This book describes an innovative approach to reflexive game theory. The applications of this theory include predicting and influencing choices made by individual subjects belonging to groups that have their own collective goals and interests. The correlation between a subject's individual interests and those of the group is informed by the anti-selfishness principle: a subject belonging to a group, in pursuing his or her own interests, may not cause harm to the interests of the group as a whole. This principle is as foundational to reflexive game theory as the principle of guaranteed results...

The book describes how the representation of certain psychological processes with a chain of heat engines allows modeling a large number of mental phenomena. This relation seems enigmatic in so far as we cannot find any analogues to heat engines in human body. Nevertheless, in his previous book, The Cosmic Subject, the author tried to link the chains of heat engines with objects physically existing in the reality. In his new book, the author chose a fundamentally different way. He revises the very concept of existing by considering that the ideal physical objects may also have a status of...

The first edition of this book appeared in 1967 (in Russian). In that edition, the author introduced two completely new concepts: that of a reflexive system (a system that has an image of the self) and that of reflexive control (conveying a basis for making the decision that is advantageous to the side conducting the reflexive control); both concepts have since become firmly established in modern theories of decision-making. The book contains the author's model of the Universe as a reflexive system (Janus-Cosmology) as well as the description of a device that turns fears into reality through...