on Play


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P

I play therefore I am.

S

What?

P

I said, I play therefore I am.

S

What do you mean by that? Descartes’s version makes much more sense. Thinking and having a subjective experience are among the cornerstones of what makes us human. What does Play have to do with that?

P

Try sitting down for a couple hours and counting from 0 to infinity. Do you feel alive?

S

I don’t think that’s what Descartes means. Descartes' statement is about doubt. Specifically, thinking about one’s lack of existence is already proof of one’s existence. “We cannot doubt our existence while we doubt”.

P

Let me expand on this: surprise, or some sort of non-determinism, is what makes us feel alive. Any sequence of events your mind can predict feels like the opposite of adventure, love, or whatever you want to call this feeling of vivid existence.

S

Watching a noisy TV — a pattern you can’t predict — doesn't feel very entertaining nor adventurous.

P

My definition of surprise is closer to Kolmogorov Complexity. If it is a “cheap” surprise like a random pattern — whose internal process I can conceive — I am not satisfied. If we are talking about a novel, a first date, or a really long afternoon with my dog, the process behind those events is so complex, so high in terms of Kolmogorov Complexity, that the surprise satisfies me.

Theme parks never feel as good as road trips with friends and plenty of unplanned problems. I want real surprises. Not manufactured ones.

S

I can believe that. Still, you haven’t explained why Play matters in this context.

P

I define playing as interacting with the state of the universe around me with the intent of generating surprise. I want maximum novelty. Feelings of being alive. Of being confronted with the real stuff. Hell, even death will do. Isn't death the biggest surprise?

S

You are mad.

P

Think about it. Humans attempt to understand systems. Society, Nature, Others. When those systems are completely understood, they feel dead to us. That’s when we throw them away to engineers. Engineers who feed on the corpses of what was once called science or magic. The video games you loved playing as a kid started feeling way less interesting when you figured out the narrative tree of non playable characters. Chess is dead if you can play by the book from beginning to end. You need surprise kid, not therapy.

S

For the sake of continuing this conversation, I will restrain from telling you to fuck off.

Surprise, I get it. Systems being dead when fully understood, I can see where you are getting this from. But Play? Isn't Play about winning? About the lack of surprise actually! A master player comes to sit at the table and knows ahead of time they will win. Isn't that the complete absence of surprise?

P

That’s finite Play. A cheap version of it. It’s almost like comparing taking heroin and playing with puppies. What I mean by Play is ~Infinite Play~.

S

Ok I am done.

P

Wait! No. Stay for a couple more minutes. Let me explain.

Playing to win is contradictory. A player playing to win is a finite player. Finite players desire bringing Play to an end for themselves, therefore interrupting the play. Infinite players play to keep playing — for the sake of the Play itself. It is inherently paradoxical because most of the time the Play is carried on by others! As an infinite player, one’s role is to keep the Play going, to keep getting surprised, even if it means something like death. If you play to win, you are no better than a Mechanical Turk. Striving for control. For the system to be dead. To be understood.

S

…

S

So you're telling me that you do not partake in any game we play today that entails someone winning or losing?

P

I do. But when I do, I focus on the intention of maintaining the Play in the overarching context. An infinite game can contain a finite game — games like the ones you were thinking about when you asked me this question — and an infinite player can wear the mask of a finite player temporarily. What matters is for the player to focus on their main intention: maintaining the Play. Maintaining the eagerness for being surprised. An infinite player will not complain if a satellite crashes on the board and interrupts their move which would have crowned them world champion of Catan. A finite player would probably wince.

S

Right. So it’s all about not really caring then?

P

Caring about one thing: being surprised. And it is even better if you get surprised together.