Play, Systems, Beauty and You (Terrible Midnight Ideas)

Just random ramblings. If you expected anything with substance, sorry.

I would like to ponder for a minute about the way we interact with the world and play, a little bit. Perhaps, in foolish ways that won't bring much value. We're still gonna have fun with some philosophical-ish ideas that will borrow just a little bit from anthropology, game design, and systems theory. Won't bother you with more than basics, so no need to sweat!

(Not what we're doing here)

I have to it however, that one could start citing concepts from books like Homo Ludens, going on and on and on about the magic circle the way Huizinga describes it.

"All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the 'consecrated spot' cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds [...] within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart."

I think this should do it, but basically, from Huizinga's point of view, play happens in a playground we call "the magic circle". It is unaffected by the external rules of the world (in his opinion. Debated sometime), does not affect the outside either, and it's pretty much its whole isolated sandbox with special rules. It's an interesting way to see play, and this author is a reference in that field, due to the fact that he is one of the rare people to have studied how play is inherent to human nature in such detail.

To me, games, and by extrapolation, play, tend to first and foremost be a safe tool to teach/learn, fail, experiment, hopefully before facing off (or not) against the real thing. Gregory Bateson (cool guy, system theorist) seems to agree with that, but there is also the aspect of deep self expression that we see in Game Design (aka creation of ludic systems), such as described by Jesse Schell.

I am one of these folk who may sound a bit classicist (the artistic movement), and go on rambling about how life's systems are elegant (in the systemic sense, more on that later) and how such elegance defines beauty. I, however, deeply disagree with classicist undercurrents. It stems from one main thing: the definition of elegance.

To many, an elegant system is a system with "as little parts as possible". And to classicists, elegance comes from simplicity, symmetry. So close, yet the nuance makes it so distant. To me, although I do wonder why you'd read my ideas, elegance is how we define it in systems theory: not just as simple as possible, but the best ratio of emergent properties/elements. Or perhaps, meaning/nodes, value/nodes, or whatever you want to call it. A simpler way to say it would be: count the elements of your system. Count the connections between the nodes. Are there more connections than nodes? Then you're trying to make something elegant. (At least that's one of the ways we define it in practice and what I said is very vulgarized)

(I love this heursitic game designers keep using for elegance)

And when entire systems are connected to each other in more ways than there are systems connected forming a bigger system, and that you can recursively dig into each one of them like you would into fractals, to the point where every single element is full of meaning? This is how you know a system is real and breathing. When the loops breathe and the linear systems flow, it truly is beautiful, in the rawest of ways. And we are lucky enough, us humans, to be able to look at these little nodes like we would at stars, and play. "Look ma', this system is shaped like a sheep!"

Alright, maybe not that way. Moreso in a "What if we mixed together this idea and that faraway concept...Ah, to link them, we would need this, and that, and..." like what you see when you try to watch a wikipedia speedrun (an actual thing, it is quite funny to behold). It's magic, alchemy, wizardy, perhaps even witchcraft followed by potato farming and political stunts, and it's beautiful, and sometimes dumb: usually both.

Try to play with this world once in a while, discover a new system, connect it to something silly, maybe talk about it. I beg of you, play with the systems. They love you, and, I am quite certain, so do I. Although we have likely never met, I know for a fact that you are a system (in a beautiful way, not the cold and dry machinery you are likely thinking of although this whole post was about poetry and play in systems), and if I get the chance to truly grasp your inner machinations, of course I would love you.

Because to know and understand is to love. To look right into a system and to be able to navigate it like you would your own house.

Anyway, see ya. Hope you had fun, and I also hope that wasn't too dumb of a waste of your time. Try to give another chance to systems: they can also be warm and fuzzy and fun and existential. Not just cold machines. Alright?

Take care, and have fun!