From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!nuscc!hilbert!smoliar Tue May 12 15:48:37 EDT 1992
Article 5364 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: Games (was Re: Categories: bounded or graded?)
Message-ID: <1992May1.085816.15209@nuscc.nus.sg>
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Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
References: <1992Apr27.173513.33215@spss.com> <1992Apr28.173231.11604@cs.ucf.edu> <1992Apr28.230052.7394@spss.com>
Date: Fri, 1 May 1992 08:58:16 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <1992Apr28.230052.7394@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark
Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Apr28.173231.11604@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu 
>(Thomas Clarke) quotes Bernard Suits as writing:
>
>>"To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs
>>[prelusory
>>goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules  
>>prohibit use of more efficient in favor of less efficient means [constitutive
>>rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such
>>activity [lusory attitude].  I also offer the following simpler and, so to  
>>speak, more portable version of the above:  playing a games is the voluntary 
>>attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
>
>OK, the circularity was yours, not Suits's!  
>
>Still, I love messing up definitions.  This one seems to apply pretty well
>to the stock market.  There's a specific goal (making money), set rules,
>more efficient means like insider trading are prohibited, and the rules are
>accepted to facilitate the trading.  Dancing a square dance fits, too.
>Running a research institution.  (Goal: increase of knowledge; rules:
>scientific method; prohibited efficiencies: plagiarism, espionage;
>rules accepted to facilitate goal.)
>
>It's no reflection on Suits to say that his definition has holes in it.
>Defining a word like "games", for both Wittgenstein's reasons and 
>Prof. Minsky's, is tricky.


Of course, any of the tasks described above may be approached with a "lusory
attitude."  Indeed, one who approaches the stock market which such an attitude
is probably just as likely to achieve financial gain and may pursue the task
with far less psychological stress.  I think this is the point Minsky was
trying to get at when he was trying to emphasize the subjectivity of the
situation.  The characterization of "game" does not reside in the properties
of the activity but in the mind of the individual engaged in that activity.
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


