On Games

Life's a game.
Life's not a game.

Let's begin where most discussions ought, and define what a game is.

Dictionary says:

...oh my! Long, confusing and in places contradictory!

That simply won't do. It's amazing that people even think that they communicate.

Games have rules.
Often the rules themselves have rules, including rules about how to create new rules.

Games can be played simultaneously--rules between simultaneous games can conflict or reinforce each other.

Hmmmm. It looks really messy from here.

As I sit, the children in my neighborhood, who range from 5-15, are playing across the street.

One of them just said, "Let's have a rule like...."

Some rules are assumed, unspoken--and some of those may be secret until someone initiates you into the local game by popping one of these rules on you--and it is often permitted to attempt to foist a 'new' rule upon a noob.

It appears that whatever humans do, they are likely to turn into a game or a competition. "Just to make things interesting."


The question becomes not: "Is life a game?" But; "Which rules and games will I play?"


Without humans, the rules of the game become the rules of physics as translated into matter/energy interfaces. Humans can choose, and in choosing change the universe.

Rules are limits which we set upon ourselves. Nature doesn't care.

Except that the fact that many lifeforms appear to create games. From cat's playing predator-prey to tigers sliding down hillsides in the snow to dogs chasing each other, games exist or are created. Often, they are quite obvious practice for 'grown-up' existence, but many appear to satisfy some itch deep down.

Beneath it all like the real world--a game for high stakes in which luck has a large role.