 The reasoning of the Athenian soldiers, of Cortez, and of Hobbes’s political agents has a common logic, one derived from their situations. In each case, the aspect of the environment that is most important to the agents’ achievement of their preferred outcomes is the set of expectations and possible reactions to their strategies by other agents. The distinction between acting parametrically on a passive world and acting non-parametrically on a world that tries to act in anticipation of these actions is fundamental. If you wish to kick a rock down a hill, you need only concern yourself with the rock’s mass relative to the force of your blow, the extent to which it is bonded with its supporting surface, the slope of the ground on the other side of the rock, and the expected impact of the collision on your foot. The values of all of these variables are independent of your plans and intentions, since the rock has no interests of its own and takes no actions to attempt to assist or thwart you. By contrast, if you wish to kick a person down the hill, then unless that person is unconscious, bound or otherwise incapacitated, you will likely not succeed unless you can disguise your plans until it’s too late for him to take either evasive or forestalling action. Furthermore, his probable responses should be expected to visit costs upon you, which you would be wise to consider. Finally, the relative probabilities of his responses will depend on his expectations about your probable responses to his responses. (Consider the difference it will make to both of your reasoning if one or both of you are armed, or one of you is bigger than the other, or one of you is the other’s boss.) The logical issues associated with the second sort of situation (kicking the person as opposed to the rock) are typically much more complicated, as a simple hypothetical example will illustrate.