Steven J. Brams
Author of Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution
About the Author
Steven J. Brams is professor of politics at New York University. (Bowker Author Biography)
Works by Steven J. Brams
Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know? : Game-Theoretic Implications on Omniscience, Omnipotence,… (1983) 35 copies
Divine Games: Game Theory and the Undecidability of a Superior Being (The MIT Press) (2018) 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1940-11-28
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Concord, New Hampshire, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Education
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SB|1962)
Northwestern University (PhD|1966) - Organizations
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Political Science Association
International Studies Association
Peace Science Society
Political Studies Organization
Public Choice Society
Members
Reviews
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Members
- 337
- Popularity
- #70,620
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 71
- Languages
- 2
"Superior being" seems to be a deliberate weakening of the "supreme being" used in Western theological parlance. Brams is interested in modeling relations with a being whose powers and horizons immeasurably exceed the human, but he is not concerned with the traditional and trivial paradoxes of rigorous omnipotence. By positing an SB that submits to the calculus of the games in this book, he suggests that the answer to the question "Could God create a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?" is certainly yes. And he accurately points out the fact that some passages of the Bible indicate a God of vast but finite power.
Still, the dependence on biblical notions of divine behavior is awfully limiting for anyone with a genuine philosophical interest in "superior beings." The author seems to admit as much when he refers to a game schematic "which seems to offer a generic representation of God's retribution in the Bible -- and maybe elsewhere" (139). (Even so, the notion of the Biblical God as the national genius of the Hebrews makes these game representations reasonable on a certain level.) Brams does provide some interesting challenges to Pascal's Wager, and he concludes with a novel perspective on the Problem of Evil.
The book is also an engaging introduction to the mathematical techniques involved in game theory analyses. Brams presumes no prior experience in game theory on the reader's part, and provides a rich context for examining these logical tools.… (more)