Finite and Infinite Games

Rating:
Summary: freewill versus predestiny
Review: Plato or Aristotle. It's an old debate. This view finally draws the opposing sides together. The first few sections put forth the premise that we fight to maintain the illusion of freewill within the confines of undeniable predestiny, in the context of games. Read the book to learn how and why we fight; and why it's so important that we do.

Rating:
Summary: Practically a unified-field theory of human relationships
Review: Professor Carse writes in the first chapter, "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." From that beginning he broadly defines "game" in a way that includes, defines, and lays an analytical foundation for all relationships. The book's subtitle is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility," and it is a profound work, practically a unified-field theory of human relationships.

For example, the book contains an interesting theory about sexuality, as being either a finite game (§§ 54-59) or an infinite game (§§ 60-62). The contrast between perceiving sexual relationships as finite or infinite is startling. On a broader (yet surprisingly even more personal) level, in his chapter titled "A Finite Game Occurs Within a World" (ch. 4), Carse explores the individual's struggle with defining, regarding, and regulating the world around oneself in a way that includes everyone around one, or just oneself alone.

The first step in appreciating this book is understanding that any relationship or process can be characterized in "finite" or "infinite" terms. The second step is recognizing that that characterization is almost always a matter of choice and that, by choosing to characterize a relationship as "infinite," one can redefine it in a meaningful and healthy way. After reading this book, you may never look at the world around you, or at any relationship, or at yourself in quite the same way. This book reconfigures thinking about interpersonal reality as deeply as Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" reconfigured thinking about the scientific method.

Rating:
Summary: Practically a unified-field theory of human relationships
Review: Professor Carse writes in the first chapter, "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." From that beginning he broadly defines "game" in a way that includes, defines, and lays an analytical foundation for all relationships. The book's subtitle is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility," and it is a profound work, practically a unified-field theory of human relationships.

For example, the book contains an interesting theory about sexuality, as being either a finite game (§§ 54-59) or an infinite game (§§ 60-62). The contrast between perceiving sexual relationships as finite or infinite is startling. On a broader (yet surprisingly even more personal) level, in his chapter titled "A Finite Game Occurs Within a World" (ch. 4), Carse explores the individual's struggle with defining, regarding, and regulating the world around oneself in a way that includes everyone around one, or just oneself alone.

The first step in appreciating this book is understanding that any relationship or process can be characterized in "finite" or "infinite" terms. The second step is recognizing that that characterization is almost always a matter of choice and that, by choosing to characterize a relationship as "infinite," one can redefine it in a meaningful and healthy way. After reading this book, you may never look at the world around you, or at any relationship, or at yourself in quite the same way. This book reconfigures thinking about interpersonal reality as deeply as Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" reconfigured thinking about the scientific method.

Rating:
Summary: Practically a unified-field theory of human relationships
Review: Professor Carse writes in the first chapter, "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." From that beginning he broadly defines "game" in a way that includes, defines, and lays an analytical foundation for all relationships. The book's subtitle is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility," and it is a profound work, practically a unified-field theory of human relationships.

For example, the book contains an interesting theory about sexuality, as being either a finite game (§§ 54-59) or an infinite game (§§ 60-62). The contrast between perceiving sexual relationships as finite or infinite is startling. On a broader (yet surprisingly even more personal) level, in his chapter titled "A Finite Game Occurs Within a World" (ch. 4), Carse explores the individual's struggle with defining, regarding, and regulating the world around oneself in a way that includes everyone around one, or just oneself alone.

The first step in appreciating this book is understanding that any relationship or process can be characterized in "finite" or "infinite" terms. The second step is recognizing that that characterization is almost always a matter of choice and that, by choosing to characterize a relationship as "infinite," one can redefine it in a meaningful and healthy way. After reading this book, you may never look at the world around you, or at any relationship, or at yourself in quite the same way. This book reconfigures thinking about interpersonal reality as deeply as Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" reconfigured thinking about the scientific method.

Rating:
Summary: Get a Life!
Review: The entire content of this book could be summarized in a single boring paragraph. Furthermore, it's mostly wrong. The author is attempting to teach something that cannot be learned from a book, and which he himself obviously has not yet learned.

P.S. This book is an "amateur philosophy" book, and has nothing to do with mathematics.

Rating:
Summary: A book that lifts and grounds
Review: The several positive reviews are eloquent. I'll just add thatit was nice to see Otto Rank quoted by Carse--so two great minds/soulsare joined. The negative reviews are a humbling reminder of how very different readers are. Last I heard, this book was translated into 7 languages.

Rating:
Summary: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
Review: The subtitle of this book is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility." This puts quite succinctly what this project is all about. Carse creates a number of distinctions through which he interprets life: finite and infinite games, society and culture, gardens and machines. Throughout, he comes again and again to reminders of choice and possibility. He reminds us that the games we play we choose to play, that we choose to assume our roles, that our society is a collective choice. He points to the ways that we mask these choices from ourselves and provides the insight we need to be aware of our self-veiling.

This is what philosophy should be like. It is philosophical poetry. One of the most unique aspects of the book is that nowhere does Carse attack another view or provide a first principles defense of his own view. He provides a vision, helps us reinterpret the world, and then lets the insight it provides be its own defense. The following quote from the text reflects much on Carse's project:

"Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling is therefore not combative; it does not succeed or fail. A story cannot be obeyed. Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, from a bounding way of looking to an horizonal way of seeing." (sec 78)

Perhaps Carse cannot succeed in his project, but certainly his vision is compelling.

Robert Pirsig is quoted on the back cover: "Normally we add new facts to existing knowledge. But once in a while a book like this comes along and does just the opposite - it adds a new pattern of knowledge to existing facts. The result is striking." This is perhaps as good a recommendation as I could give. The book is short and divided into short sections. It is an easy read, even if you take it slow. Reading this book is taking a journey you won't regert.

Rating:
Summary: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
Review: The subtitle of this book is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility." This puts quite succinctly what this project is all about. Carse creates a number of distinctions through which he interprets life: finite and infinite games, society and culture, gardens and machines. Throughout, he comes again and again to reminders of choice and possibility. He reminds us that the games we play we choose to play, that we choose to assume our roles, that our society is a collective choice. He points to the ways that we mask these choices from ourselves and provides the insight we need to be aware of our self-veiling.

This is what philosophy should be like. It is philosophical poetry. One of the most unique aspects of the book is that nowhere does Carse attack another view or provide a first principles defense of his own view. He provides a vision, helps us reinterpret the world, and then lets the insight it provides be its own defense. The following quote from the text reflects much on Carse's project:

"Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling is therefore not combative; it does not succeed or fail. A story cannot be obeyed. Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, from a bounding way of looking to an horizonal way of seeing." (sec 78)

Perhaps Carse cannot succeed in his project, but certainly his vision is compelling.

Robert Pirsig is quoted on the back cover: "Normally we add new facts to existing knowledge. But once in a while a book like this comes along and does just the opposite - it adds a new pattern of knowledge to existing facts. The result is striking." This is perhaps as good a recommendation as I could give. The book is short and divided into short sections. It is an easy read, even if you take it slow. Reading this book is taking a journey you won't regert.

Rating:
Summary: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
Review: The subtitle of this book is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility." This puts quite succinctly what this project is all about. Carse creates a number of distinctions through which he interprets life: finite and infinite games, society and culture, gardens and machines. Throughout, he comes again and again to reminders of choice and possibility. He reminds us that the games we play we choose to play, that we choose to assume our roles, that our society is a collective choice. He points to the ways that we mask these choices from ourselves and provides the insight we need to be aware of our self-veiling.

This is what philosophy should be like. It is philosophical poetry. One of the most unique aspects of the book is that nowhere does Carse attack another view or provide a first principles defense of his own view. He provides a vision, helps us reinterpret the world, and then lets the insight it provides be its own defense. The following quote from the text reflects much on Carse's project:

"Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling is therefore not combative; it does not succeed or fail. A story cannot be obeyed. Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, from a bounding way of looking to an horizonal way of seeing." (sec 78)

Perhaps Carse cannot succeed in his project, but certainly his vision is compelling.

Robert Pirsig is quoted on the back cover: "Normally we add new facts to existing knowledge. But once in a while a book like this comes along and does just the opposite - it adds a new pattern of knowledge to existing facts. The result is striking." This is perhaps as good a recommendation as I could give. The book is short and divided into short sections. It is an easy read, even if you take it slow. Reading this book is taking a journey you won't regert.

Rating:
Summary: if you found this book fascinating...
Review: then you should also read "Mastering the Infinite Game" by Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars, which applies the concepts to show East Asian values (based on infinite games) have transformed business practices. Highly recommended!