Column / 2026-07-11

Game Theory Inside the Enclosure

A new paper tests whether game theory and Nested Causal Modelling can improve one another.

I have prepared a short paper titled Nested Causal Modelling and Game Theory: A Ternary Enclosure Experiment in Strategic Prediction. The paper asks a narrow question: what happens when the relationship between game theory and Nested Causal Modelling is itself modeled as a nested causal structure?

The answer is not that NCM replaces game theory. It does not. Game theory remains one of the strongest formal languages for strategic interaction: players, strategies, payoffs, equilibrium, information asymmetry, bargaining, signaling, repeated games, and defection.

The finding is more useful than replacement. Game theory explains strategic action once a game has been formed. NCM asks what enclosure made that game appear, what boundary makes it valid, what lower system carries excluded costs, and what larger enclosure could transform the payoff structure.

The paper tests three constructions. First, NCM is enclosed inside game theory, producing an enclosure game where players can move across scale and alter the effec