Glass Plate Game of 12 June 2004

GlassPlateGame played at the house of Timothy Higgins in Mill Creek, Washington.

Move #

Colour

Idea Card

Icon

Status

Player

Comment

1

orange

struggle

# (new chain)

Dunbar Aitkens

n/a

2

orange

joy

P (permitted)

Dunbar Aitkens

Sometimes you experience more joy when you achieve something if you had to struggle for it than if you achieved it easily.

3

orange

metamorphosis

P (permitted)

Kisa_Griffin?

The process of struggle itself can be worthwhile.

4

orange

emotional manipulation

P (permitted)

???

???

5

orange

society as active/passive hierarchy

P (permitted)

Dunbar Aitkens

Once you set a revolution in action, how do you stop the vicious people needed to fight it from taking over afterward?

6

orange

art vs. nature

P (permitted)

Ron_Hale-Evans?

The image one has of the future (of a revolution, or anything else) is an abstraction and often does not match the reality.

7

orange

need not to judge

P (permitted)

Kisa_Griffin?

But- we don't need to judge outcomes so harshly. It may be that whatever happens is good.

8

orange

syntax

O (okayed)

???

???

9

green

anthropomorphism

# (new chain)

Kisa_Griffin?

People project human experiences onto the actions of animals, but we have no way of really knowing if they're thinking what we think they're thinking.

10

green

ambivalence

O (okayed)

???

Nonhuman nonverbal language is ambiguous.

11

green

helplessness

O (okayed)

Ron_Hale-Evans?

Even though you cannot always know what nonhuman nonverbal language means, there are some near-universals, such as suffering, that you can usually deduce.

12

green

species specific norms

O (okayed)

LionKimbro

Every animal species has its own nonverbal language. They don't try to mimic each other's ways of doing things.

13

green

coding

O (okayed)

LionKimbro

It is possible to translate (encode) the symbols of the language of one species into the language of another species.

14

green

syntax

O (okayed)

LionKimbro

Perhaps there is a universal grammar of non-verbal communications.

15

green

intuition

P (permitted)

???

???

16

green

symbolic handles

???

P (permitted)

LionKimbro

The conscious thoughts in our heads are symbolic handles that come from thought occuring on an unconscious level. The unconscious processing is the main processing- the conscious thoughts may be more of an after-effect.

17

green

gestalt

P (permitted)

???

The seperation between the conscious emmanations and the unconscious ("unrepresented") thoughts is likely that "one bleeds over into the other"- on the surface we can distinguish, but looked at in detail, it becomes hard to distinguish.

18

green

art vs. nature

P (permitted)

???

???

19

red

syntax

# (new chain)

???

n/a

20

red

hidden potential

O (okayed)

Ron_Hale-Evans?

The use of constraints in art (syntax) liberates the hidden potential in an artform. Compare the OuLiPo?.

21

???

freedom

???

Kisa_Griffin?

???

22

red

myth

O (okayed)

LionKimbro

The idea that the realms of experience are a canvas, and that freedom and constrain pop out of that canvas- is a myth. (Maybe true, maybe false, but it's a guiding myth.)

23

red

nature tending toward perfection

O (okayed)

Ron_Hale-Evans?

Extending the myth, there is an organising principle that generates order out of disorder and the Universe out of random bits. Compare Permutation City by Greg Egan.

24

red

recursion

P (permitted)

John_Braley?

According to the myth discussed, humans create mathematics, and mathematics creates the universe, which contains humans. (The card "return" was used for the concept "recursion" to end the game.)

Discussion

According to the photos I took of the board, somewhere in the Orange chain near the beginning of the game, someone played the "emotional manipulation" card:

IIRC, this was between "society as active/passive hierarchy" and "art vs. nature", around Turn 5, but I can't see how to fit it in. Dunbar? Anyone?

Also, the graphic for "symbolic handles" does not seem to be readily available online.

-- Ron_Hale-Evans? [[DateTime?(2004-06-20T09:20:27Z)]]

I just realised there was no Turn 4 listed, and that this was where "emotional manipulation" went. Dunbar, was this Permitted, or Okayed?

-- Ron_Hale-Evans? [[DateTime?(2004-06-20T17:19:20Z)]]