In the comment thread of the ongoing discussion with Raph, he started to quote me and asking me (indirectly) many questions.

I don’t want to answer those questions. It’s not my level, nor something I feel like contributing to. I refuse those provocations because my mind doesn’t work that way and I’m not going to accept any of those rules.

I won’t join his “play”.

Psychochild:
My original point remains, though: it can be hard to tell where the line is drawn, exactly. Likewise, I think the line between metaphor and narrative can be a bit tricky to nail down. Precision in these terms will help us talk about things more intelligently.

Or more blindly.

This is about the “Laws of Form” of Spencer Brown. As you point something you create two parts, the part you point and the part that is excluded. An “observation” implies two blind spots. You cannot see anymore the “whole”, since as you point something you lose it and you cannot see the subject of the observation.

We know the world through the culture. But the culture is made of distinctions, so it is “digital”, granular. The world instead is contiguous, so “analogic”. The distinctions come “handy”, but they are a limitation, there’s always an “error” included. A bias. The same happens in Linguistics. There is no real difference or “border” between the table and the pavement. Everything is contiguous in nature but we “know” through observations. Pointing things and setting them apart.

We know that the language is arbitrary. We draw the distinctions wherever we like (them to be). So are the definitions.

From my point of view that thread collapsed on itself as people started to try to nail down exactly the four layers Raph described. Like going to observe each with a magnifying lens and start arguing where one finishes and the other starts. Transforming each into a discreet unit. Guess what? There is no answer. This is why these types of discussions can be so involving. Everyone is right and you can continue to argue endlessly. Because there’s nothing set. It’s just an exercize to demonstrate who can be smarter or more convincing. There is no truth to discover if not how you can influence yourslef to the point of not being able to observe anything in not through the conventions you imposed on yourself.

If I have to design something I start from the suggestions. I portrait things visually, like closing the eyes. It’s a DENIAL of the logic. I create rifts in it to approach things on a different level. Emotional first, then I find and explore ways to formalize the result. I dread the mechanical level if it isn’t finalized to something else. I don’t feel the need to explain or justify anything else. That’s enough for me.

I despise registers, codes, conventions. I’ve always naturally resisted them and I’ll continue to do so because I feel I can “absorb” a lot more. If I start to use strict definitions I know that I won’t able to see the world if not through those conventions. They are like traps.

Abstract system can work and be useful on different levels, but they are never perfect because this desire of perfection is utopian. If you surrender to it, you’ll be caged in the system and will never able to see anymore outside it. Names and conventions are the same: ways to structure the way you think. Then the way you see.

They limit your perception, they don’t enhance it. It seems you see better, but only because you see less.

The more you formalize and the more you are enslaved by the system and your thoughts encoded. Yes, it is “reassuring”. It gives you predictable structures that you find familiar and can build things upon. But they are essentially lies that you assimilate to the point you aren’t anymore aware of their true nature.

This is why I criticized the industry and how people get hired and promoted. The structure defines your mindset and it’s not surprising that always the same games are being made when the education continues to move through the same schemes. The great majority of game designers are programmers. Then don’t complain if these games don’t communicate anything if not complicated and convoluted mechanics that lead nowhere. It’s a direct consequence. “Game design” is a “wish” on the world.

The more you formalize the more you are imprisoned in the model you built. You create your own cage.

This is why I’m a runaway. I dabble in with the academics to then step out when things go dry and the discussions turn in nothing but an exercise. I read the theory, elaborate ideas, and then go back to write about the last patch in World of Warcraft. I speak with everyone without distinctions of merit of prejudices.

“Jack of all trades, masters of none” is the ability to communicate on all levels, without being trapped into one.

That thread is now an exercize in futility, because those four layers worked and were useful exactly because they were blurred and subject to the interpretation. The more you try to define them, the more you render them useless.