),让我们选择了一个更好的寿命分布曲线。
这个道理,学完我们今天的课程,我们会有更深的领悟。作者继续说到:
In The Ascent of Man, scientist Jacob Bronowski recounted how von Neumann described game theory during a London taxi ride.
在《人之上升》这本书中中,科学家雅各布·布朗诺夫斯基(Jacob Bronowski )讲述了冯·诺依曼在伦敦出租车上对博弈论的描述。
Bronowski was a chess enthusiast and asked him to clarify. “You mean, the theory of games like chess?”
布朗诺夫斯基是国际象棋爱好者,他请冯·诺依曼解释:“你的意思是,博弈论就像象棋这样的战术理论吗?”
Bronowski quoted von Neumann’s response: “‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Chess is not a game. Chess is a well-defined form of computation. You may not be able to work out the answers, but in theory there must be a solution, a right procedure in any position. Now, real games,’ he said, ‘are not like that at all. Real life is not like that. Real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do. And that is what games are about in my theory.’”
冯·诺依曼回答说:“ 不,不,象棋不是游戏。象棋是一种定义明确的计算形式。你可能短期无法找出答案,但理论上,在任何局面下都有一个最优解。但是,真正的游戏,根本不是这样的。现实生活也不是这样。现实生活包括虚张声势、包括欺骗的小伎俩,包括自问别人会认为我想做什么。这就是我个人理解的“游戏”的含义。"
The decisions we make in our lives—in business, saving and spending, health and lifestyle choices, raising our children, and relationships—easily fit von Neumann’s definition of “real games.” They involve uncertainty, risk, and occasional deception, prominent elements in poker. Trouble follows when we treat life decisions as if they were chess decisions.
我们在商业、储蓄和消费、健康和生活方式选择、抚养孩子以及人际关系方面等生活中所做的决定——都很容易符合冯·诺依曼对“真正游戏”的定义。它们涉及不确定性、风险和偶尔的欺骗,而这些都是扑克中的重要元素。当我们把人生决策仅仅当作象棋决策时,麻烦随之而来。
Chess contains no hidden information and very little luck. The pieces are all there for both players to see. Pieces can’t randomly appear or disappear from the board or get moved from one position to another by chance. No one rolls dice after which, if the roll goes against you, your bishop is taken off the board. If you lose at a game of chess, it must be because there were better moves that you didn’t make or didn’t see. You can theoretically go back and figure out exactly where you made mistakes. If one chess player is more than just a bit better than another, it is nearly inevitable the better player will win (if they are white) or, at least, draw (if they are black). On the rare occasions when a lower-ranked grand master beats a Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, or Magnus Carlsen, it is because the higher-ranked player made identifiable, objective mistakes, allowing the other player to capitalize.
象棋没有隐藏的信息,运气的成分也很少。所有的棋子都在那里,让双方都能看到。棋子不能随机出现或从棋盘上消失,也不能偶然从一个位置移动到另一个位置。没有人掷骰子,不会出现如果掷骰子对你不利,你的象就会被从棋盘上除名的规则。如果你在象棋比赛中输了,那一定是因为你没有做出或者没有看到更好的行动。理论上,你可以退回去,找出你的错误所在。如果一个棋手比另一个棋手强一点,那么更好的棋手几乎不可避免地会赢或者平。在少数情况下,当级别较低的大师击败加里·卡斯帕罗夫( Garry Kasparov)、鲍比·菲舍尔(Bobby Fischer)或马格纳斯·卡尔森(Magnus Carlsen),那一定是因为级别较高的玩家犯了可识别的客观错误,从而允许另一个玩家赢得了比赛。
Chess, for all its strategic complexity, isn’t a great model for decision-making in life, where most of our decisions involve hidden information and a much greater influence of luck. This creates a challenge that doesn’t exist in chess: identifying the relative contributions of the decisions we make versus luck in how things turn out.
尽管国际象棋具有战术复杂性,但它并不是人生决策的理想类比模式,在生活中,我们的大多数决策都涉及隐藏的信息和较大的运气影响。这就产生了一个国际象棋中不存在的挑战:甄别运气和决策、是谁推动了结果的产生。
Poker, in contrast, is a game of incomplete information. It is a game of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty over time. (Not coincidentally, that is close to the definition of game theory.) Valuable information remains hidden. There is also an element of luck in any outcome. You could make the best possible decision at every point and still lose the hand, because you don’t know what new cards will be dealt and revealed. Once the game is finished and you try to learn from the results, separating the quality of your decisions from the influence of luck is difficult.
相反,扑克是一种信息不完整的游戏。这是一场随着时间的推移,在不确定性条件下的决策游戏。有价值的信息隐藏着。任何结果都有运气的成分。你可以在每一时刻做出最好的决策,但仍然会输牌,因为你不知道会有什么新的公共牌会被分发和透露。一旦游戏结束,你试图从结果中学习,但很难将你的决策质量与运气的影响区分的清清楚楚。
In chess, outcomes correlate more tightly with decision quality. In poker, it is much easier to get lucky and win, or get unlucky and lose. If life were like chess, nearly every time you ran a red light you would get in an accident (or at least receive a ticket). If life were like chess, the Seahawks would win the Super Bowl every time Pete Carroll called that pass play.
在国际象棋中,结果与决策质量的关联更直接和紧密。在扑克中,运气好就赢或运气差就输要容易得多。如果生活就像国际象棋,几乎每次你闯红灯,你都会遭遇事故(或者至少会收到罚单)。如果生活就像国际象棋一样,
海鹰队就会赢得被皮特·卡罗尔称之为传球游戏的每一次超级碗。
But life is more like poker. You could make the smartest, most careful decision in firing a company president and still have it blow up in your face. You could run a red light and get through the intersection safely—or follow all the traffic rules and signals and end up in an accident. You could teach someone the rules of poker in five minutes, put them at a table with a world champion player, deal a hand (or several), and the novice could beat the champion. That could never happen in chess.
但是生活更像扑克。
你可以在解雇一名公司总裁时做出最聪明、最谨慎的决定,但失败仍然会在你面前发生。
你可以闯红灯,但安全地穿过十字路口——或者遵守所有的交通规则和信号,并以事故告终。你可以在五分钟内教会某人扑克规则,让他们和世界冠军玩家坐在一起,玩一局(或几局),新手就可以打败冠军。这在象棋中是不可能发生的。
Incomplete information poses a challenge not just for split-second decision-making, but also for learning from past decisions. Imagine my difficulty as a poker player in trying to figure out if I played a hand correctly when my opponents’ cards were never revealed. If the hand concluded after I made a bet and my opponents folded, all I know is that I won the chips. Did I play poorly and get lucky? Or did I play well?
不完整的信息不仅对瞬间做出的决策构成挑战,而且对从过去的决策中学习也构成挑战。想象一下,作为一名扑克玩家,当我的对手从未透露手中的牌时,我很难想出我是否正确地行动。如果我下了注,对手弃牌了,我能知道的就是我赢了筹码。是我玩得不好但运气好吗?还是我本来打得好?
If we want to improve in any game—as well as in any aspect of our lives—we have to learn from the results of our decisions. The quality of our lives is the sum of decision quality plus luck. In chess, luck is limited in its influence, so it’s easier to read the results as a signal of decision quality. That more tightly tethers chess players to rationality. Make a mistake and your opponent’s play points it out, or it is capable of analysis afterward. There is always a theoretically right answer out there. If you lose, there is little room to off-load losing to any other explanation than your inferior decision-making. You’ll almost never hear a chess player say, “I was robbed in that game!” or, “I played perfectly and caught some terrible breaks.” (Walk the hallways during a break in a poker tournament and you’ll hear a lot of that.)
如果我们想在任何游戏中——以及在我们生活的任何方面——有所改进,我们必须从我们的决策结果中学习。我们的生活质量是决策质量加上运气的总和。在国际象棋中,运气的影响力有限,所以更容易将结果解读为决策质量的信号。这把棋手与理性更紧密地联系在一起。犯一个错误,你对手的玩家会利用漏洞进行攻击,或者可以在事后进行分析。总有一个理论上正确的答案。如果你输了,除了你糟糕的决策之外,几乎没有任何其他解释的余地。你几乎永远听不到棋手说,“我在那场比赛中运气太差了!”或者,“我玩得很好,但是遭遇了不可抗的灾难。“(而在扑克锦标赛休息时通过走廊,你会听到很多这样的话。))
That’s chess, but life doesn’t look like that. It looks more like poker, where all that uncertainty gives us the room to deceive ourselves and misinterpret the data. Poker gives us the leeway to make mistakes that we never spot because we win the hand anyway and so don’t go looking for them, or the leeway to do everything right, still lose, and treat the losing result as proof that we made a mistake.
这就是象棋,但生活看起来不是这样。它看起来更像扑克,它所有的不确定性都给了我们欺骗自己和曲解数据的空间。扑克让我们有机会犯我们未来也不会意识到的错误,因为我们赢了牌就可能会忽视赢牌中的错误。或者我们做好了所有事,但仍然输,于是我们就怪罪之前做事的正确性。
Resulting, assuming that our decision-making is good or bad based on a small set of outcomes, is a pretty reasonable strategy for learning in chess. But not in poker—or life.
基于一小部分结果,来倒推我们的决策是好的或是坏的,这是一个非常合理的象棋学习的策略。但是在扑克—或者生活中,却不是。
Von Neumann and Morgenstern understood that the world doesn’t easily reveal the objective truth. That’s why they based game theory on poker. Making better decisions starts with understanding this: uncertainty can work a lot of mischief.
冯·诺依曼和摩根斯坦明白,世界很难揭示客观的真相。这就是为什么他们把博弈论建立在扑克上。做出更好的决策首先要理解这一点:不确定性可能会带来很多伤害。
好了,我们到此学完了这一节。
这一章节,是我在本书中最喜欢的章节之一。
充分地解释了为什么扑克如此和人生相近。
但是,到目前为止,我们的内容还属于“恍然大悟然并卵”系列。大家可能会问,我知道了人生就像扑克,但是有什么具体的方法论可以学习去对抗人生决策中的不确定性吗?
碎片信息时代,网上有不少对这本书囫囵吞枣的几百字压缩凝练,例如有些文章总结说本书建议之一是“学会从他人身上总结经验”。这个彻底扭曲了作者的本意,在3.7节《People Watching》章节里,作者不是建议要多观察别人,而是要当心“观察者偏见”,例如,把别人的成功当做运气,把别人的失败当做无能。
这本书在方法论上我觉得可以打80分,所以我才愿意花时间为大家翻译和分享这本书,这些方法论主要集中后面几章,请大家坚持学习!我们下集再见!
对了,转发、点赞、打赏也是极好的:)
对这个课程感兴趣的同学,可以加我微信realaley2,我会建一个学习小组。后面的“The Buddy System”我们会开设实战训练营,学以致用。
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