The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia

The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia is a philosophical investigation of games by Bernard Suits. It is a dense, and, at times, difficult read. So, it is more for the stout-hearted, philosophically inclined reader, than it is for the casual reader. Nonetheless, it does make some very important points. So, I will summarize it here, very briefly, and emphasize a couple of its most dramatic contributions.

The book is structured around a very different interpretation of Aesop's Fable The Grasshopper and the Ant. In the original Aesop's Fable the grasshopper plays when the weather is nice while the ant works putting food away for the winter. When winter comes, the ant has plenty of food but the foolhardy grasshopper has nothing because he played all summer. So, the ant survives while the grasshopper starves. In Suit's interpretation, the grasshopper argues that he is merely acting according to his nature and if he did differently he would no longer be the grasshopper.  This was a little difficult to follow and I probably should read it again and wrestle with the ideas a bit more. But, the re-interpretation is not relevant to this post. So, I will keep going.

Along the way in discussing the role of play and games, Suits makes two rather astonishing observations. First, he asks about a utopian world in which people had all their needs met what would people do with their time? He suggests that they would play games. This seems right, on the face of it, as games are entertaining and will fill time not being spent on surviving. He then goes on to suggest that because of this games are the highest good for people. That is, it is the thing they would do if they could do anything they wanted to do. This, then, leads to the observation I made in a previous post that games are the only activity that people do for its own sake. Thus, putting play on a par with happiness as a thing people pursue for no other reason than to achieve it.

The second rather astonishing contribution that Suits makes is that he provides a workable definition of games. You might recall how, in the previous post, Wittgenstein said that games defy definition. The concept of games, according to Wittgenstein is held together by Family Resemblances and there is nothing that all games have in common. However, Suits defines a game as a voluntary attempt to othercome unnecessary obstacles. That seems to be a pretty good definition and one has to ask why Wittgenstein got it wrong while Suits got it right.

The answer, I believe, is that Wittgenstein was looking for a definition based on attributes whereas Suits provided a teleological definition. That is to say that  Wittgenstein was looking for features common to all games whereas Suits defined games in terms of the purpose they serve in our lives. This might even be a part of a larger patterns as we progress from natural science to social science to sciences of the artificial. Categories in natural science tend to be defined by attributes. In social science we see more of a mixture of attribute and teleological definitions. In sciences of the artificial more categories are almost always teleological.

The Metaphysics of Games

If you really dislike philosophy you should skip this post. It is not necessary for understanding subsequent posts and may just confuse you if you do no have philosophical leanings. But, for those who may be interested, I thought I would write a few words about the metaphysics of games.

Perhaps one of the most enduring and perplexing problems in metaphysics arises from the seemingly simple question - how do you know a tree is a tree? The problem here is that we have a specific thing that we assign to a group or category. We use the word "tree" for both the category and the individual instances that populate that category. In metaphysical terms the individual instance is referred to as a particular, and the category is referred to as a universal. In normal conversation we do not distinguish between particulars and universals, as that would just make conversation awkward. But, if we were being precise, the above question would be qualified - how do we know a tree (particular instance) is a tree (member of the universal category).

But, where do these universals come from? And how do we know a particular instance belongs to a category? Are categories defined bottom up based on common attributes? If so how do we select the attributes? Or are categories defined top down based on essences? If so, how do we determine the proper essences? These questions make up one of the most vexing problems in metaphysics known as The Problem of Universals.

Philosophers as far back as Plato and Aristotle have attempted to tackle this problem. In the last century, Ludwig Wittgenstein offered an interesting perspective using a family resemblances analogy and used games as an example category. If you go to a family reunion, you can see that the members of the family share some facial features. But, not everyone has the same set of common features. For example, a few people may have the family nose. Others have the family chin. Perhaps others have the family brow. The family is held together visually by a collection of interlocking facial features but no family member has the full set of common features. According to Wittgenstein, many concepts are held together in the same way.

In the case of games, we see a category held together by family resemblances. Some games have a strategy. Some games have winners and losers. Some games involve competition. And so on. But no game has a full set of common attributes. This assertion that 'games' is a poorly defined category would hold for nearly a century, until Bernard Suits would offer a precise definition of games. We will get to Suits in the next post. But for now we will leave it off by saying that the intellectual foundations of games is anchored deeply in the heart of metaphysics.

Internal Structure of a Game

I want to take a cut at the internal structure of a game to provide some vocabulary for discussing aspects of a game and to provide some distinctions between a game of some of the related phenomena.

First, a game must have a deciding factor. The deciding factor determines who, if anyone, has won the game. For example, in Chess, the deciding factor is having a King in Check. In football, it is the team with the most points. In golf, it is the person with the least points. There may or may not be constraints on the deciding factor. In football, for example, there is a time limit whereas in many games there is not.

Second, if the deciding factor is numeric, the game must have goals which are both complete units of activity and ways to accumulate points. So, scoring in football, getting a ball in a hole in golf, or exposing your winning hand in poker would be examples of goals.

On the way to achieving a goal there may be objectives the satisfaction of which helps you to achieve the goal but for which you do not get points. You may get credit for objectives in game statistics. But, the satisfaction of the objective does not contribute to the deciding factor.
Depending on the complexity of the game there may be subobjectives which are smaller problems that must be solved in order to achieve an objective.

There may be contratints on how goals or objectives are achieved.

And, to borrow a term from Suits, there is a 'lusory attitude'. The point of playing the game is the inherent satisfaction one achieves through playing a game. That is, the point of the game is the game itself. So, if one is playing professional poker to earn their livelihood, it would no longer be a game under this defintion. There is an element of practicing for real life that makes a game a game. As soon as it is no longer practice but actually is real life, it is no longer game.

Those are my thoughts for now. I may change some of this as I figure out more about it.

World of Warcraft and the Lusory Attitude

Bernard Suit defines a lusory attitude as a player's willingness to accept the rules of a game as a means of pursuing the goals of the game in order to maximize one's enjoyment. Consider a simple example. Let's say that a running back in football has broken away from the line and is running down the field in pursuit of a touch down. Let's say, further, that one tackler stands between him and the goal. He may change direction to avoid he player. He may fake a change of direction. He may plow right into the tackle and attempt to overpower him. These are all acceptable options within the game of football. It would not do, however, to have a sniper in the stands pick off the tackle with a well placed shot from a high powered rifle. For, under these conditions, even if the runner managed to cross the goal line it would not be considered a touchdown. Any number of other silly examples could also illustrate this point. In checkers, one could glue their checkers to the board to prevent their opponent from taking them. In golf one could carry their ball to the hole and drop it in. However, games have rules that we must follow in order to achieve the goals of the game and if we do not follow those rules we are not playing that game. Further, if we are not playing that game we are not enjoying the experience of playing that game.

I have noticed, in World of Warcraft, that the lusory attitude varies considerably from one player to the next. Different players are actually playing very different games. In the case of some players, they are not playing a game at all. And these varying lusory attitudes reflect, I believe, very different game experiences. So, I thought over the next few posts, I would explore this.

Games and the Ideal Life

Suits asserts that "in Utopia the only thing left to do would be to play games, so game playing turns out to be the whole of the ideal of existence." [pg.154] Most activities that we engage in, we engage in for the sake of something else. We work to earn money to eat. We form social structures for protection and survival. And so on. But, if we lived in a Utopian Society where all our needs were taken care of, the only activity we would engage in, according to Suits, is game playing. That is to say that game playing is the only activity that we pursue as an end in itself. I am not sure if it is, indeed, the only activity that we pursue as an end in it self. But, it does seem fair to say that is an activity that we view as an end in itself. And a reasonable question is - Why?

Aristotle claimed, as I mentioned before, that happiness is the only goal that we pursue as an end in itself. So, if game playing is the only activity that is an end in itself, is there a connection between happiness and game playing? Assume for a moment, (I will argue this point later) that one is happy if they have a high quality of life and unhappy if they have a low quality of life. Then do games contribute to our quality of life? If so, is this why playing games is an important element if not the very definition of the ideal life?

Next in our discussion of games, we will turn to happiness and qualify of life. We will attempt to understand the connection between game playing and quality of life. I will argue that game playing contributes in a significant and positive way to our quality of life and that is why we find game playing to be inherently satisfying. Further, we can use this insight to see how the nature of games can be applied to other activities such as work and education to make them more satisfying.

Reflecting and Refocusing

Many years ago, when I worked in a government office, there was sign that circulated which many people would pin to the walls of their cubicle. The sign began with an articulation of the ideal expectations for employee behavior and ended with the observation "but when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is easy to forget that your goal was to drain the swamp." This seems to have broader applicability as we get into any number of situations where dealing with the dynamics of the situation distracts us from the very reason that brought us into the situation.

As we explore the philosophical foundations of games and the various analytical and linguistic subtitles, we are vulnerable to the same phenomenon. So, let us pause for a moment to reflect on what we have done and where we would like to go with it.

We have defined the concept of a game. We have constructed a universal. Ideally, this universal includes all things that are games and no things that are not games. The Aristotelian approach of defining games did not work because games do not have attributes like rocks, plant and trees that were developed over years of evolution. We have taken a more Platonic approach in attempting to discover the essence of "gameness", not in the World of Forms but in the world of abstract ideas. Abstract ideas are ideal when they are intellectually economical.

We needn't worry about Hume and Wittgenstein because we are not trying to account for all conversational uses of the word "game". Bacon steered us away from that in his warning about Idols of the Marketplace. Our goal was to find a definition of games that reflected the essence of games not the variety of uses of the word. We did this because we want the particulars within our universal to be the 'same' thing. We want this because the extent to which they are the same the more we can learn about them. So, if we have to toss out some particulars as not really being games, this is the cost of gathering more knowledge about those that are games.

As we proceed with out analysis, we may wish to refine the definition. However, unlike the philosopher who would refine the definition to give it greater coverage, the researcher would refine the definition so that it works better for research purposes. That is, we would refine the definition if that refined definition would help us to learn more about the particulars contained in the universal.

Serious Play

I am not ready to say categorically that all play develops skills which historically have had survival value. For example, one may play to reduce stress or overcome boredom. In this case the play may only have distraction value. At the same time, I am not willing to go out on a limb and say that there are instances of play that do not develop skills that historically have had survival value. Instead, I am going to step around this problem by defining 'serious play' as those instances of play that develop such skills. It may be that all play is serious. Or it may turn out that there are instances of play that are not serious. But, I am trying to get to the core of the concept of games here, not play. So I need the idea of serious play.

It should also be pointed out that serious play is inherently satisfying. Nature, or perhaps evolution, has provided us with a reward for rehearing these skills and that reward is a pleasant feeling that we refer to as fun. So, we practice these skills because the practice is an end in itself as far as the individual is concerned.

Bernard Suits points out that games have a goal of some kind and this goal can usually be accomplished much more efficiently if the rules of the game are not followed. For example, if the goal in poker is to acquire money, then one could acquire the money just as well by clubbing the opponent over the head and taking it. But the rules of poker do not allow that. In fact, at one point, Suits points out that a key characteristic of a game is the pursuit of a goal via inefficient means.

Why would somebody pursue a goal via inefficient means? The answer, I believe, is that the pursuit of the goal via inefficient means constitutes serious play. As serious play, it, in turn, produces fun; and, of course, skills that historically have had survival value.

Suits goes into much more detail regarding the concept of games and I would strongly urge anyone who is interested in this to give it a read. However, Suits is examining the landscape of games while I am trying to come of with a definition that will be useful in understanding the construction of games. So my purpose is not to come up with a definition that covers all current instances of games. Rather my purpose is to come up with a definition that allows us to create new instances and apply that constructive process to new applications.

So a tentative definition of a game might be that it consists of a goal which must be pursued according to a set of rules and that the pursuit of that goal according to that set of rules constitutes serious play.

Games, Goals and Rules

As we look more closely at the internal structure of a game we see that games have a goal of some kind and a collection of rules governing the behaviors that one can engage in to achieve the goal. So, for example, in a football game, the goal is to score more points than the opponnent by getting the ball into the end zone more times. (This is not to diminsih field goals and extra points. It is just to make the analysis simpler). In getting the ball into the end zone, the team must achieve this goal using prescribed means. If you were to drive a tank down the field or gun down all the members of the defensive line, getting into the end zone would be much easier. But football has rules which say that these tactics are not acceptable.

The goal has to be worthy and achievable. If the winner in football were defined as the first team to score 100,000 more touchdowns than its opponent, few people would engage in the game. But the goal of more points within a limited time frame seems reasonable.

The rules also have to be reasonable. They have to make achievement of the goal challenging and satisfying without making it frustrating. So, if one of the rules of football were that players had to have their feet tied together, nobody would wish to play it.

In addition, as you strive for the game goal according to the game rules, you get better at the game and the satisfaction of playing the game increases.

So, Suit's definition of a game as a "voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" might be slightly restated as an attempt to achieve a challenging and satisfying, but unecessary goal using challenging and satisfying but unecessary means. The goal here is not simply the game goal, but achieving the game goal using the means allowed in the game.

Next we will consider degrees of "gameness' looking at some quintessential examples, some borderline examples, and some bad examples.

Distinctions and Refinement

Suits' definition that playing a game is a "voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." seems like a pretty good one. It seems to capture the essence of what playing a game is all about. But we are far from done. For example, it appears that a game is an object of play but not the same thing as play. Can you play something that is not a game. Can a game be experienced through anything other than play. What is the difference between work and play? Can a game be work?

Taking this a step further we can ask - if a game is a "voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" how do those obstacles arise? Why would anybody attempt to overcome them? It seems that these obstacles arise from the fact that the game has a goal and a set of rules for achieving that goal. But there are lots of things that have goals and rules which are not games. For example, in your career, your goal may be to get to the top and one of the rules is that you can't just shoot everyone to get there. So, is your career a game?

And why would anyone engage in a game. Clearly, in your career plan, you are pursuing it for very tangible rewards - more pay, more prestige, a bigger office, whatever. And yet in the game it is merely the satisfaction of winning. Is there something inherently satisfying about playing a game that is a reward in and of itself. If we play games for their own sake while we always work for the sake of something else, doesn't that make playing games a superior activity?

The more questions we answer, the more questions arise. Sigh! This is the essence of the project of knowledge. We merely become more and more aware of how much we do not know. Socrates was referred to as the wisest man alive by the Oracle at Delphi. He responded by saying that his wisdom was derived from the fact that he realized how little he knew. But, don't reach for the hemlock yet. We will return to Suits in a little more depth and try to get a little more structure on our concept of a game.

The Grasshopper

In a delightful book entitled The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Bernard Suits explores the concept of a game. This book is a stunning piece of work for three reasons. First, he achieves what Wittgenstein failed to do. He manages to define the concept of a game. Second, it is an excellent example of the process of concept analysis as the grasshopper attempts to define the concept of game and then defend it against challenges. Third, it provides some profound insights about both life and games.

On the first point, Wittgenstein not only failed to come up with an adequate definition of the concept of games, he proved (or thought he had proved) that such a definition was not possible. Yet Suits defines playing a game as a "voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." [pg. 55] This is not the formal definition and one would have to read the book to understand Suits' definition more fully. But, it does capture the essence of playing a game. How did Suits get this right where Wittgenstein got it wrong? I believe that the answer lies in the fact that Wittgenstein was looking for attributes - rules, players, strategies, and so forth. Suits' definition is teleological. It defines games in terms of the purpose they serve. Aristotle's final cause was the purpose for which a thing exists. And, according to Aristotle, you must understand the final cause in order to understand a thing. Sadly, teleology has fallen out of favor. And, yet, it is clear that you cannot define the concept of game without reference to the purpose for which they are played.

On the second point, Suits provides us with an excellent example of concept analysis, a technique that is often woefully missing from social science research and almost unheard of in business research. Using commonplace understandings of concepts in research is as destructive to good research as is replacing statistical analysis with 'gut feel' or replacing methodology with mere curiosity. This was, in fact, the essence of Bacon's Idols of the Marketplace. Bacon saw, way back in the 17th century, that using commonplace understandings of concepts was destructive to the project of science. And yet, today, we do it all the time. Sadly, there are far too few examples of good concept analysis and Suits provides us with an exemplar.

On the third point, games are one of the few activities that we pursue for their own sake. This means that they have intrinsic rather than instrumental value. Aristotle pointed out that happiness is the only goal we pursue for its own sake. Now, Suits is pointing out that playing games is an activity that we pursue for its own sake. Is there a connection between happiness, games and the ideal life? I think so, but it would be way too premature to suggest that. Let's see how things unfold.

Aristotle and the Notion of Purpose

A central element in Aristotle's metaphysics was the idea that in order to under stand a thing, you needed to understand four causes. This is a little confusing to the modern reader as the word 'cause' has taken on a slightly different meaning. However, if you think about it as 'important things to know' rather than causes, it makes a little more sense.

Aristotle believed that in order to understand a thing, you needed to understand its material cause (what is was made of), its efficient cause (how is got made), its formal cause (what it became), and its final cause (why it was made or what is was made for). Consider a table, for example. The material cause might be wood. It would be very different if it were made of ice, or putty, or sand. The efficient cause might be a craftsman, although it might also be a manufacturing process or a wood carving process. Each would produce a different result. The formal cause would, of course, be a table. However, the wood could have been used to make a boat, or a chair or any number of other things. Finally, no pun intended, we have the final cause, the purpose of table. A table is made to put things on. It could have been made for shade or protection. But the fact that it was made to place things on is an important aspect of a table.

This notion of final causes is central to Aristotle's view of of the world which we call teleological. This comes from two ancient Greek words 'telos' (far off or end state) and 'logos' (rigorous understanding). When we say that we have a teleological understanding of a thing we are saying that we understand it in terms of its purpose.

Teleology was tossed out of physics by Galileo who said that you can understand astronomy without having to resort to any underlying purpose in the universe. This is probably true. But, teleology stayed out of other sciences as well, probably due to physics envy. And there are numerous places where it would be appropriate. For example, when you say that a turtle has a hard shell for protection, it is a teleological claim. Natural sciences other than physics and chemistry are filled with teleological claims.

Taking this a step further, from natural science to social science, you have to ask whether or not it is possible to understand social science at all without referring to purposes. Certainly you cannot understand games without reference to their purpose. This is why Wittgenstein failed and Suit succeeded. But, again, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Next time we will follow the evolution of Aristotle's concept of universals and see why it ends in a train wreck.

What Is a Game?

I always like to begin an inquiry into a new area by looking at the philosophical underpinnings. This usually identifies the major issues and provides a framework for interpreting higher level claims and disputes. There are two ways to approach this. One is by trying to find out what some of my favorite philosophers have said on the topic. The other is to attempt to understand the key concepts in the new field of inquiry. One might say - "Hey! This is video games we are talking about here. What philosophical grounding might there possibly be?" But, speaking with the confidence of some one who has done this many times, I can say with surety that there are philosophical underpinning to everything. You just need to know where to look.

In this post, I am going to sketch out the philosophical foundations and where I think they will lead. Over the next few posts, I will explore the philosophical issues in more detail. If philosophy gives you a headache or puts you to sleep, you may want to come back in a month. By then, I should have the foundations all laid out and be ready to more on to less arcane issues.

When we ask the question - What is a Game? - we are inquiring as to the meaning of a concept. A concept is an abstraction of particular things in our experience that we group together for the sake of intellectual economy. How we get from these particular things to the concepts in which we group them is the central problem of metaphysics; a problem known as the problem of universals. Many revered philosophers include Plato and Aristotle have commented on this problem. More recently, Ludwig Wittgenstein chipped in with a damaging critique of the problem of universals by saying that the particulars things grouped together in a concept might not actually have any specific set of things in common. This is a damning critique, because, if Wittgenstein is correct, then knowledge is not possible. And the example he used was -- Games! So, as I began this inquiry, I thought I would start with Wittgenstein and the apparent impossibility of defining games.

However, in pursuing this, I came across another related work by Bernard Suits called The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia in which Suits defies Wittgenstein by defining the concept of a game. According to Suits "playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" Well!! It doesn't get any better than this. On one hand we have one of the greatest philosophical minds of the 20th century claiming that you cannot define a game. On the other hand you have some guy I never heard of providing what appears to be a perfectly serviceable definition. As we attempt to unravel this apparent contradiction we will learn a little metaphysics and a lot about games.