CoopSim - A Computer Simulation of the Evolution of Cooperation. User's Manual
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1 Introduction
CoopSim is a computer simulation of the reiterated prisoner's dilemma.
The reiterated prisoner's dilemma is a model for many (but not for
all) cooperation dilemmas discussed in social sciences. It is also
useful as a model for the evolution of altruistic behaviour in biology.
The computer program CoopSim has been written for use in an undergraduate
course on the “Evolution of Cooperation”. Its purpose is
mainly educational.
The reiterated prisoner's dilemma and its simulation on the computer
is discussed in a very understandable form in the book “The Evolution
of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod. Therefore, it will not be
explained here any more (see section “Further Reading”
for some recommendable books on the topic). A basic knowledge of what
the prisoner's dilemma is and what it has got to do with altruism and
cooperation is presupposed in the following. The program CoopSim is
largely based on the description of Axelrod's book. However, the whole
program has been written from scratch without taking recourse to Axelrod's
original Fortran program. I did so, because I wanted the program code
to be readable enough so that students with some programming knowledge
might be encouraged to extend the program and to implement strategies
of their own. Also, I wanted the simulation to have a nice user interface
so that I could do “life” simulations under different boundary
conditions in class.
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