The Iterated Lift Dilemma

Abstract

A very small change in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) payoff matrix leads to an iterated game called the Iterated Lift Dilemma ¹ the properties of which are very different from those of the classical IPD (CIPD). We show that the following ideas are to be noted: (i) two levels of cooperation are now possible, the best one needs a difficult coordination between considered strategiesi (ii) only probabilistic strategies can make a high score when they play against themselvesi (iii) complex dynamics can appear (at the edge of chaos) as soon as three strategies are confronted. Our idea, already argumented in the case of the CIPD, is that, in spite of the model simplicity you can obtain many complex phenomena: it is not true that to be good, a strategy must be simple. Building good strategies for the Iterated Lift Dilemma is then much more difficult than for the CIPD.