82,890
edits
Finite and Infinite Games: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
So let us join in. | So let us join in. | ||
=== | ===Training versus education=== | ||
{{Quote|“To be prepared against surprise is to be ''trained''. To be prepared for surprise is to be ''educated''.”}} | |||
===Power versus strength=== | ===Power versus strength=== | ||
{{power versus strength quote}} | {{power versus strength quote}} | ||
| Line 29: | Line 24: | ||
This is a harder distinction to glom, especially since Carse concedes that during a finite game the action is “provisionally” dramatic, since the players write the script as they go along. But the object of the game is to ''kill'' the drama by making the outcome inevitable. So provisional, and hostile, to drama. | This is a harder distinction to glom, especially since Carse concedes that during a finite game the action is “provisionally” dramatic, since the players write the script as they go along. But the object of the game is to ''kill'' the drama by making the outcome inevitable. So provisional, and hostile, to drama. | ||
===Poeitas=== | ===Poeitas=== | ||
== Original research == | |||
There are many resonances here with some of the JC’s other favourite big ideas. | |||
===“Historic” versus “prospective”=== | |||
Many distinctions between finite and infinite games boil down to their historical perspective: those that look backwards, concerning themselves with what has already been established and laid down — as agreed rules, formal boundaries and limited time periods for resolution necessarily do — will tend to be finite in nature; those that are open-ended, forward looking, and indeterminate — concerned with what has yet to happen, and is necessarily unknown, are infinite. | |||
Let me throw in some original research here: historically-focused games are fine: there is no harm and much reward to be had from a game of football as long as everyone understands the “theatricality” of what is going on; but to apply finite, backward-looking techniques to the “resolution” of ''infinite'' scenarios — necessarily forward-looking, indeterminate problems (in that you don’t even know that there is a problem, let alone what it is) the finite approach creates trouble. | |||
It is deceptive in that finite techniques may work perfectly well much of the time, because even infinite environments largely function by reference to established order, existing rules and what is already known — it’s just that they don’t have to, and are liable to change without notice. As long as they behave themselves, a finite approach is efficient, effective, centrally controllable and provides consistency and certainty. This is why unimaginative business leaders are so fond of sporting metaphors. | |||
This, we think, is just an other way of noting that the middle of a [[normal distribution]] resembles the middle of a “fat-tailed” distribution and the same approaches will work passably well for both, as long as the events fall within the middle, which for the most part they do. | |||
=== As single-round and iterated prisoner’s dilemmas === | |||
A finite game can be part of an infinite game but not vice versa. One could regard a sports franchise an an organisation playing an infinite game through the medium of finite games: here its immediate interests in each distinct match — to comprehensively, theatrically, thrash the opposition — is tempered by its wider interest to keep the infinite game going by creating a compelling sporting contest in which there is the drama that one might not, at any time, win. To carry on that wider, infinite game, one’s opponents must not only survive, but ''flourish'' to the point where they can and will beat you in a finite game, thus supplying theatre if not really drama: an unbeatable team is unsatisfying for winners, losers and spectators alike. | |||
And here we wonder a little about the commutability of infinite games into finite ones: sporting matches are like single round prisoner’s dilemmas: zero-sum in a way that recoommends only outright domination. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||