Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. All right, today's episode, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about board games. So the most obvious place to
Speaker 1: start here is, Joe, what about you? What are what
Speaker 1: is your favorite board game? Or what are what board
Speaker 1: games are you most nostalgic for? Well, uh, to have
Speaker 1: a very conventional answer. I have a lot of fun
Speaker 1: memories of playing Monopoly as a child, but I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about how the board games I got most
Speaker 1: excited about as a kid really had no staying power whatsoever.
Speaker 1: They weren't games that people would still be talking about
Speaker 1: or still playing really much twenty years later. I was
Speaker 1: very interested in games that had a lot of complicated
Speaker 1: physical apparatus, like I remember seeing the commercials for mouse Trap.
Speaker 1: I think the game was that had all these traps
Speaker 1: that would fall down on years, and I was really
Speaker 1: into that, though I don't know if I ever actually
Speaker 1: played it. It was a lot to set up in
Speaker 1: mouse Trap, but more recent versions of mouse Trap, by
Speaker 1: the Way, have simplified the set up a lot easier
Speaker 1: to play. The game itself is still pretty basic, but
Speaker 1: at least it's not this just box of junk that
Speaker 1: has to be assembled. Well. Another example I remember being
Speaker 1: super excited about but never actually playing, was I took
Speaker 1: a class when I took I was in a class
Speaker 1: when I was in elementary school's computer class, and it
Speaker 1: was one of those cases where they tried to make
Speaker 1: it cool by gamifying the class. So if you did
Speaker 1: good things in the class, you get points and you
Speaker 1: could spend those on prizes like it's Chucky cheese or something,
Speaker 1: you know, get a switchblade comb but that I never
Speaker 1: got enough points to get this one prize, but I
Speaker 1: always I did, and every time we went into the
Speaker 1: room and it was a it was a board game
Speaker 1: called the Omega Virus, and I just had, like with
Speaker 1: my wildest fantasies were about how cool this game was
Speaker 1: because it seemed like it involved a talking robot on
Speaker 1: the board, and I think the premise was like you're
Speaker 1: on a space station and an evil computer virus takes
Speaker 1: it over and you like go to spaces with your
Speaker 1: little figuring. You have to press the robot and it
Speaker 1: talks at you. It's like, you know, infection spreads and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't be sure because I haven't played it. But
Speaker 1: I I'm almost positive this game must be terrible, like
Speaker 1: not very fun, not very replayable. But I just sucked
Speaker 1: in by that that fluff component, just that this like
Speaker 1: machine that comes with it that you interact with. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure I would have been suckered in the same
Speaker 1: way by those horrible looking board games that have like
Speaker 1: VHS tapes that would accompany them. As has been documented
Speaker 1: on everything is terrible, like that Star Trek board game
Speaker 1: that has a the guy who keeps saying experience beach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned the fluff. We should go ahead and
Speaker 1: h and describe this for everyone who may not be
Speaker 1: familiar when when we when we talk about board games
Speaker 1: and just gaming in general. Uh, generally there is a
Speaker 1: distinct between fluff and mechanics, and I would add that
Speaker 1: there is an additional um part of this trifecta, that
Speaker 1: being materials. So, for instance, the pure mechanics of a
Speaker 1: game are just the rules of the game, how things move,
Speaker 1: how points are acquired, and how a winner or winners
Speaker 1: is determined. So like if someone's play testing a game
Speaker 1: that they've developed, it may have very little or even
Speaker 1: no fluff. It could just be a system of numbers,
Speaker 1: the kind kind of game that would would just totally
Speaker 1: not appeal to someone like me, like I like, I
Speaker 1: like a hefty, hefty dose of good fluff, fluff being
Speaker 1: the story, the character is the setting, Like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: moving pieces around on the board. What are they? Oh?
Speaker 1: They it's a king and a queen and an army
Speaker 1: and some guy's riding horses. Okay, now you're talking fluff.
Speaker 1: An example of a game I think with no fluff
Speaker 1: is like go. It is just tiles with rules or not.
Speaker 1: You know, pieces on a board with rules, and there's
Speaker 1: no imagery. There's no story there. You know that all
Speaker 1: that's gone. Maybe you could apply things like that to it,
Speaker 1: and maybe people have in some cases for all I know.
Speaker 1: But the Bear game itself is the draw is just
Speaker 1: the mechanics. Then you've got all these other games I
Speaker 1: think of, like candy Land and the Game of Life,
Speaker 1: where really what's attractive about the game is like the
Speaker 1: illustrations on the board and the idea of what your character,
Speaker 1: the story of what your characters are doing as you,
Speaker 1: you know, spin a wheel or roll dice and advance
Speaker 1: along spaces. Yeah. So so the fluff and candy Land
Speaker 1: is really good. But also the material, you know, it
Speaker 1: has a has a neat looking board. Also, I think
Speaker 1: it wasn't Life, the one that had the pophumatic bubble.
Speaker 1: That being a bit maybe I'm thinking of another game.
Speaker 1: I think you are. I think Life has a spinning
Speaker 1: wheel like the Wheel of Fortune, because you know, it's Life.
Speaker 1: So there was some other game. I'm sure listeners will
Speaker 1: will will clue us in here had the papoumatic bubble.
Speaker 1: You know, it had this material aspect of the game
Speaker 1: where you're like, that looks so fun. I just want
Speaker 1: to press that thing all day and play this game,
Speaker 1: even though it might suck. Um. Like one example from
Speaker 1: my childhood, I remember being a super board with Monopoly.
Speaker 1: I hate Monopoly the passion, but I do remember loving
Speaker 1: Fireball Island like that was. That was this game. For
Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't played it or or seen that it's
Speaker 1: been it's actually been reissued. There was like a Kickstarter
Speaker 1: for it. It's this game with tremendous material and fluff features.
Speaker 1: It is a it's like a three D topographic island
Speaker 1: and there is a monster head um temple at the
Speaker 1: top of a volcano in the center that shoots out
Speaker 1: marbles at certain times in the game to knock your
Speaker 1: player back down the mountain, and so it's just you know,
Speaker 1: it had a great ad campaign, but it was clearly
Speaker 1: the game itself is not that complicated and probably not
Speaker 1: that good. I haven't played it since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: but but clearly it was leaning very heavily on material
Speaker 1: and fluff. But this makes board games an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to discuss in the context of invention, because board games
Speaker 1: are not the only, not the only thing we use
Speaker 1: that has appeal on both the material or not the
Speaker 1: both the mechanical side and the fluff side. I mean
Speaker 1: lots of inventions. Uh, the success of them depends on both.
Speaker 1: Some things become very popular because they are inherently very
Speaker 1: useful in their most basic functional sense, and other things
Speaker 1: become popular just because there's something esthetically cool about them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, um. Like, Like, another game that instantly comes
Speaker 1: to my mind is Space Hulk, which was a game
Speaker 1: that that I saw advertisements for as a kid, and
Speaker 1: I wanted just because the the Warhammer forty thousand fluff
Speaker 1: to it was so good. You know, it's like these
Speaker 1: space soldiers and armor fighting xenomorph like Aliens, the tyranned
Speaker 1: gene Steelers, and so I was instantly in. I was
Speaker 1: instantly sold by the fluff, the the figurines look great.
Speaker 1: So I was sold by the material and later when
Speaker 1: I actually got to play it, it's a fine game
Speaker 1: as well. So all three of these things can line up,
Speaker 1: and when they do, you often have a game that
Speaker 1: stands the test of time. But the curious thing about
Speaker 1: time in board games is you can look at something
Speaker 1: like Monopoly, or you can look at a game like
Speaker 1: Space Hulk, and if you strip them down, there's nothing
Speaker 1: about this game that could not exist thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, because you're
Speaker 1: ultimately just moving pieces around, like the fluff can change,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like what is space? So it's
Speaker 1: it's people in monsters and people have been battling monsters
Speaker 1: in human myth uh for in a sense time out
Speaker 1: of mind. Uh. There's nothing about about most of these
Speaker 1: games when you strip them down that can't exist in
Speaker 1: another age. But they but they didn't. There's this there's
Speaker 1: still this evolution of of the mechanics of games, the
Speaker 1: way we play games and the sort of games we play. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is really interesting the way that you know it
Speaker 1: can seem like, how how did it take thousands of
Speaker 1: years for this game to be invented? But then again,
Speaker 1: almost all board games are you could probably say, derivative
Speaker 1: of forms of other board games that previously existed. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a few basic types. There's like the type
Speaker 1: where you try to reach a space on a board
Speaker 1: before everyone else does, or the type where you try
Speaker 1: to accumulate the most of a certain type of token
Speaker 1: or you know, money, type of currency. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: there's the kind where you have armies that battle each
Speaker 1: other until the other one is eliminated. So while we
Speaker 1: keep coming up with new games that have never existed before,
Speaker 1: almost all the games we come up with are in
Speaker 1: some way that they've got ancestors in terms of their
Speaker 1: basic format and play style. Absolutely, so you could take
Speaker 1: various modern games take them back in time, and not
Speaker 1: only would would would even ancient people recognize it as
Speaker 1: a game. They would probably they might even be able
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, that's that's that's kind of like
Speaker 1: this game that we play. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: it's a racing game, or it's a fighting game, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Of course, board games are not something that is found
Speaker 1: in nature. They are a product of human civilization, so
Speaker 1: they had to be invented at some point. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be looking at today. What is a
Speaker 1: board game, what does it mean, how is it invented?
Speaker 1: And what role does it play for us? Now, before
Speaker 1: we explore the the invention and the role of board
Speaker 1: games in human culture, we usually like to ask the
Speaker 1: question about an invention, what came before it? Right? That
Speaker 1: helps you understand what it actually is. And so I
Speaker 1: was trying to think what came before the board game.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, there was a there was
Speaker 1: a pre board game board game that we know about,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't quite like that. But one thing we
Speaker 1: can be very sure of is that before we had
Speaker 1: board games, what do you do with a board game?
Speaker 1: You play it. So before we had board games, we
Speaker 1: had play That's right, if you look at a at
Speaker 1: a board game or you know, in this whole episode,
Speaker 1: you can also think a little outside of just board
Speaker 1: game and think of games that maybe don't actually involve
Speaker 1: a board or a play surface. What are they but
Speaker 1: kind of a simulation of something in reality with lower stakes.
Speaker 1: Usually uh, and that's something that can exist even without
Speaker 1: some sort of physic coal apparatus or materials. Right. And
Speaker 1: certainly that's something we see animals do as well. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean we certainly don't see animals play board games.
Speaker 1: We do see them play yeah, yeah, we we see them,
Speaker 1: let's say, play fighting where it's like they're fighting, but
Speaker 1: they're not really fighting. The stakes are not the same, right,
Speaker 1: And this is a really interesting psychological and biological question.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me. But also there's a whole field
Speaker 1: of study around the study of play. What is play? Exactly?
Speaker 1: What is a game? It's one of those things. You know,
Speaker 1: it's in the pornography category. We know when we see it.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to set out a comprehensive definition of
Speaker 1: what exactly play is, or what exactly a game is.
Speaker 1: In fact, the philosopher Ludvig Wittgenstein used the example of
Speaker 1: a game as his prime illustration of how not all
Speaker 1: useful categories can be bounded by a fixed set of
Speaker 1: universal characteristics. You know, this is one of his philosophical principles,
Speaker 1: like some concepts and categories instead operate on this principle
Speaker 1: that he called family resemblances. Quote a complicated network of similarities,
Speaker 1: overlapping and criss crossing. And to give a better example
Speaker 1: of this, I want to quote from a section of
Speaker 1: his book Philosophical Investigations that explains this thinking with with
Speaker 1: a few abridgements. So Wittgenstein Writ's quote. Consider, for example,
Speaker 1: the proceedings that we call games, I mean board games,
Speaker 1: card games, ball games, Olympic games, and so on. What
Speaker 1: is common to them all? For if you look at them,
Speaker 1: you will not see something that is common to all,
Speaker 1: but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. Look,
Speaker 1: for example, at board games with their multifarious relationships. Now
Speaker 1: pass to card games. Here you find many correspondences with
Speaker 1: the first group, but many common features drop out and
Speaker 1: others appear when we pass next to ball games. Much
Speaker 1: that is common is retained, but much is lost. Are
Speaker 1: they all amusing? Compare chess with knots and crosses? Or
Speaker 1: is there always winning and losing or competition between players?
Speaker 1: Think of patients. In ball games, there is winning and losing,
Speaker 1: but when a child throws his ball at the wall
Speaker 1: and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at
Speaker 1: the parts played by skill and luck at the difference
Speaker 1: between skill and chess and skill and tennis. I think
Speaker 1: now of games like ring a ring of roses. I
Speaker 1: think that's like ring around the rosie. Uh. Here here
Speaker 1: is the element of amusement. But how many other characteristic
Speaker 1: features have disappeared? And we can go through many many
Speaker 1: other groups of games in the same way, can see
Speaker 1: how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of
Speaker 1: this examination is we see a complicated network of similarities,
Speaker 1: overlapping and criss crossing, sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.
Speaker 1: And I've always thought that's a really interesting observation that
Speaker 1: we have these categories. Game is one of them. I
Speaker 1: guess play would be another one where we can identify
Speaker 1: it when we see it. We point out a thing
Speaker 1: and say that's a game or that is play, but
Speaker 1: can't put together a comprehensive definition that includes everything that
Speaker 1: is a game or everything that is play. Right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love I love what he's said here because it
Speaker 1: it makes me think, for instance, of something like like bowling,
Speaker 1: Like bowling is is this uh this activity that you know?
Speaker 1: Certainly one can make an argument for game, One can
Speaker 1: make a strong argument for sport, and I think there
Speaker 1: are elements of the two, like bowling. To me, it
Speaker 1: feels like an activity where the world of sport and
Speaker 1: game converge and perhaps cause a little bit of category confusion.
Speaker 1: Wait do I detect from this? Are you staking out
Speaker 1: of position that sports are not games? I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: saying that the distinction kind of falls into what he's
Speaker 1: talking about here. You know, like you you look at
Speaker 1: the baseball game, you look at a game of monopoly
Speaker 1: or cards, and yeah, there are some things that line
Speaker 1: up about them, and yet there is a distinctive difference
Speaker 1: between the two. Yeah, it can be really difficult because
Speaker 1: so if Witgenstein is right, we're faced with a problem
Speaker 1: trying to say, organize a scientific study of the idea
Speaker 1: of play or of games, because we want to understand
Speaker 1: what play is and what role it plays, what games are,
Speaker 1: and what purpose they serve. But we have trouble creating
Speaker 1: like an airtight definition. There always seem to be some
Speaker 1: examples of things that just don't quite fit the definition
Speaker 1: you come up with. But we would still look at
Speaker 1: those things and call them games or play. And yet
Speaker 1: for the purposes of research, it's important to have clear definition.
Speaker 1: So a lot of what these researchers do is just
Speaker 1: try to come up with the definition, and they can
Speaker 1: end up feeling kind of, uh, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the word is, kind of kind of multifarious and plotting
Speaker 1: as far as definitions go, Like, they've got a lot
Speaker 1: of clauses in them, but I want to read one
Speaker 1: I came across that I feel like is a pretty
Speaker 1: good biological definition of play. Might not get everything, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the best I've read. And it was
Speaker 1: set up by a University of Tennessee researcher named Gordon
Speaker 1: Burghardt in the American Journal of Play in two thousand ten.
Speaker 1: And this is this is his definition. Quote. Play is
Speaker 1: repeated behavior that is incompletely functional in the context or
Speaker 1: at the age in which it is performed, and is
Speaker 1: initiated voluntarily when the animal or person is in a
Speaker 1: relaxed or low stress setting. So that that that might
Speaker 1: be kind of hard to wrap your brain around, but
Speaker 1: I want to break out it's got like five parts there,
Speaker 1: because already I'm thinking this applies to everything from hunting
Speaker 1: to well, no, that's the part. Okay, So, so first
Speaker 1: thing is that the behavior is not functional. It doesn't
Speaker 1: contribute to current survival. So hunting wouldn't count unless you're
Speaker 1: doing it recreation. I feel like a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who do it recreation.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who certainly need to
Speaker 1: hunt to some degree or certainly consume the the food
Speaker 1: that they obtain through hunting. But anyway, I continue, Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so you might in that case class recreational hunting in
Speaker 1: fact as a form of play. Maybe it is, but
Speaker 1: so it's at least in the animals who need to
Speaker 1: hunt to survive. Hunting is not play because hunting is functional.
Speaker 1: So play is not functional. Number Two, it's done for
Speaker 1: its own sake. It's this is what we would call fun.
Speaker 1: It's intrinsically motivating. Right. You don't have to do it
Speaker 1: for some other reason. It is itself attractive to you
Speaker 1: as an activity. Right. You're not expecting to obtain food
Speaker 1: by it. You're not expecting to obtain a mate by it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you were doing it just for the love of the game, right.
Speaker 1: It pulls you in on its own power. Three, The
Speaker 1: behavior is different from normal survival behaviors in at least
Speaker 1: one respect. So something that is exactly the same as
Speaker 1: things you do for survival, even if you're not currently
Speaker 1: doing it for survival. That's probably not play right. Play
Speaker 1: tends to, in Burghart's words, quote, it is incomplete generally
Speaker 1: through inhibited or dropped final elements. Think about the way
Speaker 1: like play fighting can like have the first parts of
Speaker 1: a fight there, but don't actually go in for the
Speaker 1: kill or anything. So gladiator competition play in some cases,
Speaker 1: well that might be something up for debate. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: Burghart also points out exaggerated awkward or precocious movements um
Speaker 1: or behavior patterns with a modified form sequencing or targeting
Speaker 1: um so like attack behaviors against a thing that would
Speaker 1: not be normally a target of attack. I think about
Speaker 1: the way, like a dog will play with a ball
Speaker 1: like it is a piece of prey that I don't
Speaker 1: think the dog actually thinks that the ball has meat
Speaker 1: in it. It's playing with the ball, right, But it
Speaker 1: does the same things to the ball roadly that it
Speaker 1: would do to say, a rat that was in the house. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the third thing. Fourth thing, behavior is repeated. You
Speaker 1: know you can do it more than once. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then fifth, it happens when stress is low and this
Speaker 1: doesn't have to mean that there is no stress, but
Speaker 1: it just means it's not something that happens while you're
Speaker 1: currently like be chase to buy a predator. And given
Speaker 1: this kind of definition, again, I think we can probably
Speaker 1: find ways that it might not perfectly fit what our
Speaker 1: intuitive ideas of play are. But I think that's a
Speaker 1: really good place to start, um and and that sort
Speaker 1: of helps us think about what the roles of play
Speaker 1: and games might be for biological organisms like us. All right,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back, and we're back. One of
Speaker 1: the things, of course, we mentioned earlier, is that we
Speaker 1: know play predates things like board games because play is
Speaker 1: present in non human animals. I mean, it's there, and
Speaker 1: they're actually debates over how many animals it's present in, like,
Speaker 1: for example, it's extremely common among mammals. It seems almost
Speaker 1: universal among mammals. Like people have generally seen the way
Speaker 1: dogs will chase and wrestle each other, the way kittens
Speaker 1: stalk and pounce on each other and engage in various
Speaker 1: forms of play. Fighting cats are I think, sometimes even
Speaker 1: more playful than people give them credit for. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: especially to the indoor variety that are cut off from
Speaker 1: their natural world and of course, you know, partially insane
Speaker 1: because of what we've done to them. Uh, they're kind
Speaker 1: of in that permanent state of kiden hood. For instance,
Speaker 1: my cat um stalks and attacks my feet pretty much
Speaker 1: every day, but does not seem to be doing it
Speaker 1: with intent to um maime and consume my feet. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would guess that's probably play. It is
Speaker 1: done intrinsically for the fun of doing it right for her,
Speaker 1: it's not. I don't find it tremendously fun myself, but
Speaker 1: she loves it. She can't get enough of it. Well,
Speaker 1: why can't your feet take a joke? It's more the
Speaker 1: claws and the teeth than the joke. I'm all hot
Speaker 1: for the joke. Uh. So, yeah, we we know this
Speaker 1: is there in these Uh. I guess we consider them
Speaker 1: since their predatory mammals. We you know, we think about
Speaker 1: them as having like more complex brains. But it's also
Speaker 1: there in say, mice like I was reading an article
Speaker 1: by the researchers Leelle and Dugatkin and Serena Rodriguez for
Speaker 1: a Berkeley publication, and they were pointing out the researches
Speaker 1: found that mice usually start playing about fifteen days after
Speaker 1: they're born UH, and that play activities peak around nineteen
Speaker 1: to twenty five days. And this seems to coincide with
Speaker 1: neurosciences revealed coincide with development of synapses in the cerebellum
Speaker 1: and those those synapses are necessary for muscle control in life.
Speaker 1: So there seems to be something going on where like
Speaker 1: young mice are playing around the same time their brains
Speaker 1: are developing the stuff that they need for for running
Speaker 1: around and surviving with with muscle control. And also, mice
Speaker 1: tend to show greater brain development when they're raised in
Speaker 1: environments with wheels and other play structures than in environments
Speaker 1: without them. Give my something to play with and their
Speaker 1: brains do better. So this is the basic idea that
Speaker 1: of play as a rehearsal for something, play is practice
Speaker 1: for skills one will need as an adult, yes, or
Speaker 1: play being necessary for just normal brain development um. And
Speaker 1: both of those are strong theories about why play cists
Speaker 1: in the animal world. That will come back to that
Speaker 1: in some caveats in just a minute. UH. An interesting
Speaker 1: question I came across is is their play among non mammals.
Speaker 1: We know it's pretty much universal among mammals, but there
Speaker 1: are all these debatable reports of play among various birds
Speaker 1: and reptiles. Um, it does seem, for example, that ravens play.
Speaker 1: They do stuff that's hard not to look at and
Speaker 1: say that's play. Like juvenile ravens are attracted to novel
Speaker 1: objects almost in the way, uh, you know, like like
Speaker 1: a dog would be with toys, and they seem to
Speaker 1: play around with them. One really interesting thing I came
Speaker 1: across was in the zoologist Vladimir Denett's published a paper
Speaker 1: in Animal Behavior and Cognition describing the play behaviors of
Speaker 1: crocodilians playful crocodiles, which apparently was not news to people
Speaker 1: who worked regularly with these animals. But you might be wondering, well,
Speaker 1: how the heck does a crocodile play, or an alligator?
Speaker 1: You know, what does that look like? They're all kinds
Speaker 1: of ways. Uh. Sometimes they chase after inflatable balls, They
Speaker 1: surf in waves, they snap at flowing water, They give
Speaker 1: each other piggyback rides, they blow bubbles. These are all
Speaker 1: things that seem to meet these biological and ethological definitions
Speaker 1: of play that's that's crazy, because I would certainly have thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: the raven might play, it is an intelligent creature, but reptile, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have been there with you. But but apparently
Speaker 1: this is just common knowledge to people who are hands
Speaker 1: on with crocodilian's a lot even fish. There there is
Speaker 1: debate about this about whether this really counts is play.
Speaker 1: But for example, they sometimes jump when there's no need to,
Speaker 1: when stress levels are low. Why there's nothing chasing them,
Speaker 1: They're not getting anything from it. We've talked about fish
Speaker 1: jumping on stuff to blow your mind before. Uh, and
Speaker 1: so there there are some ideas that maybe they're playing.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is a form of play. Now, once you
Speaker 1: get down to invertebrates, it really does get much trickier
Speaker 1: to find things that could reasonably be classed as play, except,
Speaker 1: of course, in the case of you know what cephalopods, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, I was. I was, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about insects and I was thinking, oh, well, well, Dr
Speaker 1: Seth Brundle told us that there there are no insect
Speaker 1: politics and he didn't say anything about play. But it
Speaker 1: kind of stands to reason that insects would not play.
Speaker 1: But then of course, I forget about about the the
Speaker 1: invertebrate superstars of the cephalopod world. Yeah, which are you know,
Speaker 1: the true aliens on Earth? Like octopuses are clearly one
Speaker 1: of the most playful animals on this planet. Though their
Speaker 1: play might seem very strange to us. They seem to
Speaker 1: enjoy puzzles and new toys and challenges, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: like pull on people in what seemed to be strange
Speaker 1: examples of social play. There are also even reports of
Speaker 1: play like behaviors among insects like ants and wasps, but
Speaker 1: these reports this is very controversial. Well, I guess a
Speaker 1: lot of this is getting into an individual organisms tendencies
Speaker 1: towards neophilia, uh, the the you know, the likelihood that
Speaker 1: they're gonna seek out novel experiences or items if there's
Speaker 1: if they are you know, a curious creek that benefits
Speaker 1: has a survival benefit in trying things out, such as
Speaker 1: we talked about raccoons on stuff to blow your mind before.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course raccoons, being mammals, do seem to
Speaker 1: be somewhat playful. But also we talked about the idea
Speaker 1: that like raccoons who have stronger, stronger neophilia instincts, the
Speaker 1: ones that seek out novel objects and approach them rather
Speaker 1: than avoid them. They tend to do better and say
Speaker 1: urban environments, which that makes sense. You approach some novel
Speaker 1: objects in an urban environment, you will often get some
Speaker 1: fries out of it or something. Um. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: I want to come back and kind of rope in
Speaker 1: just a basic overview of the ideas about why play
Speaker 1: exists in animals, what biological purpose does it serve? Of course,
Speaker 1: this is something we don't fully know the answer to
Speaker 1: right this is this is an unsolved question, but there
Speaker 1: are some some strong hypotheses with with some evidence behind them.
Speaker 1: So one we already mentioned is that play is training
Speaker 1: for crucial survival or reproductive skills. And in the words
Speaker 1: of the English psychologist Peter case If this would mean quote,
Speaker 1: play primarily affords juveniles practice towards the exercise of later skills.
Speaker 1: And you can already probably imagine tons of reasons for
Speaker 1: thinking this is the case, Like think about, um, how
Speaker 1: much of the play we see in other animals and
Speaker 1: in humans frankly resembles forms of survival and reproduction behavior.
Speaker 1: Play very often looks like fighting, hunting, escaping, feeding, or
Speaker 1: mating actions that you know mimic These activities in an
Speaker 1: exaggerated or incomplete form make up a huge portion of
Speaker 1: play behaviors. But there are also there's some evidence against
Speaker 1: this too. There as studies in many animals, including some
Speaker 1: types of mice and merecats, that have found that animals
Speaker 1: who play at a skill like hunting or fighting do
Speaker 1: not later show advantages at this skill compared to individuals
Speaker 1: that play at the skill less. So maybe sometimes this
Speaker 1: isn't the case. Uh. There's also the question of why
Speaker 1: forms of play sometimes continue into adulthood to survival skills
Speaker 1: are mastered, or why some play behaviors, especially in humans,
Speaker 1: do not mimic physical survival behaviors. A classic example of
Speaker 1: this would be the board game Yes. A couple of
Speaker 1: alternate theories that came across because they were mentioned by
Speaker 1: dugat Ken and Rodriguez. One is that play is essentially
Speaker 1: for like social species, it's for learning the rules. This
Speaker 1: is from the University of Colorado biologist Mark baykoff Uh,
Speaker 1: and he basically says that play is useful for developing
Speaker 1: a sense of morality and social skills. Like play allows
Speaker 1: animals to experience and internalize their social clan sense of fairness,
Speaker 1: of inclusion and exclusion of justice, and what cheating is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is a very good, good point and
Speaker 1: something that I see coming up in my own life
Speaker 1: with a six year old playing some board games with
Speaker 1: him while he's also learning how to play chess at school,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is you know, certainly there's
Speaker 1: a there's a stressing abstract thought and learning systems of
Speaker 1: rules and strategy, but a lot of it is like
Speaker 1: learning how to lose, learning how to win, how to
Speaker 1: do both of those things gracefully, how not to cheat,
Speaker 1: how to respond to cheating like these are all all
Speaker 1: sort of aspects of the general exercise. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: think that that's a strong possibility as well. Another theory
Speaker 1: is from the check researcher Mark Spinka, who says that
Speaker 1: play is to help animals not necessarily just practice individual
Speaker 1: skills like hunting, fighting and all that, but to generally
Speaker 1: prepare for the unexpected. It's how an animal readies its
Speaker 1: brain to be surprised by life and deal with that
Speaker 1: surprise gracefully. So things like being knocked off balance when
Speaker 1: you're not expecting it, or things like encountering failure in
Speaker 1: a in a chase or something like this. Another way
Speaker 1: of putting this is that play and games serve to
Speaker 1: increase versatility. This is this is very very good point,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking about like various physical sports, a lot
Speaker 1: of it does seem to have a it seemed to
Speaker 1: stress bodily awareness and being able to react physically to change.
Speaker 1: And then most board games of any of any note,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some level of you go into the
Speaker 1: game with a certain strategy, there's a certain way you
Speaker 1: can and perhaps will win. But then the best laid
Speaker 1: plans right foiled foiled. You have to figure out, well,
Speaker 1: how am I going to react to this and still
Speaker 1: try and achieve my initial goals. Maybe there's a different
Speaker 1: way I'm going to have to win after all. Well,
Speaker 1: and this, you know, you you can see it in
Speaker 1: the way that we really we have an extremely derisive
Speaker 1: attitude toward people who do not lose or face adversity
Speaker 1: in games. Well, you know the person who flips the
Speaker 1: table when they get when they you know, get frustrated
Speaker 1: in risk or something that's like an archetype we all
Speaker 1: know about. We all know that guy, and that behavior
Speaker 1: is strongly frowned upon right now. Part of it might
Speaker 1: be because they're playing Monopoly or some garbage game like that,
Speaker 1: but but no, Yeah, people who react like that to games,
Speaker 1: they can probably react like that to to just about
Speaker 1: any game. And I think one of the important lessons
Speaker 1: of gaming, like one that I continually try to embrace,
Speaker 1: is in enjoying the way in which you lose, Like
Speaker 1: I think, I think it's a testament to of a
Speaker 1: well designed game, because I've also played some games where
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, this game is kind of BS and
Speaker 1: I'm losing. Uh, there's really what am I doing? You know?
Speaker 1: But but a really good game, You're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: see disaster is coming, and isn't it interesting how it's
Speaker 1: playing out? What can I do to minimize disaster? That
Speaker 1: can sometimes become the new game that you're playing that
Speaker 1: is a really great kind of game. I haven't even
Speaker 1: thought about that, games that are interesting to lose. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So, one more theory I want to mention before
Speaker 1: we move on. The last one I came across was
Speaker 1: in a presentation called what is play for by the
Speaker 1: Penn State professor Gary Chick, and this discusses the possibility
Speaker 1: that play is favored by sexual selection, that it's at
Speaker 1: a Playfulness is a signaling mechanism of fitness in adults,
Speaker 1: and that might answer why even adults are playful and
Speaker 1: not just children. Like animals including humans, tend to prefer
Speaker 1: mates that play, because play is interpreted as a signal
Speaker 1: of a few things. Play signals youth, youthfulness, play signals
Speaker 1: good health, play signals intelligence, and it signals good socialization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are all solid points. But plus, in the more
Speaker 1: of the human context, there's a sense of leisure there, right,
Speaker 1: Like this individual has space in their life for something
Speaker 1: of little or no consequence, like a game. Right, I
Speaker 1: mean in the animal context, I think that's part of
Speaker 1: the good health signaling. Right, If you show off that
Speaker 1: you can play a game, you're showing off that you're
Speaker 1: not starving and sick and at the edge, Like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: and I'm chasing a ball. This isn't gonna feed me,
Speaker 1: but I'm big enough I can catch something later. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, we don't know which of these theories
Speaker 1: are correct, and there are other ones too, we don't
Speaker 1: have time to chase them all on here. I guess
Speaker 1: you could also posit that of course play is not
Speaker 1: for anything that it doesn't serve any adaptive biological purpose.
Speaker 1: But given how widely play is selected for, I really
Speaker 1: find this unlikely. But anyway to come back to board
Speaker 1: games here, Given all of this we've looked at, I
Speaker 1: think one of the interesting questions to ask is what
Speaker 1: kind of play does a board game represent? And how
Speaker 1: does does a board game fit into this whole model.
Speaker 1: So if you take the view that well, maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of play is training for skills later in life.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what most of play is for in the
Speaker 1: animal world, that's obviously plausible for a lot of different things, because,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, how many types of play involved
Speaker 1: things that are necessary for survival, like chasing, fighting, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, playing house, imaginative playing with skills of you know,
Speaker 1: maintaining a domestic life, that kind of thing, right, finding
Speaker 1: your mystery date, um, you know, creating your ensuring your
Speaker 1: financial future, battling barbarians um or or or so simply
Speaker 1: just responding to luck, responding to chance, responding to to
Speaker 1: unforeseen events. Well, I think that last one might be
Speaker 1: especially relevant with games with board games, because what sets
Speaker 1: board games apart from so many of these other games
Speaker 1: like play fighting, play chasing, playing house and all that
Speaker 1: is that unlike these physical sports and stuff, board games
Speaker 1: become almost entirely abstracted from any physical activity that is
Speaker 1: important for survival or reproduction. They're abstract games. Their games
Speaker 1: taken into an imaginary space that you don't act out
Speaker 1: full behaviors with your body, you know, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: becomes even though you may have some impressive, uh fluff,
Speaker 1: you may have some you know, impressive materials, some very
Speaker 1: nice figurines, etcetera, it's still largely something that is taking
Speaker 1: place in the mind, with the aid of some physical
Speaker 1: materials and of course the system of rules. With that
Speaker 1: in mind, I think we should maybe take a break
Speaker 1: and then come back and folk us on some of
Speaker 1: the earliest known board games and and see what we
Speaker 1: can make of them. Alright, we're back. So in researching this,
Speaker 1: we we look to a number of different sources, but
Speaker 1: of course I ended up picking up Brian and Fagin's
Speaker 1: excellent The seventy Grade Inventions of the Ancient World is
Speaker 1: a fun starting put place. Uh. He only devotes two
Speaker 1: pages to board games, but it provides a nice overview
Speaker 1: and one of the things that he drives home is
Speaker 1: that board games are probably as old as human culture.
Speaker 1: That pretty much any ancient or modern society has some
Speaker 1: sort of board game. It just seems innately tied to
Speaker 1: how we think and how we use objects and rules.
Speaker 1: And you can even go so as far as to
Speaker 1: say that they're a defining element of human society. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously they came out of something though, right, But but
Speaker 1: the details are lost to the myths of history. It's
Speaker 1: unlikely that there's a single necess city or breakthrough that
Speaker 1: evolved into game playing. But there are a couple of
Speaker 1: key theories that I think are worth considering. So the
Speaker 1: first is that, and this ties in with some of
Speaker 1: the discussions we've had about play, is it is the
Speaker 1: the safe sublimation of competition and rivalry. Oh, this is
Speaker 1: often a theory about sports as well, That it does
Speaker 1: something to uh. It takes an instinct that we have
Speaker 1: that can be destructive and gives us an outlet for
Speaker 1: that instinct that is not destructive. Right. You know, today
Speaker 1: we have a game night in which say employee employee,
Speaker 1: fellow employees, or friends or family members members will gather
Speaker 1: together and attempt to crush each other so that one
Speaker 1: may rise up victorious over the rest. This would be
Speaker 1: terrible if we did this four real zes. But since
Speaker 1: we're doing it within the confines of a board game
Speaker 1: or card game or what have you, Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: perfectly acceptable, it's even beneficial. I mean, look at the
Speaker 1: way people practice sports fandom. You can clearly see in
Speaker 1: this that we have some powerful instincts that that that
Speaker 1: caused us to want to band together in groups and
Speaker 1: support of, you know, against a common enemy that's also
Speaker 1: banding together. We have, I think some inherent warlike instincts,
Speaker 1: and I think it would probably be bad if we
Speaker 1: just had these instincts bouncing around without any way to
Speaker 1: express them. That wasn't actually harmful. But generally speaking, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with with far lower stakes. Yes, even if there
Speaker 1: is money on the line, it is still generally generally
Speaker 1: your life is not on the line right now. The
Speaker 1: second idea, and this one, this one I really find interesting,
Speaker 1: is that board games emerged out of ritual and divination practices. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. Now. Of course, divination practices would
Speaker 1: be what I would be trying to answer an unanswerable
Speaker 1: question or gain some piece of knowledge by the invocation
Speaker 1: of the gods or spirits or something, usually using a
Speaker 1: physical medium. Yeah too. Yeah, and sometimes it's overt it is, say,
Speaker 1: asking spirit um deceased loved one or an ancestor, or
Speaker 1: a god or a goddess or a supernatural entity for help.
Speaker 1: Other times it's it's a bit more obscure, like what
Speaker 1: you're actually asking and why you're using a particular means
Speaker 1: to do so. We had an episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind where we talked about the eaching where
Speaker 1: we get into a lot of this. Yeah, talking about
Speaker 1: the eaching is essentially a randomization engine for divination that
Speaker 1: depends on physical objects to create and record randomized events. Uh.
Speaker 1: Specifically uh tossing a few coins, laying some sticks down
Speaker 1: to keep track of what what the coins tell you,
Speaker 1: and then referring to a system of rules to tell
Speaker 1: you what these lines mean, and then of course how
Speaker 1: you should act what you should expect based on that. Now, remember,
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind episode, we talked
Speaker 1: about how even though you know, we're not positing that
Speaker 1: sort of ledge methods where you like, you know, cast
Speaker 1: lots or something or actually giving you, say, knowledge of
Speaker 1: the future or anything like that, they could still be
Speaker 1: useful or adaptive in that they might tend to prompt
Speaker 1: action when you were otherwise frozen, Like it's possible, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just faced with a problem, you don't know what
Speaker 1: to do, and in fact it's the case that really
Speaker 1: any action is better than no action, and thus consulting
Speaker 1: a divination method gives you impetus to go forward with
Speaker 1: some type of response. I remember in that issuing episode
Speaker 1: that we did, we we looked to a quote from
Speaker 1: Julian Jaynes, who is the individual that was behind the
Speaker 1: the bicameral mind hypothesis. But but this particular quote has
Speaker 1: has little to do with with with that particular hypothesis.
Speaker 1: But he was talking about sortilage, and he said quote.
Speaker 1: But this simplicity, even uh triviality to us, should not
Speaker 1: blind us from seeing the profound psychological problem involved, as
Speaker 1: well as appreciating its remarkable historical importance. We're so used
Speaker 1: to the huge variety of games of chance, throwing dice
Speaker 1: through let wheels, etcetera, all of them vestiges of this
Speaker 1: ancient practice of divination by lots, that we find it
Speaker 1: difficult to really appreciate the significance of this practice historically.
Speaker 1: It is a help here to realize that there was
Speaker 1: no concept of chance whatever until very recent times. So
Speaker 1: he had to think about and he's tying that in
Speaker 1: a little bit to his hypothesis. But but for the
Speaker 1: most partly thinking of the primordial uh, you know, ancestors
Speaker 1: to the board game, to games of chance being simply
Speaker 1: a way of of figuring out how to act, Like
Speaker 1: what I must do something? But how do I possibly
Speaker 1: weigh these two things? I must appeal to some other force? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's something to that. We we
Speaker 1: can't know this for sure, that you know, ancient or
Speaker 1: prehistoric people's had no concept of chance, But judging by
Speaker 1: their writings when we have access to those, it does
Speaker 1: seem like they didn't really have much of an idea
Speaker 1: of endomness, at least to me. It seems more like
Speaker 1: there's a general belief in sort of like determinism by
Speaker 1: the gods or by some kind of power of fate
Speaker 1: that you know, win something that that appears random happens,
Speaker 1: say even just the outcome of a dice roll, that
Speaker 1: was the will of the gods for it to happen
Speaker 1: that way, And so if you imagine board games in
Speaker 1: this context, they would take on a very different cast, right,
Speaker 1: every time you throw the dice, which I guess at
Speaker 1: that time probably wouldn't have been dice, but would have
Speaker 1: been something like, you know, sticks that fall in a
Speaker 1: certain way to tell you how many places to move
Speaker 1: or what the outcome of something is, or a knuckle
Speaker 1: bones or a common one. Yeah, yeah, I rattle the bones.
Speaker 1: I think there's this old Babylonian inscription that's like a
Speaker 1: gambler's lament that says like, woe, woe, woe to me
Speaker 1: the knuckle bones. It's like, you know, oh no that
Speaker 1: you know, they gave me bad fate. But the bad
Speaker 1: fate could be within a game, and within the game
Speaker 1: this would still be interpreted, perhaps as a deliverance by
Speaker 1: the gods or or a punishment by the gods, like
Speaker 1: the gods are determining who wins your dice game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like you're going, all right, God,
Speaker 1: I need some help on this. Give me a sign,
Speaker 1: all right, I don't see a sign. What I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do is I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this stick. If
Speaker 1: it lands this way, I'm gonna assume that's a yes,
Speaker 1: and if it lands the other way, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take that as a no. So balls in your court. God,
Speaker 1: here we go. But what if it's not a yes
Speaker 1: or no about a question in your life, but about
Speaker 1: do I get to advance a space in this game
Speaker 1: on the board? Wow? Imagine if that was the case.
Speaker 1: Every time we play a board game, a divine being
Speaker 1: has to has to like clock in the day, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, they're playing Arkham Harror. I'm gonna be here
Speaker 1: all night. I hate this one. Can't they just play
Speaker 1: play checkers? You know? I wonder if this may come
Speaker 1: in as one of the things I often wonder about
Speaker 1: is like, why do some religions forbid games of chance
Speaker 1: or forbid gambling? What is it about that activity that
Speaker 1: makes it detestable to the religious authorities and the people
Speaker 1: who come up with these religious dogmas. I wonder if
Speaker 1: games of chance, especially in the ancient frame of mind,
Speaker 1: tend to suggest a belief in like consulting demons and
Speaker 1: a non sanctioned spiritual authorities, you know, so that when
Speaker 1: you roll a die or roll a knucklebone, you may
Speaker 1: in fact be uh having a consult every time you
Speaker 1: do it with some kind of illicit spirit, with a
Speaker 1: demon or something. Huh. And it would be interested to
Speaker 1: come back and do an Invention episode on gambling. But
Speaker 1: I also wonder, and I may be completely off on this,
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's ever a case where Okay, if
Speaker 1: a board game or a game is simply a simulation,
Speaker 1: a simplification with lowered stakes, if you then raise the
Speaker 1: stakes again, does that become gambling? And it's because that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I always think about gambling. It's like
Speaker 1: playing cards for fun, that's fun, playing cards for money. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've taken taken something fun, and you've made it a
Speaker 1: little dirty, and you've made losing feel more real, and
Speaker 1: you've made winning a little more icky. Somehow everyone's mileage
Speaker 1: is going to vary on that. Well, but that's my
Speaker 1: take on I think there could also be when you're
Speaker 1: talking about not just games of chance, but like adding
Speaker 1: the gambling element, yes, which does seem to be often crucial,
Speaker 1: you know, is their money on the line there? You
Speaker 1: could also just say that it's like, well, it's a
Speaker 1: basic social control problem because for some reason, where there's gambling,
Speaker 1: there also tends to be disorder and crime. You know,
Speaker 1: gambling tends to lead to fights and murder and stuff.
Speaker 1: It could just be something like as simple as that, right.
Speaker 1: I know, we were looking at at some sources about
Speaker 1: Islamic law and the interpretation of Islamic laws concerning games
Speaker 1: of chance versus games of skill, and it seems like
Speaker 1: for the for the most part, based on what we're
Speaker 1: looking at, generally gambling is bad, gambling is against the rules.
Speaker 1: But games that have dice in them, if there are
Speaker 1: games of skill, you know, it's generally okay. So that
Speaker 1: specifically the uh, you know, dungeons and dragons is fine.
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference, opinion among difference. Yes, you're
Speaker 1: still you're still going to find some some individuals that
Speaker 1: have you know, there are a lot stricter on this,
Speaker 1: and and and stricter on the interpretation and would say
Speaker 1: that no, if their dice involved, or there's some sort
Speaker 1: of chance element, then then it is not permitted. You know.
Speaker 1: Going back to the sort of adaptive or revolutionary framework,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can fundamentally class games of chance
Speaker 1: versus games of skill as as having different kinds of
Speaker 1: roles in our biology and our psychology. Yeah, yeah, probably so.
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe that's again one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: it's so perfect when when those two things are balanced
Speaker 1: in a single game where you do need skill to win,
Speaker 1: and yet there are these these these unpredictable moments, these
Speaker 1: these turning points that can totally change the outcome, and
Speaker 1: no amount of skill, Like maybe skill will be essential
Speaker 1: to survive those twists and turns. Yeah, I mean, dealing
Speaker 1: with dealing with unforeseen circumstances is a skill in a way.
Speaker 1: The the skill of versatility is the ability to face
Speaker 1: the vicissitudes of fate and come up with a with
Speaker 1: a way around. Like candy Land is definitely a game
Speaker 1: that requires no skill. You know, if anybody has ever
Speaker 1: played with the child knows virtually it's just all random movement.
Speaker 1: There's there's not really any there are no decisions to
Speaker 1: be made. You're the complete whims of the universe. When
Speaker 1: it comes to that, that's going to be the one
Speaker 1: that God's really hate clocking in for because they have
Speaker 1: to do all the work. But then you have games
Speaker 1: like chess right where yes you're having to respond to
Speaker 1: changes that are perpetrated, but they're perpetrated by your opponent
Speaker 1: at any rate. I do want to drive home that
Speaker 1: whether we're looking at this idea of of games and
Speaker 1: board games as the safe sublimation of competition or as
Speaker 1: something that emerged out of divination practices, uh, we can't
Speaker 1: really know for sure. There's evidence for both of these. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're likely other reasons in play as well, including just
Speaker 1: the desire to do something that is amuses you, something
Speaker 1: that is fun. But I'm still haunted by that question.
Speaker 1: How did the thing that amuses us, the thing that's fun,
Speaker 1: become moving around little tiles on top of a pattern surface,
Speaker 1: or you know, or like rolling a knucklebone and seeing
Speaker 1: how many of a piece of tokens we got to take,
Speaker 1: or something such a strange and abstract way of approaching games,
Speaker 1: which in their core, they should involve the body, right,
Speaker 1: they should involve like you should be playing house, or
Speaker 1: you should be play fighting, you should be running a race,
Speaker 1: but instead we're doing it in this abstract space with
Speaker 1: these little representative figurines. I mean, it almost seems like
Speaker 1: it suggests to me that there could be some kind
Speaker 1: of relationship between the emergence of board games as this
Speaker 1: abstracted form of play and the emergence of writing as
Speaker 1: this abstracted form of representing thoughts, this abstracted form of speech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: taking what's going on inside our minds and put in
Speaker 1: externalizing it, because they think of one of the key
Speaker 1: things that our mind does is we're we're simulating future events.
Speaker 1: We're engaging in mental time travel, both past and future.
Speaker 1: We're trying to envision what is going to happen and
Speaker 1: how we're going to react to stuff like that happening.
Speaker 1: And it's a purely mental, uh, mental exercise. So it's
Speaker 1: in a sense, planning it all out or doing just
Speaker 1: very abstract versions of planning it all out in a
Speaker 1: physical system in a board game like that's that's perfectly
Speaker 1: in keeping with the spirit of play fighting, but it's
Speaker 1: a different type of fight. It's the kind of fight
Speaker 1: that that that really only conscious beings are capable of engaging.
Speaker 1: This is really interesting, and that's why I am so
Speaker 1: excited to come back next time and talk about the
Speaker 1: earliest to known evidence of board games. What do the
Speaker 1: earliest board games look like? What are they? That's right,
Speaker 1: it's it's there's some fascinating examples to to run through.
Speaker 1: But we've run the full course for this episode. So
Speaker 1: in the meantime, as you're waiting for next week's episode
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