Finite and Infinite Games
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Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse
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So much in this book — ostensibly an obscure piece of cod philosophy from a religious studies professor in the mid nineteen-eighties that is having a fertile third age, having been picked up by life-coach to the LinkedIn generation, Simon Sinek, and spoken of reverently by Stewart Brand and those of the Long Now persuasion.
Carse, who died last year, is wilfully aphoristic in his literary style, and this is off-putting.[1] He often says things like:
Of infinite players we can also say that if they play they play freely; if they must play, they cannot play.
Now this is important, but the book would be better — and more scrutable — had Carse taken more time to explain exactly this is meant to mean. That may be why Mr. Sinek has been able to make such hay: that is in a sense the job he has done.[2] But, irony: the job of imaginatively deducing what Mr. Carse meant with his gnomic interventions is a kind of infinite game of its own — one that Mr. Sinek is playing pretty well. So let us join in.
See also
- ↑ Notably, Carse’s speaking style is much less cryptic and talks he gavve about the infinite game concept are worth checking out. See for example his talk to the Long Now Foundation: Religious Wars in Light of the Infinite Game.
- ↑ The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek (2019) (see here).