There is a point of beautiful overlap between modern computational thinking and the Cartesian method.

Descartes has four stages for any problem:

1. Start From Nothing
   1. DNA
   2. DYD
2. Break It Down
   1. The second ·was· to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as possible and as might be required in order to resolve them better.
   2. KTP
3. Join The Dots
   1. Starting with the simplest and most easily known objects in order to move up gradually to knowledge of the most complex.
4. Represent The Facts
   1. And the last ·was· to make all my enumerations so complete, and my reviews so comprehensive, that I could be sure that I hadn’t overlooked anything.
   2. KGN
   3. KTF

Four centuries later we get the idea of computational thinking expressed as:

1. Deconstruction (BID)
   1. Break the whole into parts.
   2. Break the systems into sub-sytems
2. Patterning (JTD)
3. Abstraction (JTD)
   1. The Big Picture.
   2. What emerges?
   3. Is it harmonious?
4. Algorithms
   1. An input solves an output.
   2. A series of instructions to solve a task.
   3. A logical system.

Learning to use the above methods drives understanding, just as they drove The Enlightenment and and the Age Of Reason and digits.

Please read my previous post on Winability before this one.

Winability is a regulator of continued playability. It is the driver of the game and it has been thus since caveman first played Spoof. But then along comes this new model that works by a hijack this key playability driver, Winability. In a freemium game, no matter how deep and complex and rich and narrated and aesthetic it is, the game’s winability has been hijacked, and the ransom is your time.

I have really enjoyed some Freemum games. Boom Beach. Crown Rush. Smart games. Deep in the strategies and complex enough to pique a good learning response. But then, because the fundamental winnability of the game is determined not by skills and smarts but by how much the player is  prepared to wait.

Note the difference. It is not like spending time to learn the intricacies of a game. It is spending time directly so that you can progress in the game. Ponder that it is a profound difference within this small world.

Time is the greatest game parameter and the greatest life commodity. These games have built in them, at the base, the incentive to waste the player’s time.

I think it is mean to waste someones time on purpose. I think if a restaurant puts a thirty minute lag on their orders just  to make them seem not processed then that is mean.

I can see no real distinction between this and freemium games.

When you Break It Down it becomes clear that there are a handful of shared game vectors that make good games good and bad games boring: Learnability, Playablity, Newness…etc. These all propagate or not the emergence of fun.

Hopscotch, COD, Draughts, Poker… they all share these. But they share them differently.

Hopscotch lacks something that Patience has. Perhaps more than one thing. Even without investigating we can imagine that whatever is lacking from Hopscotch is an aspect that continues to contribute to the playability of Patience over time.

I think the ninety year old would affirm that “I play patience for fun” just as much as the nine year old player would.

One game attribute is Winability. This is distinct from Challenge, I think. Winability it is about the pure competitive aspect of the game, internally and externally and how that aspect needs a sweet balance to maintain fun over time.

Winnability is a key concept in CGP.

Tic-Tack-Toe, like its identical twin,  Naught’s and Crosses, and also like battleships and Connect 4  and Hangman are all examples of games with an decreasing winability profile.  There might be a bit of a jump at the start, but after that it is a pretty accelerating drop.

For example: If you think about the opening tactics of Connect 4 you can see the key structures that cause the jump in Winability. But after this and, say,  the value of diagonals, and so on, the winnability plummets. It lacks Depth and Complexity and it has a small possibility space.

Connect 4 is a good game. I have played it much and will play it again. But I could never play it always.

Winnability can be seen as the learning the harmonies between wining, loosing and neither. It is about how this harmony evolves as a player’s game evolves.

If you win every game then that game is not going to be fun. If you loose every game, the same.

In the middle, somewhere, is the harmonic  where the lasting fun can happen.I continue with with chess and uniwar. It may stop one day.

Winability needs to self optimise. We see this often in Backgammon. New tactics entail new strategies and victories.

I havent got much better at Chess over the years. But my winability has been balanced.

If winability isn’t balanced then the player’s engagement will fade. It will either have become too easy or too hard and with too little variance from this.

The potential for online games means that Winability can be normalised. Is this good? You could have it so that players always played demonstrably equally skilled players.

I think that  Imbalanced Winability is one of the key reasons gamers stop playing a certain game, especially because it is hard to maintain over time.; Diminishing Returns on all Parameters.

If you look at any ongoing tournament, in any game, you will see self organisation in action. The players by and large settle at the level of their comparable players.

In order to balance winability the game and the opponents(s) must interact in a way that requires an increase in the game smarts and skills.

It is not just about the wining the game it is about understanding the win, whoever wins. If you can see why you have lost then there is a level at which you have won.

Should you continue playing a game you know you will loose?

I think Winability cannot be maintained without a big enough possibility space. I guess it needs depth and complexity, but I am not sure. A game like Bejeweled is shallow and simple but because of the hand/brain/eye aspects Winability emerges outside the rules. It is external to the game, from the player’s body and mind. This doesn’t happen with chess, does it?

Winability is ones ability and interest to see the game in full. It has to be fun.

Using the Cartesian method we could enumerate this question as:

1. What is a computer game?
   1. What is a computer?
      1. A system designed to logically process information.
         1. System: an causal structure
            1. Structure: A consistent arrangement of elements.
            2. Causal: Making something happen or not.
               1. A causes B if…
               2. “If the engine hadn’t stopped there would have been an accident.”
            3. Designed: Made with intent for purpose.
            4. Logically: principles that flow without contradiction from:
               1. The law of The Excluded Middle
                  1. X is either true or not true.
               2. These principles are AND, NOT and OR.
                  1. There are principles derived from these like XOR.
   2. What is a game?:
      1. An activity that satisfies the following:
         1. It has rules
         2. It has objectives
         3. It is done for fun
            1. What is Fun?
               1. A fun activity increases positivity without there necessarily being a corresponding external effect.
               2. An activity is fun if someone says they do it for enjoyment.

Close your eyes and imagine an ordinary, small, red ladies glove.

Imagine that in the wrist part of the glove is a slit and one side of this is a small red button. Imagine that on the other side of the slit is a small loop that can go around the button, to hold the glove in place on a hand.

You have just imagined a glove. Now imagine this glove floating in a void of nothingness. No other things, no time, no light, no observer. Just the glove. All there is is this glove. Imagine the Glove Universe.

In fact it seems that one cannot imagine a universe that’s just a small red ladie’s glove. It is not conceptually possible for a number of reasons:

You can’t imagine something being “small” if thats’ the only thing there is. Smallness is a relative property, it needs more things to be realised than just one.

You can’t imagine something as being red if there is no light and no observer. Colours don’t make sense in the glove universe. You can  imagine the surface of the Glove having properties that, were it on your left hand right now it would look red to you or I.

Perhaps the most interesting reason for why you cannot really imagine the glove universe is because a glove is a special kind of form called an “enatiomorph”. A donut shape is not. Nor is a cube. The letter L is enatiamorphic in two dimensions. A glove is a three dimensional enatiomorph. 

It must be right or left hand, it cannot be neither, but it cannot be either without a counterpart. If we had two gloves, and they were incongruent (didn’t fit together) then we would be able to say of one, This is Left and of the other This is Right. But with just one, we cannot.

Things are enatiomorphic in terms of the way they are placed within the world. Back to the glove…

Perhaps, even without the above three issues, we just cannot imagine a glove universe in anything like the same way we can imagine tomorrow’s weather or the things we can imagine.

Perhaps we really can’t imagine the unimaginable. Ponder that.

Luckily, we don’t need need to imagine the unimaginable to be able to think about it. We can discuss idealised worlds that are unimaginable. We can learn from them. They can be tools. This is what thougts experiments are. So now let me guide you through one that I think you will enjoy. I have done this many times face to face.

The Glove Game: Round One

Imagine the glove universe as best you can. It is glove shaped from your perspctive. If you can think of something to loose in the description you can just ditch it. Tru to get to the most idealised thought of a glove.

You are trying to describe something that is logically true of all things that are gloves.

You are trying to describe something that is logically not true in totality of any thing that is not a glove.

We can enumerate:

1. It is a tube that ends in five points at the end of five smaller tubes.
2. One of the tubes is shorter than the others.
   1. This tube also is joined to the main tube at a point closer to the main tube entrance and off to one side.
      1. It can Extend to the plane of the other four tubes.

What is the most minimal optimal definition of a glove?

When I asked you to imagine the glove at the start it had a small button and a loop etc… Take all that kind of detail out of your imagination. Break it down to the things that are essential to being a glove. Let us call this idealised glove, the simplest glove.

What statements are true of the simplest glove?

What does it mean to say something is True here?

Criticise this definition: “A statement is True about the Glove Universe if what it describes can be found within the Glove Universe.”

• The Glove has four fingers and a thumb.
• The little finger is not longer than the middle finger
• The thumb is not between any fingers.
• It is possible the tip of the thumb could touch the tip of the index finger if the rest of the glove remained the same.

Imagine a list of False statements about the glove:

• The volume of the thumb is greater than the volumes of the other fingers combined.
• The glove has symmetry.
• It is possible to weave the thumb through the other fingers
• The glove has the same topology as a doughnut.

What about this statement:

• The Glove Is underneath a Hat.

Is that false? It isn’t true, but it isn’t clear if it is False or meaningless. These kinds of statements are a big issue in the Philosophy of Language.

A statement is Meaningless relative to the Glove Universe Game if it is nether True nor False about the Glove Universe. You might like to think of Meaningless statements as containing things that simply cannot be found in any possible Glove Universe.

• True statements describe things that exist within the Glove Universe.
  • By “things” here we mean structures, relations, properties that are contingent upon the stipulation of the universe.
• False statements describe things that do not exist within the Glove Universe but could exist within the Glove Universe.
• Meaningless statements describe things that can not not exist in the Glove Universe.
  • These statements are meaningless in the glove universe
    • Paris is the Capital of France.
    • Mars is often called “The Red Planet”
    • The glove is larger than an elephant.
    • All gloves are smaller than houses.
    • The glove belonged to Audry Hepburn.
    • The Glove is left handed.
    • We understand this experiment.
    • All games are not fun.

This experiment has highlighted a number of things. Perhaps most importantly it’s shown what a Thought Experiment is, in case you didn’t already know. A thought experiment is simply a stipulated possible Universe that is created to be experimented on or questioned about.

We make Thought experiments all the time, “If I won the lottery I would..”, “Imagine all the people, living in Harmony…”

It’s also shown that thought experiments are about what’s relevant to them by stipulation, not by assumption. You can imagine things that are not really possible to exist or imagine and yet, you can see how still we can ask relevant questions about them.

The last thing we saw from this experiment is that all possible statements seem to fit into only one of three categories, True, False or Meaningless and that which list any statement belongs on depends on the stipulated nature of the relevant universe. 

One of the key advantages of practicing CHE is the ability to quickly sift through life’s mundane choices, enjoying them and knowing that, by and large, you have made what for you were the right choices when it comes to Home Economical issues. How should one clean their clothes, house, self and mind. Is Amazon Prime is justified? Which vitamins should I supplement? How much is optimum salt?

Consider the CHE equation: Should I wear my seatbelt?

It is simple to see on a three-space Risk/Cost/Benefit vector graph that, yes, of course you should wear your seatbelt. It is irrational not to, if you value self preservation. What is interesting is that such indubitable Cartesian conclusions map into the same kind of epistemic grid as things that on the whole seem woo, irrational or nonsensical.

Consider the CHE equation:  Should I salute magpies?

This one, when you flesh it out, has a few more nexi than the seatbelt one, but the structure is almost the same; where the two equations differ is in the two driving assumptions.

1. Wearing Seatbelts: It is possible that wearing a seatbelt could save the wearer’s life.
2. Saluting Magpies: It possible that saluting a magpie could increase the saluter’s  Luck.

In the case of 2, once we accept the possibility of Luck then it is no difference of kind to move on and reason something like:

1. There is something special called Luck.
2. It is possible this Luck can be increased by agency.
   1. I’m assuming that if there is a supernatural (“nonprobabalistic”?) reality to luck then it can be something that can be in some sense accumulated or bestowed on.
      1. If this assumption is not accepted then you seem forced to accept that there is Luck but it is distributed stochastically/probabilistically.
         1. Luck would be real but its distribution chanced, which seems absurd.
3. It is possible saluting magpies could entail 2 (Luck increase).
4. Saluting magpies is an extremely low risk activity.
5. Saluting magpies is an extremely low cost activity.
6. It is rational to solute magpies.

I have long been a collector of the various ways we humans have found to express that abstract goodness to life, and the singular, hopeful, response to that goodness; Seize the day. Play The Game. Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

My Uncle Andy died a few years ago, he was a great man; all thought. My older cousin, and Andy’s first male nephew, Yeof , he came to stay, from LA. Just the other day. He told me how Andy had been such a fertile influence on his life; as Andy was to many. He told me of the wise and pristine advise that his uncle had given him, without claim, many long, long years ago… .

“Chase The Butterflies”

Uncle Andy ’47’10

This thought experiment is exactly the same as with the Glove Universe, except that it will have less parts. We will simply stipulate a new Universe for the game and then look at the Truth Lists for this Universe

Imagine a universe that is just a circle. No different on the inside or out, but a circle, perfect in its simplicity.

Your Glove Universe and my Glove Universe would have been distinct, it’s very unlikely we could imagine identical gloves, especially not if we started getting really trivial with our Truth List. Perhaps yours had stubbier fingers than mine or yours had thick external seams whereas mine were concealed.

With the Circle universes our Imaginings, and thus stipulations, will be identical. To see this, try to imagine a statement that could be true of your perfect Circle Universe but not True of mine. If you can imagine one in your Universe then you have cheated and not imagined a perfect circle.

Now let’s play the Truth game with this new perfectly circular board.

I will write my Lists using Bullets from now on. I am no mathematician but perhaps I may start my Lists like this:

• • True:
    • The proportion of the area of the circle is Pi times the radius squared.

• • False:
    • The circle has exactlly four axis of symmetry.

• • Meaningless:
    • The King is dead.

It is a lot harder with Circles than Gloves to fill the Three Lists because the very act of stipulation/imagination/creation limits what’s possible to say about the Circle Universe. Also, and importantly, the fact that all circles in the Game are perfect means they must also be identical. Two things are identical if the totality of their Truth Lists contain all of the same statements on each List, as would be the case with Perfect Circles but nor red gloves. We can imagine the difference in gloves, but not in perfect circles. And therefore, if follows that we can have no differences between our Circle Universes, to show me wrong here you just need to come up with a statement that would be true of your universe but not mine (without changing the rules of the game.)

We are going to move to the even more simple “Board” for our next variant of the Game, in the next part of this Thought Experiment.

Imagine a Single Point universe.

I don’t know what that means in any deep or metaphysical sense. I can’t imagine a Single Point Universe like I think I can a Glove Universe or a cosmic Universe and I certainly can’t imagine it like I can imagine yesterday’s lunch. But, just like with gloves and circles and anything else, I can fill out the Truth List for the Single Point Universe.

So… let’s play, fill out the Truth Lists for a universe that is just a point. No space or time, without change and structure.

When you try to do this, you will soon see that the Meaningless List can be added to easily, but the other two, Truth and False, are much more challenging.

There are only two true statements I can think off about the Single Point universe, and even these I am not sure what they mean. Here is my Truth List for the Single Point Universe:

• • True:
    • The Point Exists.

• • The Point is Identical with Itself.

How can I even be sure that I can have these two True Statement’s on my list? I am not sure that I can, but it strikes me that whatever “existence” is if it is True of the Glove Existing then why would it not be True of the single point existing.

We have stipulated that the universe contains no change. It follows from this stipulation that the point must be identical with itself. If it was not, there would be a change, either in sequence or structure (We shall see what these terms mean in future experiments).

Let’s look to the False List:

• • False:
    • There is no existence.
    • The Point is Identical with Itself.

The Single point universe has two False statements on its List, these are, as you can see, simply the opposite of the Truth List.

If this was the case, if the two lists contained items that couldn’t exist within the same game’s Truth lists, then we would have a problem, the most fundamental of problems, the Contradiction.

Underlying all of these Games we can play is a rule set that contains as its most fundamental rule:

There Can be No Contradictions

It doesn’t matter what Universe we try to imagine, if we are reasonable then the underlying truths of Logic dictate that things will be consistent. There can be no contradictions. Soon we will see how emergence is a dependency relationship and we will be able to test this with any statement against any possible universe and see that this NonContradiction flows thought reality, possible and actual.In other words, if you are not prepared to accept this most fundamental rule then these Thought Experiments just cannot be for you:)

Conclusion: The Single Point Philosopher

The Single point universe is logically the most Simple Universe anything could consistently imagine or represent. All we can say are four nontrivial statements, is “that it exists” and “that it is identical with its self” and the negation of these two statements. That’s all we can say, but as we shall see in the next experiments comes, from this most minimal of atoms we can create some amazing things. Before this, I think it would be good to ask the questions we cannot really answer about the Single Point Universe.

So far we haven’t been anywhere near what is traditionally and culturally considered the deeper side of philosophy. In fact, we haven’t really been doing any “philosophizing” at all in these two thought experiments. We have been reporting “the facts” about imaginary universes rather than asking the big Why/What/How? questions common to Philosophy.

As a final exercise, which is ideally suited to the bath, bed or pub, I want you to think about the Single Point Universe in as many ways as you can (or can’t). Try to contemplate the Single Point universe, as we have been; asking questions and suggesting answers. Try to meditate on the single pointed universe, focussing on it with as little distraction as you can (I find this very hard!). Try to visualise the Single Point Universe, even if you never can. Try to doubt it. Try to disprove its possibility.

And when you have tried the above, try, however you can to answer these kind of questions:

1. 1. Could it exist?
   2. Can I make sense of it not existing?
   3. What is the difference between it existing and not existing?
   4. Does it contain Pi?
   5. Does it the anything like time or space?
   6. Is it true that 4+6=10 in the Single Point Universe?
   7. If it exists can it then not exist?
   8. Are the Truth Lists of the Single Point Universe contained within the reality we are now in This Universe. Are all things identical with themselves in this universe? Do all things in this universe exist in some sense in this universe?
   9. What happens if we add another point exactly like the first?

If you are like me you won’t be able to clearly answer most of the above, but that really doesn’t matter.