Friday, April 15, 2011

Gaming as philosophical fad?

I think there's a lot to learn from how we learn in games. James Gee and others are developing critical ideas about games - game studies growing to the same level of analysis that film studies has achieved. I think there's a lot of insight being developed into how games work, why we find them engaging and enjoyable, and even how that can play out in the rest of our lives - how we can understand motivation and economics using game mechanics.

However, I realized that people who see everything as a game (which includes me) are probably historically myopic. This new technology has opened our eyes to a facet of the world, and it's exciting and will help us understand our minds better. But I predict that 200 years from now my obsession with games and learning will look similar to Descartes' obsession with the circulatory system. When he was working, the circulation of blood was a brand new discovery. And it does help us understand not only our biology but other systems as well (water cycle, nutrient cycles, etc). But it's not the one model to explain everything. And neither are games. Sigh. I guess life will still be complicated and challenging 200 years from now.

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