finite & infinite games:

assignment for applications_class-1.

notes from pp. 1-60:

• james talks about ‘games’, but does not go on to define what a ‘game’ is. here are some definitions from the internet:
  • from google:
    • adjective: crippled; lame.
    • a competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules.
    • a single instance of such an activity.
    • an organized athletic program or contest.
  • from cambridge:
    • an entertaining activity or sport, especially one played by children, or the equipment needed for such an activity:
    • a particular competition, match, or occasion when people play a game:
    • one part of a competition in activities such as tennis:
    • an illegal or secret activity
    • wild animals and birds that are hunted for food or sport.
  • it gets more interesting when you look for differences between games & sports:
    • britannica says:
      • a game is a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure. A sport is a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other.
• says a finite game is to win, and infinite game is to continue ‘play’.
• says for both, people have to consent to play. which is not true. life could be viewed as an infinite game, and i did not consent to it.
• says we cannot play a finite game alone. that is also not true — single player games are literally that.
• finite games are bounded by rules, but infinite games are not. the rules keep changing, to prevent people from winning.
• says “since finite games are played to be won, players make every move in a game in order to win it”. that is untrue. look at a father playing a game with a child, and letting them win. players define their own objectives even in finite games, and it is not defined by james (winning). this is a forced connection between human-nature and competitiveness.
• talks about a master player which is someone who can never exist. the fact that finite games don’t have laws, but rules, and rules can be broken; no one can ever predict how a finite game is going to go (and determine the results).
• i like how it relates to life though. life should not be seen as a finite game (wanting to win), but must be lived in a pursuit of infinite play.
• life is lived as infinite play, but achievements remembered are only within finite games that a person in infinite play has played (name on a plaque that lives forever).
• at some point, james had said that infinite players define their own rules. however, in p.45 he calls culture infinite play. that’s not true — the ‘rules’ of culture (if any) are not defined by a player of an infinite game (because if many agree to a rule-set), it is a finite game. this is so confusing.

i am so lost in this reading. the author is not convincing, makes unbacked claims, and correlates things based on his own understanding(s) of them.