12.20.10

This is Part 1 of a three-part post which I will entitle:

Satan, Discount Factors, and Mortality's Grim Trigger: The Garden of Eden Game

As the title suggests, as I was considering this semester what to write about as my final paper for my (exceptional) religion class, I decided that, as the class was about the Pearl of Great Price, it might be fun to do something about the Garden of Eden. And in this vein I thought: wouldn't it be fun to explore a bit more of the differences in doctrinal teachings of the Garden of Eden? And what better way to do so than to model them using game theory! After all, game theory is all about understanding why we make decisions and so, thought I, perhaps some of the vast differences we witness today in religious environs can be traced back to opinions and convictions about why Adam and Eve made their decision.

So, as Part 1 I have included here my first model which I have titled the Original Sin or OS model with an explanation. In Part 2 I will present and explain my second model which is called the Latter-day Saint or LDS model. And in Part 3, I will bring both models together and show how their subtle assumptions actually highlight some of the deepest doctrinal differences between major religions. Pretty fun stuff...well, at least I'm having fun, right?

Model 1: The Original Sin Prisoner's Dilemma

This game has two players (for those of you who don't get out much) with Satan as an exogenous player as follows:

		ADAM
		Eat	Don’t Eat
EVE	Eat	Λ, Λ	Π, β
	Don’t Eat	β, Π	β, β

Where Π is the fixed payoff for eating the Forbidden Fruit, β is the fixed payoff for staying in the Garden of Eden, and Λ represents the payoff for death (for moving to the mortal stage). You may notice that this is a prisoner’s dilemma and therefore, since the game is (assumed to be) infinitely repeated, I include a discount factor δ which denotes Adam and Eve’s knowledge about mortality (Λ). The main assumption of this game is that Π > β > Λ; that is, getting a one-period payoff from eating the fruit is preferred to a one-period payoff from staying in the Garden, which is preferred to death, ceteris paribus. However, to make Adam or Eve indifferent, Satan (the exogenous player) is assumed to have influenced both players such that:

Π + Λδ/1-δ ≥ β + βδ/1-δ

Or that they eventually reached a level at which they were indifferent between staying in the Garden and eating the fruit. This is assuming a grim trigger strategy since players can never return to Garden of Eden once they have eaten the fruit (i.e. they can never again reach the (β, β) Nash Equilibrium). The implications of this game will be discussed subsequently.

Better the devil you know: Adam and Eve’s lack of knowledge

The most obvious characteristic of the first model is that the payoffs are only loosely based on the second stage. This implies that mortality (the second stage) was seen as a situation of lesser value by the players of the game and by the game’s Creator. The Forbidden Fruit only existed as a facilitator of agency and the consequence of eating it was given as “death”. I argue here, however, that according to the OS model, neither Adam nor Even were much compelled to obey by the death penalty (no pun intended). And this again points back to the devalued view of mortality—the Creator did not want Adam and Eve to descend to such a state. This traces to the doctrine that, as mentioned in (reviewed) literature, the Garden of Eden was represented as the pinnacle of man’s existence and a paradise from which man was never intended to deviate.

An idle brain is the devil’s playground: Adam and Eve’s manipulation

According to the above assumption, the logic of Adam and Eve’s mistake must be explained exogenously. As implied, this makes Satan one of the prime actors of the Garden of Eden narrative. In an environment where Adam and Eve had little knowledge that extended outside their immediate surroundings, Satan was able to manipulation their perspectives in such a way as to convince that death was not a salient issue and that the payoff for eating the fruit was something of greater value than simply staying in the Garden. This traces directly to the doctrine of original sin—that each of us is born with inherently sinful natures that allow for a continual Satanic influence to permeate within us.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Why mortality is divinely sub-par

This discussion implies another fascinating principle: that Adam and Eve and, by inheritance, the whole human family has less divine value due to the Fall. A main assumption of the game is the grim trigger strategy—that players cannot again attain the Garden of Eden stage once the choice to eat the fruit has been made. Though heaven is the reward for the righteous, original sin makes it so that we, in this life, actually have constraints on our agency. And, given this restriction, there is less of a purpose to life as the attainment of a divine state (heaven) will always be strictly dominated by the potential lost in the Garden of Eden. This implies a deeper principle which is that, eternally, players will always have a lesser value and a lesser potential than God—no being can again attain the purity and communion with the divine as was found in the Garden.

And so, to review:

GAME ASSUMPTION

1. There is a discount factor δ which measures understanding of the future

2. The discount factor δ can be manipulated exogenously

3. The game is infinitely repeated with mortality being a grim trigger strategy (β > Λ always)

CHARACTERISTIC

1. This denotes a vague, manipulable understanding of the consequence called “death”

2. Satan had considerable influence over Adam and Eve in terms of decision making

3. Due to the Fall and agency constraints in mortality, the human family has less divine value

DOCTRINE

1. Garden of Eden as paradise (maximum potential of human soul)

2. Original Sin and the sinful nature of mankind

3. Human potential to become beings eternally less than

Pretty cool, huh? I mean, I could be totally off, but I think it is at least interesting to see how perspectives of Adam and Eve's choices trace to such important and salient principles. In fact, as I will discuss in Part 3, these principles actually reference some of the most important questions of life. And so, even though major world religions may not believe these assumptions exactly, they do present us with an interesting view of how one might interpret the Garden of Eden story. Hope you enjoyed it.

And don't forget! Stay tuned for Part 2: The Forbidden Fruit Assurance Game :)