Plato and the Form of Game

Looking out my window again and seeing a tree, I might ask "is this thing a tree because it is a member of the set of trees, or is it a member of the set of trees because it is a tree?" In fact, Plato wondered this as well. Is category membership derived from essence? Or, is essence derived from category membership? Are the particulars in a category because they are all the 'same' thing? Or do we consider them the 'same' thing because they are all members of the same category?

Plato believed that categories were determined by essence. We recognize a tree as a tree because there is a universal concept of 'treeness'. And even though each individual tree is an imperfect copy of that template, we can still recognize the tree as an instance of that ideal. This sounds pretty good until we ask where did that universal concept of treeness come from? And, trying to answer that, Plato gets into a lot of trouble.

Plato believed in a World of Forms (or templates or ideals) where all of these categories exist independent of the material world. But, he got into trouble trying to explain where this World of Forms came from and how we access it to recognize things like trees. You can have a lot of fun at Plato's expense over this. Plato believed that this World of Forms was somehow more real than the material world which was just an imperfect copy of the Forms. He beleived that the World of Forms was eternal. He believed that you had knowledge of this world prior to being born, but the trauma of birth made you forget it all. So, you spent your life remembering bits of it. This led him to say that you never really learn anything, you only remember things. You can go on and on and have a good chuckle at Plato's expense over this. However, once you have given it some serious thought, you probably have to admit that Plato was right. He didn't get the mechanics down, but the notion of ideal concepts does seem to hold up.

If you forget about immaterial worlds where forms reside and focus instead on intellectual economy and the pursuit of knowledge then it does seem to be the case that there are ideal definitions for concepts. If a thing has an essense and the category is defined based upon that essence then we have achieved the greatest intellectual economy possibl in the organization of our knowledge. These forms do not exist in some immaterial world. They exist in our minds when they are well organized. And organizing our minds well gives us the greatest purchase on the pursuit of knowledge.

A quick example can illustrate this. Consider the Periodic Chart of Elements. Organizing elements based on the number of electrons provides great intellectual economy. Just how far would chemistry be today if the Periodic Chart contained elements like creek water and tree sap. How far would medicine get if the body were made of blood, phlegm and bile? How far would psychology get if personalities were made up of introversion/extroversion,... well I am digressing.

So, back to the topic at hand, there must be an ideal form of game. If we can find that ideal form, it will advance our understanding of games and how games relate to other universals such as happiness, productivity, personal growth, education, and the like. But, before we do that, we will have a major conceptual train wreck thanks to Wittgenstein. And that won't happen for several weeks yet. So stay tuned.