Nature And Value Of Play-Ridge
#notesFromPaper Year : Tags : Authors: Ridge
Play is important for value theory
Humans manifest neoteny
We can even recognize play in other species!
Some discussion of soccer with a gun
Play is exploration during the good times
If play is something you do during the good times, why is it that playing video games is an escape from / something often done when you have something more pressing to do?
Discussion notes from a reading group about this paper:
Value theory asks us what is important in life. But so, why isn’t “play” talked about more in value theory? “An agent is playing just in case the agent is engaged in unscripted activity for the fun of it” (edited) Play is beneficial, e.g. in preventing dementia and promoting mental health Play is an application of good stress, which allows for exploration and learning Ridge is frustrated that most discussions around play don’t mention fun Work is not the opposite of play, since you can involve playful aspects in your work. Drudgery is the opposite of play – So that was a paper summary, but now we’re criticising the paper Different languages have strict distinctions between “games” and “play”. Because of that, this paper may not be that mind blowing for non-English speakers Self determination theory argues that games are enjoyable for three reasons: Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness (edited) We like playing games repeatedly for competence: we want to “git gud” at the game. This even applies somewhat to music and movies. When we rewatch a movie, we can predict what’s about to happen, which gives us a feeling of control and simplicity on the opposite hand, playing unique, difficult, and unscripted games is beneficial in that you learn new things
Rules seem restrictive in games, but they’re actually beneficial since they prevent dominant strategies and allow for exploration free from domination by these strategies
So, just to share my ideas in the written format here about the paper. Michael Ridge, the author, intends for this paper to establish a definition of “play” that everyone working on the field can start using. I’m not so sure if he achieved that goal, since there are a few problems (in my opinion) with his account, but, nevertheless, there are some very positive aspects to it.
Supposedly, he provides an inside about “play full-stop”. An example would be a kid rolling in the mud. However, in Portuguese (I’m Brazilian), we already have a word for that kind of activity (“brincar”), so his distinction between “play” and “play full-stop” don’t seem novel to my ears. Working in analytic philosophy myself, I don’t like the emphasis on extracting knowledge from daily use of language, since it is also English (the paper does mention German, but that’s all).
His notion of “unscripted activity” is too broad. I can think of many activities that are unscripted, such as exploring an environment. To be fair to the author, he would argue that many activities are not classified as “play” but they have a “playful” dimension.
He is less committed to his definition of fun, which, in my opinion, it would lead to similar problems (i.e. some activities being fun but not according to his criteria). Nevertheless, this might be the strongest point in his paper. It’s true that most of analytic philosophy don’t take fun seriously. Even though games cannot be defined as always involving fun, “playing” (in the sense of “playfulness”) certainly seems to involve fun. This has some interesting implications. For example, instead of talking about gamification, we should be talking about “enhancing the playful dimension of work-related activities”. I would say it’s a good paper. It has some interesting points. However, I don’t think he reached his goal. His final words in the paper: “I can at most characterize the present paper (tongue firmly in cheek) in Kantian lingo as a sort of Groundwork for Any Future Metaphysics of Play” – I’m not sure if his definition of play can indeed be the groundwork for any future work in this area. (I know Michael Ridge personally. He is currently working on a book on the philosophy of play and games. From all of his work, what I personally like the most is what he talks about the value of playing and games. This paper does not really go into that question, though.)
