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Alicorn comments on Open Thread: March 2010 - Less Wrong
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"Game" is one of the most notorious words in the language for the virtual impossibility of providing a unified definition absent counterexamples.
A family resemblance is still a resemblance.
Could you include a source for this quote, please?
Googling it would've told you that it's from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
Simply Googling it would not have signaled any disappointment radical_negative_one may have had that you did not include a citation (preferably with a relevant link) as is normal when making a quote like that.
/me bats the social signal into JGWeissman's court
Omitting the citation, which wasn't really needed, sends the message that I don't wish to stand on Wittgenstein's authority but think the sentiment stands on its own.
Then use your own words. Wittgenstein's are barely readable.
If it doesn't stand on its own, you shouldn't quote it at all - the purpose of the citation is to allow interested parties to investigate the original source, not to help you convince.
Voted up, but I would say the purpose is to do both, to help convince and help further investigation, and more, such as to give credit to the source. Citations benifet the reader, the quoter, and the source.
I definitely agree that willingness to forgo your own benifet as the quoter does not justify ignoring the benifets to the others involved.
You're right, of course.
"A game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
This is, perhaps, a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. It is true of almost all hobbies, but I wouldn't classify hobbies such as computer programming or learning to play the piano as games.
I wouldn't class most hobbies as attempts to overcome unnecessary obstacles either -- certainly not playing a musical instrument, where the difficulties are all necessary ones. I might count bird-watching, of the sort where the twitcher's goal is to get as many "ticks" (sightings of different species) as possible, as falling within the definition, but for that very reason I'd regard it as being a game.
One could argue that compulsory games at school are a counterexample to the "voluntary" part. On the other hand, Láadan has a word "rashida": "a non-game, a cruel "playing" that is a game only for the dominant "player" with the power to force others to participate [ra=non- + shida=game]". In the light of that concept, perhaps these are not really games for the children forced to participate.
But whatever nits one can pick in Bernard Suits' definition, I still think it makes a pretty good counter to Wittgenstein's claims about the concept.
Oh, right. Reading "unnecessary" as "artificial", the definition is indeed as good as they come. My first interpretation was somewhat different and, in retrospect, not very coherent.