Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. You know, Joe.
Speaker 1: I bring up the books of Ian M. Banks a
Speaker 1: lot on the podcast um and and and generally, because
Speaker 1: you know, these are really good books that that tie
Speaker 1: on a number of different uh uh, sci fi, psychological,
Speaker 1: you name it topics. They're they're they're rich with stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind content. Can I confess that I've
Speaker 1: considered reading them but have actually been hesitant because I
Speaker 1: want you to be able to keep explaining m banks
Speaker 1: books to me with me actually not knowing them in advance. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: then hopefully that's what's gonna happen right now. Because as
Speaker 1: we were researching the topic for today, I was reminded
Speaker 1: of his nine book, The Player of Games. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is a book that concerns the culture, which is
Speaker 1: of course an instellar, interstellar post scarcity civilization in which
Speaker 1: AI minds do all or most of the heavy lifting
Speaker 1: and humans live in a kind of uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: utopian anarchy. Okay, so this is not the book that
Speaker 1: Tron was based on No No, but but it is
Speaker 1: a wonderful treatment of games. Now, the people in the culture,
Speaker 1: they don't really have to do much beyond just enjoy life,
Speaker 1: and our protagonist in this particular book, Gurga does this
Speaker 1: by playing in and excelling at a multitude of card
Speaker 1: and board games and other related games. Yeah. So this
Speaker 1: is often the positive vision of the sort of post
Speaker 1: singularity future, right most A lot of the visions that
Speaker 1: you get in science fiction are very negative, I guess
Speaker 1: because negative plots are more interesting to play with. But
Speaker 1: so this says, basically, you know, once humans aren't really
Speaker 1: needed to create the wealth that sustained society anymore, you
Speaker 1: can actually just do what you want. You can be creative,
Speaker 1: you can have fun, and that's what life is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh or am I off base? Is that not
Speaker 1: how it is? Um in the culture? It is, but
Speaker 1: with lots of dark caveats Okay. Now, some members of
Speaker 1: the culture choose to involve themselves in matters of greater importance,
Speaker 1: such as service in Special Circumstances, which deals with pending
Speaker 1: and emergent threats to the culture uh and general interplanetary stability,
Speaker 1: and they recruit Gurga and send him to the Empire
Speaker 1: of Azad uh to to master and play the game
Speaker 1: of Azad, which is a complex game that consists of
Speaker 1: various sub games that serves as the basic system of
Speaker 1: all political and social order in the Empire of Azad. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what is is it? What like a big board
Speaker 1: game or something. It's it's like a board game built
Speaker 1: out of board games. It's a kind of like imagine
Speaker 1: a board game that is just the center of all culture. Like,
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of hard to to to pick
Speaker 1: out something like imagine if the Bible in say medieval Europe,
Speaker 1: if the Bible were a board game instead, if it
Speaker 1: was like Settlers of Ghatan instead of the Bible at
Speaker 1: the center of this, uh, this sort of Catholic world.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, it was not just settlers
Speaker 1: of Gatton, but are ridiculously complex settlers. Do you have
Speaker 1: to devote your entire life to playing it? So a
Speaker 1: labyrinthine game that contains pronouncements of authority that is intermingled
Speaker 1: with government. Yes, And so they want they apparently need
Speaker 1: to send him there because they want to disrupt as
Speaker 1: odd and topple its current systems and bring about something
Speaker 1: more in line with culture values. Uh and and also
Speaker 1: because the the the the empire of his they also
Speaker 1: are a very brutal people given to spectacles of fatal violence.
Speaker 1: So it's a great book and one I always recommend
Speaker 1: as a starting point for the culture and banks in general.
Speaker 1: But isn't it interesting how we see the mixture of
Speaker 1: different games here. So we see the contained and restricted
Speaker 1: board and card games within Gurga's life, so those are
Speaker 1: like normal games. We see the open ended game of
Speaker 1: Gurga's life, in which he essentially tries to fill a
Speaker 1: lengthy trans human lifetime with pleasure and meaning. We have
Speaker 1: the complex but ultimately contained game of add we have
Speaker 1: the intricate game of special circumstances, various plots and operations.
Speaker 1: We have the greater game that's played by these minds
Speaker 1: that are operating, you know, on scales beyond anything human
Speaker 1: intelligence can can really comprehend. And then we have the
Speaker 1: looming possibility of the game of interplanetary war. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting the way games so readily serve as metaphors for
Speaker 1: almost any kind of human endeavor or for life itself. Right,
Speaker 1: A game, in its more narrow definition tends to be
Speaker 1: a thing with rules that is done for recreation or
Speaker 1: for fun. And yet you can clearly see how that
Speaker 1: concept of a game gets mapped onto essentially anything humans do.
Speaker 1: Whatever you're doing right now, in one way or another,
Speaker 1: can be thought of as a game. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: read one quick quote from from the player of games,
Speaker 1: just to give everyone a taste. This is the story
Speaker 1: of a man who went far away for a long
Speaker 1: time just to play a game. The man is a
Speaker 1: game player called Gurga. The story starts with a battle
Speaker 1: that is not a battle and ends with a game
Speaker 1: that is not a game. And you have to read
Speaker 1: the book to get the rest. But but I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I couldn't help but think of this book
Speaker 1: in uh in comparison to the topic we're discussing today. Right,
Speaker 1: So today we're gonna be talking about an interesting little
Speaker 1: philosophy book that I read within the past couple of
Speaker 1: weeks by an American scholar named James P. Cars, who
Speaker 1: for more than thirty years was a professor of the
Speaker 1: history and literature of religion at New York University. Now,
Speaker 1: this book isn't directly about religion, though it addresses religion,
Speaker 1: and some of its parts it's it's a short, little
Speaker 1: philosophy book, and it's called Finite and Infinite Games, a
Speaker 1: vision of Life as Play and Possibility, and it was
Speaker 1: published in nineteen eighty six from Free Press. Now, over
Speaker 1: the years, I've read several writers and thinkers who I
Speaker 1: admire in one way or another mentioned this book as
Speaker 1: influential on their thinking, and I recently decided to check
Speaker 1: it out. And ever since I started reading it, I
Speaker 1: have been captivated by the idea at the core of
Speaker 1: this book. And really, the idea is just a very
Speaker 1: interesting metaphor. It's not a scientific book. It's not a
Speaker 1: book really I think that is necessary for explaining anything
Speaker 1: important about how things are. But it's a very interesting
Speaker 1: metaphorical framework for how to look at the behavior of
Speaker 1: beings like you and me using this metaphor of play, right,
Speaker 1: And I also want to drive home that it's it's
Speaker 1: not it's it's rather different from a lot of the
Speaker 1: books we've discussed on the show because it's not filled
Speaker 1: with a bunch of, you know, descriptions of various histories
Speaker 1: or mythologies or other philosophical topics. It's a very it's
Speaker 1: a very easily consumed book. Um, I don't want to criticism.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to relegate it to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: But this is a book that you could keep in
Speaker 1: the bathrooms. It's very much a casual read. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you you can pick up any part of it, any
Speaker 1: page of it. Usually there will be a short section
Speaker 1: that you could read that that will, you know, make
Speaker 1: you think about things. That's kind of interesting and provocative.
Speaker 1: If it were kept by a toilet, I would call
Speaker 1: it a butt number. You know the button numbers, button
Speaker 1: number books. No, I've never heard this terminol. They're the
Speaker 1: ones that if you keep them by the toilet, they're
Speaker 1: going to keep people on the toilet a little bit
Speaker 1: too long because you'd get interested interesting. I've I've never
Speaker 1: heard them described as such. I might have made that up.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I can't remember if I got that
Speaker 1: from the culture or from my own brain. Well, now
Speaker 1: it's out there so everyone can use it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what is this this core idea that James P. Cars
Speaker 1: talks about in his book. The main idea is that
Speaker 1: when we do things, we're playing, and the things we
Speaker 1: do are games. And Cars's main move in this book
Speaker 1: is to separate the games we play into two major types,
Speaker 1: finite and infinite. It's there in the title Finite and
Speaker 1: infinite Games. And to quote from the opening of the book, quote,
Speaker 1: there are at least two kinds of games. One could
Speaker 1: be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is
Speaker 1: played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for
Speaker 1: the purpose of continuing the play. Okay, In fact, I
Speaker 1: could say that you could skip reading the rest of
Speaker 1: the book and just contemplate that sentence and get a
Speaker 1: lot of the same value. For instance, one example that
Speaker 1: probably comes to a lot of people's minds is that
Speaker 1: it's perhaps the difference between playing tennis and keeping score
Speaker 1: and just batting the ball around, right. I mean, that
Speaker 1: could potentially be a good example where one is played
Speaker 1: with a finite definite outcome in mind, where the other
Speaker 1: is played to see how long play can go on. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get into a little bit. Let's flesh out the
Speaker 1: core concept here. Let's look at a few of the
Speaker 1: characteristics that Car slays out that that he thinks go
Speaker 1: along with the difference between a finite game and an
Speaker 1: infinite game. So, what are the characteristics of finite and
Speaker 1: infinite games in cars? Is mine, alright. So a finite
Speaker 1: game must come to an end when a player or
Speaker 1: a group of players win. Now, what constitutes winning might
Speaker 1: be spelled out in some set of external rules or
Speaker 1: or you know, it depends on the judgment of a referee.
Speaker 1: But ultimately the only thing that can decide whether the
Speaker 1: game has been one is the players agreeing that, hey,
Speaker 1: the game is over in this person one or this
Speaker 1: team one. Right. So if the players don't agree the
Speaker 1: game is over in practice, it is in fact not
Speaker 1: over right, It ain't over yet. And if the players
Speaker 1: agree the game is over in practice, they can't continue
Speaker 1: playing sort of by definition, maybe they could continue some activity,
Speaker 1: but they're no longer really playing the same game they
Speaker 1: were if they all think it's over, right. And then
Speaker 1: also there are temporal boundaries in place here. Time matters.
Speaker 1: Do you know when your game began? Do you care?
Speaker 1: If your answers are yes, then your game is finite.
Speaker 1: And then, of course the game again is over is
Speaker 1: if someone wins, right. And by contrast, the purpose of
Speaker 1: an infinite game is not to win, but to prevent
Speaker 1: the game from coming to an end. And thus there
Speaker 1: really is no decisive way to win except maybe by
Speaker 1: indefinitely continuing play. Yes, and he says, quote, there is
Speaker 1: no finite game unless the players freely choose to play it.
Speaker 1: No one can play who is forced to play. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things he talks about with a finite
Speaker 1: game is that finite games need to have players agree
Speaker 1: on the rules before play starts. Right. If you've not
Speaker 1: agreed on the rules and advance, or players try to
Speaker 1: change the rules after play begins, the legitimacy of the
Speaker 1: outcome could be in danger. Players might not accept the outcome,
Speaker 1: they might not accept the winner. But by contrast, infinite games,
Speaker 1: by necessity, tend to evolve over time. Sometimes you change
Speaker 1: the rules, the teams, the players, the play space so
Speaker 1: that play can continue and can get around obstacles that
Speaker 1: would impede play. Cars Wrights quote, Finite players play within boundaries.
Speaker 1: Infinite players play with boundaries, and finite games encourage players
Speaker 1: to create predictability and discourage surprise. So in an infinite game,
Speaker 1: usually the very purpose is to be surprised. Right, Because
Speaker 1: if you're playing a finite game, you want to win.
Speaker 1: What gets in the way of you winning, you not
Speaker 1: expecting what comes next, right, Right, You want to control
Speaker 1: the conditions of the game when you're trying to win.
Speaker 1: When you're playing an infinite game where the purpose is
Speaker 1: not to bring it to an end but to let
Speaker 1: it go on forever, you always want there there to
Speaker 1: be the potential for variation, right, Yeah, it's I think
Speaker 1: about role playing games a lot with this, Like playing
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons. It's not a situation where the players
Speaker 1: are necessarily playing against each other, though there are games
Speaker 1: that play out like that. It should not be, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, a situation where the dungeon master is playing
Speaker 1: against the players. Uh. Instead, it should be, in my mind, uh,
Speaker 1: a collective storytelling effort by the players and the dungeon master.
Speaker 1: And therefore it's not about which which a choice or
Speaker 1: which which role of the dice is going to her
Speaker 1: the other side the most. It's about what is going
Speaker 1: to create the most engaging situation. I want to come
Speaker 1: back to your D and D example in a bit,
Speaker 1: because that goes along with something I think I've observed
Speaker 1: when when I've been thinking about finite and infinite games.
Speaker 1: One more characteristic I want to mention before I move
Speaker 1: on to an example is that car says finite games
Speaker 1: tend to engender an attitude of seriousness, focus, and single
Speaker 1: mindedness within the players. Meanwhile, infinite games tend to encourage
Speaker 1: a spirit of playfulness, exploration, and curiosity. Quote whoever must
Speaker 1: play cannot play well. That, of course, he says, applies
Speaker 1: to both types of games. Right. You might not like
Speaker 1: the fact that you say, have to earn money to
Speaker 1: make a living, or have to eat in order to survive,
Speaker 1: but you must agree to play that game or you're
Speaker 1: not playing. Now, before we consider dungeons and dragons or
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons at gunpoint any further, we should probably
Speaker 1: turn to a more you know, classically established a game
Speaker 1: as a model for this for this subject. Sure well.
Speaker 1: To understand the simplest version of the difference I think
Speaker 1: between a finite game in an infinite game, consider a
Speaker 1: game of chess versus the game of chess. So, in
Speaker 1: a single game of chess, a player's goal is to
Speaker 1: defeat her opponent and become the winner. The game of
Speaker 1: chess doesn't have a set number of players who play
Speaker 1: against each other and want to win over another. It's
Speaker 1: it's an abstract space that allows individual games to keep
Speaker 1: on happening within it. It goes on forever. It could
Speaker 1: have infinitely many finite games within it. You can win
Speaker 1: a game of chess, but you can't win the game
Speaker 1: of chess. It exists, so people can keep playing it now.
Speaker 1: I just want to throw in a couple of quick
Speaker 1: facts from a two thousand ten Popular Science article by
Speaker 1: Natalie Wolchover, in which she quotes computer scientists Jonathan Schaefer,
Speaker 1: who points out that quote, the possible number of chess
Speaker 1: games is so huge that no one will ever invest
Speaker 1: the effort to calculate the exact number. Uh And in
Speaker 1: the article, she also points out that while there are
Speaker 1: only so many opening moves a player can make, the
Speaker 1: possibilities just quickly spiral out of control with each subsequent move.
Speaker 1: So in a sense, there are almost an infinite I guess,
Speaker 1: maybe not an actually infinite, but but a seemingly infinite
Speaker 1: number of chess games that could be played. But even
Speaker 1: that doesn't in fact matter, because you could say that
Speaker 1: tic tac toe, which has a much smaller number of
Speaker 1: possible games, is in a sense an infinite game. If
Speaker 1: you're talking about the game of tic tac toes, you
Speaker 1: can't win the game. You could win a game that
Speaker 1: you play against somebody. Right. In fact, there's there's no
Speaker 1: excuse not to win a game tec if you play first. Now,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I can't remember what is that solved
Speaker 1: in the first player? Can always win at tic tac toe?
Speaker 1: Or can you always force a draw? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Playing against a child really kind of screws things up
Speaker 1: for me because I've had to throw games of Tic
Speaker 1: Tac toe, uh, to the point where I don't remember
Speaker 1: how it really works because I'm trying to win the
Speaker 1: infinite game of parenting. But that's a that's a bad strategy.
Speaker 1: You need to teach him the pain of losing. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I want to do that with games that are fun. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a quick break and then when
Speaker 1: we come back, we can talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about why we think this idea of finite and infinite
Speaker 1: games is interesting and and some more ways that can
Speaker 1: be applied. Alright, we're back, So let's let's get do
Speaker 1: some some more examples here. What are some examples of
Speaker 1: finite games? Okay, well, we're totally surrounded by finite games
Speaker 1: and we're just you know, they make up the bulk
Speaker 1: of everyday endeavor right, competition among co workers for a
Speaker 1: single available promotion or among job candidates for a single
Speaker 1: position at a company. That's a finite game, right, You
Speaker 1: there's an end that you want to win. You want
Speaker 1: to be the person who gets that position, and you're
Speaker 1: competing for it. Another example would be an actual game,
Speaker 1: like a game of football. You're you're trying to win
Speaker 1: the game. Yeah, and it has a it has a
Speaker 1: time even though times. See I don't know much about football,
Speaker 1: but it does seem like time works differently in football
Speaker 1: because the the time on the ticker there does not
Speaker 1: equal the the exact uh length of the game. Well,
Speaker 1: whatever the length is, there are boundaries. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could have a game that doesn't have a necessary time
Speaker 1: limit on it, but it starts at a certain time
Speaker 1: and you know how the ending is decided, right. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what happens in football if you don't have
Speaker 1: a winner, Like if you're just tied and you just
Speaker 1: keep going and you can't win, do they do they
Speaker 1: just call it a draw? Or do they play until
Speaker 1: somebody wins? Oh? Yeah, because you have other games where
Speaker 1: you have sudden death over times or a draw is
Speaker 1: is permittable? I I am not sure we're showing how
Speaker 1: cool we are here knowing all about football. Well, our
Speaker 1: football fan listeners will have to chime in. Okay. So
Speaker 1: another clearly finite game would be a chase, an individual
Speaker 1: chase between predator and prey. Right there, there is somehow
Speaker 1: going to be a decisive conclusion. Either the predator might
Speaker 1: get a meal and the prey will die, or maybe
Speaker 1: the prey will escape and survive and the predator will
Speaker 1: lose and go hungry, and then there can be all
Speaker 1: kinds of sort of ranked intermediate outcomes, but there will
Speaker 1: be an outcome, right yeah. And that's the one thing
Speaker 1: that's important keep in mind with the infinite versus finite
Speaker 1: games is you can kind of nitpick a lot of these.
Speaker 1: You can say, well, well, you know what if they
Speaker 1: both the predator and prey both die, that's finite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's still finite. But but yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to the mind can help. But I said, I
Speaker 1: think pick at the distinction of finite and infinite, and
Speaker 1: you can kind of go down a rabbit hole with
Speaker 1: any of these examples. In addition to predator and prey competition,
Speaker 1: of course, the other great competition of the natural world
Speaker 1: is mating. Oh sure, this is a finite game though
Speaker 1: mating and I would say mating and procreation itself is
Speaker 1: an infinite game, right It doesn't have a finite outcome.
Speaker 1: Reproduction is something that seems to be designed to go
Speaker 1: on as long as it can and just keep the
Speaker 1: game going. But say in a more finite contest between
Speaker 1: two stags fighting for the right to mate with a
Speaker 1: female in the area, there is a winner and a loser.
Speaker 1: The winner gets to mate. There's no way to win
Speaker 1: the game of reproduction. On the other hand, it's played
Speaker 1: so that play may continue indefinitely down the generations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but but in terms of the actual encounter, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna end. Attenborough is going to tell you when
Speaker 1: it's over, and then you're gonna go to the next
Speaker 1: segment on the Nature documentary. Now, you actually pointed out
Speaker 1: something interesting about how it can get weird when you
Speaker 1: you think a game is one type, but then you
Speaker 1: can nitpick about ways that it could be the other type.
Speaker 1: One thing is that wars very often get presented as
Speaker 1: a finite game. Right there, there is a goal to achieve,
Speaker 1: we will win over the enemy. But it's interesting to
Speaker 1: consider the idea of war as an infinite game, as
Speaker 1: imagined by George Orwell in ninety four. You know, in
Speaker 1: Orwell's Dystopia, in that novel, war is not fought for
Speaker 1: the purpose of ultimately winning over the enemy and achieving
Speaker 1: some finite goal. The purpose of war, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like to control territory for the long haul. In
Speaker 1: the end, it is to be continuously at war, to
Speaker 1: fight continuously for political purposes. And in this circumstance, the
Speaker 1: purpose of war is not to win, but to be
Speaker 1: at war. And in the sense this makes war an
Speaker 1: infinite game. Of course, you know, many critics have argued
Speaker 1: that there are elements of this in the rationale for
Speaker 1: some real wars taking place in the real world. Now.
Speaker 1: I've seen this example brought up before, specifically by motivational
Speaker 1: speaker A Simon Cynic, who used the Vietnam War as
Speaker 1: an example of of an infinite war. But but I
Speaker 1: kind of want to go with a different, broader example,
Speaker 1: just to to lay it out. So in any story
Speaker 1: that pits besiegers against the besieged, and you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of like an army that is besieging a fortress, Uh,
Speaker 1: there are two games at play, So you can argue
Speaker 1: that the besiegers and attackers are playing a finite game.
Speaker 1: They are playing to take the castle. Their game ends
Speaker 1: when they actually conquer Troy or gond Or or gall
Speaker 1: got Rath. But the besiegers that offenders, their game is
Speaker 1: more infinite. Their game is survival, so they don't have
Speaker 1: to conquer their enemy, they just have to avoid being conquered.
Speaker 1: They have to survive. Well, yeah, that's interesting, because Cars
Speaker 1: ultimately says, though I think this sort of undercut some
Speaker 1: of the interesting parts of his metaphor. He says in
Speaker 1: the very last chapter of his book, there is but
Speaker 1: one infinite game. So therefore he's implying that life itself
Speaker 1: really is the infinite game, and the things within it
Speaker 1: are the finite games. But I think it's useful to
Speaker 1: imagine the other types of infinite games there can be
Speaker 1: within life. But of course, the way you point out there,
Speaker 1: there's sort of like levels that a finite game can
Speaker 1: be close or distant from the infinite game. The the
Speaker 1: attackers on a city are playing a finite game to
Speaker 1: achieve a finite goal, and for the people within the city,
Speaker 1: what's at risk in the finite game of defending the
Speaker 1: city is ultimately the viability of the infinite game of
Speaker 1: getting to continue living. Yeah, if you, if you really
Speaker 1: sort of pick it apart enough, you can you can
Speaker 1: bring a lot of these games back to the infinite
Speaker 1: game of survival. So we discussed the game of war.
Speaker 1: But how about one of the other great games that
Speaker 1: is continually covered by the media, the game of politics. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean there are ways of thinking about politics as
Speaker 1: a finite game or as an infinite game. There are
Speaker 1: lots of obviously finite games within politics, like an election,
Speaker 1: you know, as a clear outcome there's a winner and
Speaker 1: you're trying to win, or an attempt to pass a bill. Uh,
Speaker 1: these have finite win loss outcomes. But the entire political
Speaker 1: structure itself should be designed primarily to allow the continued
Speaker 1: existence and evolution of a civil society. You've got people
Speaker 1: and they want to live, and the goal of of
Speaker 1: a politics should be allow them to allow them to
Speaker 1: live and allow play to continue. But sometimes, of course,
Speaker 1: you get political actors who seem to lose sight of
Speaker 1: the infinite nature of the game, right, and that they
Speaker 1: have a kind of more finite total orientation towards politics.
Speaker 1: It's almost like you can win the game of politics.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee no matter where you are listening to
Speaker 1: this episode, you're gonna be able to find examples of
Speaker 1: that in your own political sphere. Yeah, I mean when
Speaker 1: we see it, that's like one of the most troubling
Speaker 1: and distasteful things we tend to see in politics, right
Speaker 1: when you see somebody who's who doesn't seem to have
Speaker 1: a an infinite view of what the future of their
Speaker 1: political system could be, but almost like they want to
Speaker 1: conquer it as a single act with an end goal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Though I will say on the buffet of distasteful things
Speaker 1: about politics that that does cover a number of the
Speaker 1: different steamer trays that are available. Yeah, that's the whole
Speaker 1: seafood section. On the other hand, it's you think about
Speaker 1: the infinite game, and you think about how you interact
Speaker 1: with the infinite game, and a lot of that does
Speaker 1: come down to breaking it up into finite games. Right. So,
Speaker 1: and even with politics, it can you can see where
Speaker 1: it can happen where it's a situation of like, well,
Speaker 1: yes I want ultimately I want this, but in the
Speaker 1: short term, I need to get this bill passed and
Speaker 1: may and getting that bill passed is a part of
Speaker 1: the infinite game, but it is a finite battle, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it comes down to you lose sight of
Speaker 1: the infinite in pursuing the finite. This is where I
Speaker 1: want to come back to your D and D example.
Speaker 1: So I think this is true about what I'm about
Speaker 1: to say. I think it's true about politics, but I
Speaker 1: think it's true about all kinds of things, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's going to be somewhat relevant to your D
Speaker 1: n D example. One of the things I keep thinking
Speaker 1: about ever since I started reading cars is how so
Speaker 1: much of our frustration with other people in life comes
Speaker 1: as a result of our belief that other people are
Speaker 1: not playing a game under its correct finite versus infinite distinction.
Speaker 1: And so when you're trying to play a finite game
Speaker 1: and other people engaged in the same activity or treating
Speaker 1: it as an infinite game, it can feel very annoying
Speaker 1: and tedious and pointless and frustrating. Right You're like, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get this done, I'm trying to get this outcome,
Speaker 1: and other people around me are just playing around as
Speaker 1: if they don't want to get to the point. And
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, when you're trying to play
Speaker 1: an infinite game and other players around you are treating
Speaker 1: it like a finite game, it can feel cruel and
Speaker 1: hopeless and depressing and unfair. And there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of games that are gonna have mixed players within them, right,
Speaker 1: some people treating a certain type of play space is
Speaker 1: finite and other people treating it as more infinite. And
Speaker 1: I bet you get that kind of conflict within a
Speaker 1: D and D game, right, You've got some people there
Speaker 1: who would be happy for the campaign to just go
Speaker 1: on and evolve forever and just continue being fun, versus
Speaker 1: other people who are very goal and outcome oriented within
Speaker 1: the game. Would you agree, Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, luckily,
Speaker 1: I think a game like Dungeons and Dragons tends it
Speaker 1: has stuff in it for for both types of players,
Speaker 1: Because on one hand, some may say, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I want to finish the story. I want to finish
Speaker 1: this campaign. I want to I want to beat the
Speaker 1: game like it's a typical video game, or they might
Speaker 1: they're they're they're thinking about leveling up. I want to
Speaker 1: get to that next level because then I get more
Speaker 1: more powers, more stats, you know, what have you? Or
Speaker 1: I want to get more loot, So you can think
Speaker 1: of all these sort of finite levels within what is
Speaker 1: ultimately in an infinite game. It's about the the storytelling
Speaker 1: and the experience and the possibilities within this, uh, this,
Speaker 1: this mutually created world. Though. That highlights to me in
Speaker 1: an interesting way, the differences between finite and infinite storytelling. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're there are very different ways that you
Speaker 1: can approach telling a story. Do you ever think about
Speaker 1: how different it feels to be in the hands of, say,
Speaker 1: a well written movie that has a tight plot, you know,
Speaker 1: well well conceived story structure, versus being in one of
Speaker 1: the opening seasons of a TV show where you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're in one of those first couple of seasons and
Speaker 1: the writers very likely do not know how the show
Speaker 1: is going to end yet. Um I mean, we must assume,
Speaker 1: based on the laws of physics and of economics, that
Speaker 1: at some point the show will come to an end,
Speaker 1: but it's not being written that way yet. It's just
Speaker 1: going on and expanding, and that can feel very different
Speaker 1: and almost more enticing in a way, because it feels
Speaker 1: like it feels more like life itself, like this could
Speaker 1: just go on. Yeah, I mean I feel that definitely
Speaker 1: with the game of their own series right now, because
Speaker 1: the the earlier books and earlier seasons, everything everything is possible.
Speaker 1: You don't know where it's going. But at this point
Speaker 1: in the in the TV series at any rate, it's
Speaker 1: become very finite, Like you know, everything is wrapping up
Speaker 1: in a set number of episodes, and there's so there's
Speaker 1: only so there are only so many battles that can happen,
Speaker 1: there are only so many shocking twists that can occur.
Speaker 1: You know. I couldn't help but think about Fallout four
Speaker 1: in all of this, I can't. I can't recall if
Speaker 1: you played the Fallout games before. For you, okay, so
Speaker 1: you know in that game, you you you level up,
Speaker 1: as is typical in these role playing games, but the
Speaker 1: higher level becomes, the more work it requires, more time
Speaker 1: it requires to reach that next level. For people who
Speaker 1: have played, can we basically say what it is? It's
Speaker 1: a post apocalyptic ultimately, I mean, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: set storyline in it, but it's also a sandbox world.
Speaker 1: It also has this open aspect and you can keep
Speaker 1: playing it no matter where you are in the various
Speaker 1: big and small storylines, so so there's a finite storyline
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. But you can just keep
Speaker 1: going around and doing different things, and you'd never run
Speaker 1: out of things to do. It's just sort of a
Speaker 1: limitless world, yes and no, right, because you can run
Speaker 1: out of worthwhile things to do, you can run out
Speaker 1: of interesting things to do. But there will always be
Speaker 1: some sort of rand. There will always be random monster
Speaker 1: encounters there will, you know, and I imagine there'll be
Speaker 1: a sort of a repetition on some of the random
Speaker 1: quests that pop up. But I was looking into this
Speaker 1: and according to the Fallout wiki, Fallout for does not
Speaker 1: have an actual level cap. So you can keep becoming
Speaker 1: more godlike. Yeah, you can keep you can tend to you. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you can keep playing forever. However, they say that there
Speaker 1: is a hard limit at level sixty five hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five. If you try to level past this point
Speaker 1: by any means, uh, then you'll crash the game due
Speaker 1: to the value overflowing back to zero. Oh that's so
Speaker 1: that seems like a kind of um, maybe not well articulated,
Speaker 1: but finite limit on something that seemed like it could
Speaker 1: be infinite, right, but I maintain that you would you
Speaker 1: would either go insane or just becoming just increasingly bored
Speaker 1: before you got anywhere close to level say sixty. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can get past, you know,
Speaker 1: level thirty. If you if you were in Stephen king
Speaker 1: short story of the Jaunt, and you were like sucked
Speaker 1: into the timeless nether realm between the fabric of reality,
Speaker 1: and you happen to bring your Xbox three sixty with you,
Speaker 1: then then I think maybe you could get close to
Speaker 1: that level more tedious than you think, more tedious than
Speaker 1: you think. Well, this, this doesn't make me think though
Speaker 1: about the fact that, on one hand, you could actually say,
Speaker 1: if we accept the laws of physics, there is no
Speaker 1: such thing as any infinite game in an objective sense,
Speaker 1: and that objectively no game will go on forever. Right,
Speaker 1: You'd run out of you'd run out of energy, you'd
Speaker 1: run out of useful energy, you'd run out of the
Speaker 1: ability to do work at some point an entropy in
Speaker 1: the future. But so that makes me think that I
Speaker 1: still think the idea of infinite games is very useful,
Speaker 1: and it reflects not really like what the actual potential
Speaker 1: future of the game is. But what the mindset of
Speaker 1: the player is that an infinite game could in fact
Speaker 1: come to an end within an hour. But what makes
Speaker 1: it an infinite game is the way the players treat it.
Speaker 1: They're treating it as if it could never come to
Speaker 1: an end. Right, So in that respect, fallout for is
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an infinite game as long as you
Speaker 1: have an infinite gaming attitude about it. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: and that difference in attitude can come through in all
Speaker 1: kinds of other things. I Mean, one example that I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about is the distinctions in how you might
Speaker 1: approach running a business. Now, I don't want to you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't gonna become a business podcast. Robert and are
Speaker 1: not known for our insights in business. But just one
Speaker 1: thing to think about is does a business exist in
Speaker 1: order to create things of value, employ people, live and
Speaker 1: grow and keep on doing stuff in the economy and
Speaker 1: for its employees, or does it exist on a sort
Speaker 1: of path of financial conquest with a terminal end goal. Uh.
Speaker 1: Does the leadership of a business think about like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to grow this until the point where we,
Speaker 1: you know, can sell or something like sell our position
Speaker 1: or something like that, or dominate the market. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this can get even more complicated because a business is
Speaker 1: usually going to be run by multiple leaders at various
Speaker 1: levels who might have somewhat different ideas about this, and
Speaker 1: the unspoken conflicts between the finite players and the infinite
Speaker 1: players in a business can create dysfunction. Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see that. On one hand, someone saying we we created
Speaker 1: this company to change the world. This other player in
Speaker 1: the game is sing, well, actually, we created this company
Speaker 1: so we can sell it to Microsoft, uh next quarter. Now,
Speaker 1: in both cases, the company may continue existing after a
Speaker 1: certain point that's being perceived is finite by the players,
Speaker 1: or a company may not continue. In fact, there is
Speaker 1: probably no such thing as an infinite company right that
Speaker 1: that will go on for the rest of time. But
Speaker 1: again it's about the mindset of the players. Are they
Speaker 1: thinking about this as something that is designed to be
Speaker 1: continuous and continue going on or something that has a
Speaker 1: winning condition? Now, Joe, you turned me onto a two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen interview with Cars on CBC's Ideas with Paul Kennedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually haven't listened to that, but I saw that
Speaker 1: Cars did it, and I know you're big into Paul
Speaker 1: Kennedy and his Optimist Prime, his Canadian Optimist prime voice.
Speaker 1: Uh so, I I let you know about that, knowing
Speaker 1: that you would go investigate and find out if it
Speaker 1: was worthwhile. Was it? It is? It's it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: The title you can look it up and I'll try
Speaker 1: and link to it on the landing page. It's definitably
Speaker 1: your mind dot com. But it's titled After Atheism, New
Speaker 1: Perspectives on God and Religion And it's a wonderful episode.
Speaker 1: Dealing mostly with the ideas presented in Cars. Cars is
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight book The Religious Case Against Belief,
Speaker 1: and he makes a compelling case that belief is actually
Speaker 1: the enemy of religion and that the true beauty of
Speaker 1: religion is its ability to foster new ideas and approaches
Speaker 1: to life. And this all ends up tying in with
Speaker 1: with this idea of finite and infinite games as well.
Speaker 1: He argues that when you start walling religion up in belief,
Speaker 1: you rob it of that power. I believe this, and
Speaker 1: by the extension, I do not believe in that it
Speaker 1: becomes a dogmatic exercise and authority and pits us not
Speaker 1: only against our fellow humans, but against ourselves. He makes
Speaker 1: the case that the closed mindedness and hostility of belief
Speaker 1: has corrupted religion and spawned violence all over the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, I've encountered this type of belief before. Like
Speaker 1: the idea that um that at its core, if you
Speaker 1: go back far enough in history, religion may not necessarily
Speaker 1: have been about about dogmatic beliefs like here is what
Speaker 1: God is and here's what you must do, but instead
Speaker 1: was more akin to a type of culture, like it
Speaker 1: involved settings and practices, ways of giving getting people into
Speaker 1: a certain state of minds, a contemplative state of mind
Speaker 1: or a thankful state of mind. Yeah, and and Cars
Speaker 1: touches on some of these ideas UH in Finite and
Speaker 1: Infinite Games as well, particularly the topic of myth and religion.
Speaker 1: So chapter seven UM in Finite Infinite Games is titled
Speaker 1: Myth provokes explanation but accepts none of it. So the
Speaker 1: idea is that a culture can be no stronger than
Speaker 1: its strongest myths. He says that stories attain the status
Speaker 1: of myth when they are retold and persistently retold solely
Speaker 1: for their own sake, so that essentially the core of
Speaker 1: a myth is a is an infinite storytelling tradition. It's
Speaker 1: the infinite game of telling a story. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he he points something out that I think this
Speaker 1: is rather obvious to anyone who's ever crafted, or or
Speaker 1: or consumed any amount of fiction or art. But he
Speaker 1: says that whenever you stop telling the story for the
Speaker 1: story's sake and tell it to drive home like a
Speaker 1: clear social or political message, then you're no longer a storyteller.
Speaker 1: You've become a you know, a preacher or a propagandist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is weird how stories. I feel like a stories
Speaker 1: can demonstrate values. I wouldn't argue with that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, when you start to get a sense
Speaker 1: that a story is being told to make, say a
Speaker 1: political point or an educational point or something like that,
Speaker 1: it becomes immediately far less interesting as a story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the thing is, even kids, little kids can
Speaker 1: tell when a children's book has an ax to grind,
Speaker 1: when it's clearly about it's it's not about the joy
Speaker 1: of sharing a story, it's about driving home some point
Speaker 1: about how they should clean up their room. So Car says, quote,
Speaker 1: great stories cannot be observed anymore than an infinite game
Speaker 1: can have an audience. Once I hear the story, I
Speaker 1: enter into its own dimensionality, I inhabited space at its time.
Speaker 1: I do not therefore understand the story in terms of
Speaker 1: my experience, but my experience in terms of the story.
Speaker 1: Stories that have the enduring strength of strength of myths
Speaker 1: reach through experience to touch the genius in each of us.
Speaker 1: But experience is the result of this generative touch, not
Speaker 1: its cause. So far is this the case that we
Speaker 1: can even say that if we cannot tell a story
Speaker 1: about what happened to us, nothing has happened to us.
Speaker 1: I love this. I mean I if you're a listener
Speaker 1: to the show, you'll probably know that we have generally
Speaker 1: a pretty healthy respect for the mythological storytelling tradition, and
Speaker 1: yet at the same time can can take plenty of
Speaker 1: issue with what dogmatic religions and stuff like that due
Speaker 1: to the world, especially when you've got a specific destructive
Speaker 1: belief that's being insisted on. Right. But the yeah, the
Speaker 1: mythological storytelling tradition is a wonderfully generative thing. Because one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think doesn't get broad up
Speaker 1: enough in discussion of creativity is how experience of the
Speaker 1: creativity of the others spawns the creativity within yourself. That
Speaker 1: people are inspired to tell stories because they consume stories,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of times the way stories happen
Speaker 1: is that you hear a story that's been told many
Speaker 1: times and you want to tell not exactly the same story,
Speaker 1: but a variation on it. Yeah, what would have happened
Speaker 1: if this had happened, or what if this character had
Speaker 1: thought this instead of what we've merely assumed to be
Speaker 1: the case. But of course, variation on the mythological storytelling
Speaker 1: tradition is great if that's allowed. But if you're insisting
Speaker 1: on a very finite point of view that the myth
Speaker 1: must convey, then variations on the myth are not going
Speaker 1: to be accepted. Right, And this is where he gets
Speaker 1: into the idea that ideology is the apple, it is
Speaker 1: the amplification of myth. He gets into this concept in
Speaker 1: the Ideas interview as well, that that belief in sacred
Speaker 1: text fix fixes the past and the future. He says, quote,
Speaker 1: it is the assumption that's since the beginning and the
Speaker 1: end of history are known, there is nothing more to say.
Speaker 1: Uh So, it's it's it's a treatment of myth that
Speaker 1: no longer promotes infinite interpretation. Uh, it's it's no longer
Speaker 1: a situation of saying, hey, what do you think this means? Instead,
Speaker 1: you're saying, this is the Mets message of the Holy Word,
Speaker 1: this is what the text means, and nothing else. So
Speaker 1: he proposes the use of religion as the necessary template
Speaker 1: for interacting with the world, for imagining the cosmos, etcetera. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I really like this, this treatment of myth and religion.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think back on stories that I grew
Speaker 1: up with, be it you know, the Christian Bible, or
Speaker 1: Greek myth the Lord of the Rings, or or my
Speaker 1: dad telling me the story the Battle of Hastings and
Speaker 1: Stanford Bridge. You know, I can't help but carry those
Speaker 1: with me and summon them in consideration of new myths
Speaker 1: and news stories and new ideas. So when I reached
Speaker 1: the point in my life where I started learning about Hinduism,
Speaker 1: for example, I could look at a character like Krishna
Speaker 1: and say, oh, well, you know, he kind of lines
Speaker 1: up with say this Jesus character in some respects. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, as far as A, B and C are concerned,
Speaker 1: like you bring the story, these stories with you to
Speaker 1: make sense of new stories and interpret them, but not
Speaker 1: as a like finite text about what is true and
Speaker 1: what should be believed, but as a sort of like
Speaker 1: generative mechanism. It causes you to be creative to think
Speaker 1: about things, right, Yeah, And he argues that the appeal
Speaker 1: of Christ and of Buddha both come down to the
Speaker 1: infinite nature of their quests. So God it becomes human
Speaker 1: in order to listen to humanity, immortal prince undertaking a
Speaker 1: spiritual quest to release everyone from all forms of bondage.
Speaker 1: And he says, quote, those Christians who deafened themselves to
Speaker 1: the residence of their own myth have driven their killing
Speaker 1: machines through the garden of history, but they did not
Speaker 1: kill the myth. The empty divinity, whom they have made
Speaker 1: into an instrument of vengeance, continues to return as the
Speaker 1: Man of Sorrows, bringing with him his unfinished story and
Speaker 1: restoring the voices of the silenced. WHOA. Now that is
Speaker 1: a sermon. So yeah. I wouldn't have necessarily originally thought
Speaker 1: how to apply the framework of finite and infinite games
Speaker 1: to types of mythology and religious storytelling, but that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting place to take it. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: when he does get into that in the book it
Speaker 1: it does make sense because he is a scholar of religion.
Speaker 1: But when I first encountered the idea, I originally started
Speaker 1: thinking about it in terms of technology. All Right, we'll
Speaker 1: hold that thought, Joe, because we're gonna take one more
Speaker 1: break and then we're back. Thank thank Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: idea of conceptions of technology in terms of finite or
Speaker 1: infinite games along cars is framework. So we've talked on
Speaker 1: the show before about Jarren Lannier, right, Yes, I believe so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's so. He's a computer scientist, technology philosopher, one of
Speaker 1: the most important minds behind the history and development of
Speaker 1: virtual reality. And interestingly, though he says that in his
Speaker 1: earlier years he was in many ways kind of a
Speaker 1: techno utopian guru, in recent years he has become increasingly
Speaker 1: critical of the role of digital technology in our lives
Speaker 1: and of the techno utopian mindset. Though I think you
Speaker 1: can still sound very positive about the potential of virtual
Speaker 1: reality when you get him going on it while acknowledging
Speaker 1: the dangers as well. But he was very critical, for example,
Speaker 1: of the crowdsourcing trends of Web two point oh in
Speaker 1: his two thousand tin book You Are Not a Gadget, Robert,
Speaker 1: I know you remember that crowdsourcing era. Oh yes, I
Speaker 1: do remember it well because it, uh, it does. It
Speaker 1: reared its ugly head in our own business here. Why
Speaker 1: should we write the articles. Let's get the people to
Speaker 1: write the Yeah. Yeah, let's you know, free content coming
Speaker 1: right out of the mouths of the mass. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I mean I and I say that as someone who
Speaker 1: loves Wikipedia and I love browsing crowdsourced articles about various things.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, I did mean to say mass
Speaker 1: singular and not mass because it is a monolith, isn't
Speaker 1: at once you're you're monetizing it. Yes. So. Lanier has
Speaker 1: also been very critical of the role of social media,
Speaker 1: the advertising driven model of digital content, with the idea
Speaker 1: that you know, advertising driven media platforms like social media
Speaker 1: tend to trend toward manipulation and the stoking of negative emotions,
Speaker 1: degrading the quality of relationships. One example I found is
Speaker 1: that he writes that if you can say you have
Speaker 1: thousands of friends on Facebook, quote, this can only be
Speaker 1: true if the idea of friendship is reduced. I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty true. He's also been really critical of singularity
Speaker 1: type thinking, which he's called cybernetic totalism, a sort of
Speaker 1: you know, reduces humans and human creativity towards this single
Speaker 1: achievement sort of point in history that we can get
Speaker 1: to and then the machines will be able to take over,
Speaker 1: and really everything that humans can do now, and all
Speaker 1: human creativity and culture and all that can ultimately be
Speaker 1: represented by computing power. Anyway, I found a section on
Speaker 1: his website that is a sort of cut chapter. He
Speaker 1: called it a deleted scene from his Q You Are
Speaker 1: Not a Gadget, where he talks about the idea of
Speaker 1: his old techno utopian guru talk and uh, in some
Speaker 1: ways in which he still agrees with it, in some
Speaker 1: ways he doesn't agree with it anymore. So he's talking
Speaker 1: about this idea of post symbolic communication, which is something
Speaker 1: that he envisions in the world of virtual reality. So, Robert,
Speaker 1: imagine you've got a virtual reality machine where you can
Speaker 1: use it to essentially, at very high fidelity, translate the
Speaker 1: contents of your imagination directly into some digital space that
Speaker 1: can be shared with other people without having to use
Speaker 1: symbolic encoding of things like words. Okay, so instead of
Speaker 1: writing a short story about a world that I've imagined,
Speaker 1: instead of painting it on a canvas, I am just
Speaker 1: like brain blasting it right in your face. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can transmit the contents of your imagination in a very
Speaker 1: high fidelity and convincing way into a place where you
Speaker 1: can experience them in sensory way, and other people can
Speaker 1: experience them as well. And that's sort of what he
Speaker 1: calls the idea of post symbolic communication. It's like you
Speaker 1: can get around having to use things like digital encoding
Speaker 1: of of you know, like drawings and words and stuff,
Speaker 1: all these things that are sort of bottlenext towards sharing creativity.
Speaker 1: He contrasts that path towards post symbolic communication with other
Speaker 1: types of quote ramps or visions of the progress or
Speaker 1: visions of possible progress in technology, like singularitarian thinking, where
Speaker 1: the power of technology through computation and artificial intelligence will
Speaker 1: will sort of cross an event horizon of power and progress.
Speaker 1: And here's where he brings in cars. He uses cars
Speaker 1: is framework of finite and infinite games to think about
Speaker 1: types of ramps or visions of technological progress, and this
Speaker 1: is a major reason some ramps are better than others.
Speaker 1: He argues, quote Here's how I like to put it.
Speaker 1: Good technology connects people in new and deeper ways, while
Speaker 1: bad technolog g merely grants people more raw power. Once
Speaker 1: you have the fastest car, the biggest bomb, the most
Speaker 1: capacious computer, what then it is an empty form of ambition.
Speaker 1: A drive for pure technological power is not only a
Speaker 1: finite game, but often a destructive one. And he writes,
Speaker 1: quote improving computation for its own sake instead of for
Speaker 1: the cause of empathy results in misfortunes like the plague
Speaker 1: of fragments were now enduring. Uh and also quote an
Speaker 1: approach to any underlying technological capability that solely expands human
Speaker 1: powers will probably lead to evil. And I really think
Speaker 1: about this in the context of the conversations we had
Speaker 1: earlier this year about social media, Like think about how
Speaker 1: the pure, open minded drive towards expanding the power of
Speaker 1: a social media platform like Facebook ended up manifesting in
Speaker 1: terms of horrible finite games like get as many users
Speaker 1: as possible onto the platform and then monetize you know,
Speaker 1: like that is a finite game, and that is a
Speaker 1: very destructive finite game ultimately, right, because it's it's in
Speaker 1: so many ways limiting of what good is actually possible
Speaker 1: through technology. So, ultimately I think Landier is saying that
Speaker 1: if we want technology to serve us, we can't just
Speaker 1: make it more powerful, because technology that, in a blind
Speaker 1: way is just made more powerful will tend naturally towards
Speaker 1: becoming a tool in a series of increasingly destructive finite
Speaker 1: games played by the people who have the most power
Speaker 1: to wield the technology. Instead, as technology progresses, we have
Speaker 1: to have an ethic of progress, and the ethic of
Speaker 1: progress should be one where the considering technology as part
Speaker 1: of an infinite game must be built into the technological
Speaker 1: advance itself. Okay, so it's not just about say, I
Speaker 1: can't help to think of it like a loud speaker
Speaker 1: creating a powerful loudspeaker. But then you have to also
Speaker 1: think about the message that's going through the loudspeaker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there must be a way of shaping the progress of
Speaker 1: developing louder and louder loud speakers so that I don't know,
Speaker 1: so that it's used for purposes that make people's lives better,
Speaker 1: Maybe for playing loud concerts and public that people would
Speaker 1: enjoy or something like that, and not to be used
Speaker 1: as a sonic weapon to pacify crowds of protesters or
Speaker 1: something like that. Because if you just say, well, it's
Speaker 1: just raw, you know, it's just increasing our power to
Speaker 1: do whatever. It's a tool, it could be good or evil.
Speaker 1: You know. He's pointing out the many ways that if
Speaker 1: you just give people more tool power that's morally neutral,
Speaker 1: it will just tend to get used for evil purposes,
Speaker 1: even unintentionally. People at Facebook or other social media platforms
Speaker 1: that have created all these things we've been pointing out
Speaker 1: and complaining about. Again, I want to emphasize I don't
Speaker 1: think they're necessarily evil people. They're not trying to do
Speaker 1: bad in the world. They just allowed a process to
Speaker 1: have evil consequences. Yeah, I mean, because basically, finite players
Speaker 1: are going to flock to whatever your technology is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: To think about another way that technological power could effect
Speaker 1: the balance of finite and infinite games. Um, you know
Speaker 1: remember that distinction we were making earlier about how you
Speaker 1: can win a finite game of an individual chess match,
Speaker 1: but you can't win the infinite game of chess itself, right,
Speaker 1: you can't walk out and say I just won chess. Everybody,
Speaker 1: I'm done. But what if you're a computer program like
Speaker 1: Alpha zero? That might actually change things, because then, you know,
Speaker 1: so Alpha zero is, as of the time of recording this,
Speaker 1: I think, currently the most powerful AI chess engine, but
Speaker 1: even a generation beyond that, maybe a chess engine that
Speaker 1: can just win without question a hundred out of a
Speaker 1: hundred games against any human player or any other player
Speaker 1: of any type. At this point, could you actually say
Speaker 1: that you've not just won mini games of chess, but
Speaker 1: the game of chess itself. You have reached a level
Speaker 1: of mastery within the game where you literally cannot be
Speaker 1: challenged by any conceivable player. So if you are able
Speaker 1: to do that, have you turned what was supposed to
Speaker 1: be and infinite game into a finite game? Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 1: you can make an argument that this is a case
Speaker 1: where you've broken the game by becoming too good at it. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, card counters are in a
Speaker 1: way accused of that all the time in uh, in
Speaker 1: the in Vegas game houses. Yeah. And under this scenario,
Speaker 1: it seems like like the new incarnation of the game
Speaker 1: could actually be designing better and better AI chess engines, right, Like,
Speaker 1: maybe human players can no longer participate in this infinite
Speaker 1: game as chess players against them, but they can still
Speaker 1: play the meta game of working on designing AI players.
Speaker 1: I guess until the AI AI designers outstripped the human
Speaker 1: AI designers. Well, you know, Banks got into that a
Speaker 1: little bit in the player of games, because Gurga is
Speaker 1: a master gamer, but he's no match for any of
Speaker 1: the minds he's He's practices some of these games on
Speaker 1: the way to the Empire of Azad and Uh, and
Speaker 1: he's no match for a powerful AI. But there's this
Speaker 1: distinction between the games that humans play in the games
Speaker 1: that the mind's play. Well, maybe that's an important distinction
Speaker 1: to keep in mind as we consider technological progress and
Speaker 1: how that affects human endeavor. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about like will humans become obsolete? People always
Speaker 1: ask variations on that question, like, as you know, automation
Speaker 1: becomes more productive, you know, suddenly, well, we have an
Speaker 1: economy where humans can't really do any meaningful work. You know,
Speaker 1: there's not much we can do that can't be done
Speaker 1: better by a robot. There are a lot of critics
Speaker 1: of that idea by the way, um, and I think
Speaker 1: Jared Landier is one of them. But if there's anything
Speaker 1: to that idea, one wonders like, does that even undercut
Speaker 1: our motivation to participate in the infinite game? You know? Uh?
Speaker 1: And how do we have to adapt ourselves to think
Speaker 1: differently about the infinite games we play and that make
Speaker 1: life worth living if we can't really compete in any
Speaker 1: of the smaller finite games within them? I agree, And
Speaker 1: I think in in the culture books you do again,
Speaker 1: you see computers playing more of the the infinite game,
Speaker 1: but leaving space either for the finite certainly for the
Speaker 1: finite games in which humans may play and the infinite
Speaker 1: game of their lives, but also realizing where they can
Speaker 1: play a pivotal role within these these overarching schemes. If
Speaker 1: you will, may there always be a place for us
Speaker 1: within the schemes. Yes, that's all. That's all I ask
Speaker 1: of our future AI overlords. Just let me. Let me
Speaker 1: have a role in your scheme whatever it is. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I could do it. I can smuggle some sort
Speaker 1: of sensor into a factory. I don't know. I leave
Speaker 1: it to you. I'm not the the artificial intelligence here. Yes,
Speaker 1: our power is finite, and so is our is our
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Speaker 1: And hey, if you want to support this show, I've
Speaker 1: said it, uh plenty of times before, but really, infinite number,
Speaker 1: an infinite number, that death of a finite number of
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Speaker 1: number of podcast websites out there that distribute our work.
Speaker 1: Give us infinite stars, Yes, infinite stars. Insist on it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I was laughing while you were talking.
Speaker 1: I was imagining already the infinite number of emails we're
Speaker 1: gonna get where people are explaining the rules of football
Speaker 1: to us. Yeah, well, I'm I welcome it, uh and
Speaker 1: more and more emails about finite and infinite. Really, anytime
Speaker 1: you start breaking down infinity, it just it complicates everything,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Yeah, anyway, infinite thanks to our excellent audio
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