A Non-Self-Referential Paradox in Epistemic Game Theory

Abstract

In game theory, the notion of a player's beliefs about the game players' beliefs about other players' beliefs arises naturally. In this paper, we present a non-self-referential paradox in epistemic game theory which shows that completely modeling players' epistemic beliefs and assumptions is impossible. Furthermore, we introduce an interactive temporal assumption logic to give an appropriate formalization of the new paradox. Formalizing the new paradox in this logic shows that there is no complete interactive temporal assumption model.