Raph's Website » Mental models

Mental models

April 10th, 2006 (Visited 4065 times) Tags:

To change your world, you first have to change your own thinking. Neuroscience research shows that your mind discards the majority of the sensory stimuli you receive. What you see is what you think. The ability to see the world differently can create significant opportunities, as companies such as Southwest Airlines, FedEx, Charles Schwab and others have demonstrated. But even successful models can ultimately become a prison if they limit your ability to make sense of a changing world, in the way that major airlines failed to fully recognize the threat of upstarts such as Ryanair or that music companies, locked into a mindset of selling CDs, failed to see the opportunities and threats of music file sharing.
– from The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business, by Jerry Wind, Colin Crook, and Robert Gunther

Jerry Wind is the prof at Wharton who invited me to speak to his class (which I swear I will transcribe someday!), and he was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, which I am reading now. The above paragraph, right near the beginning, jumped out at me, because it resonates both with the state of the virtual world industry today and with a lot of the recent discussions in the comment threads.

In that class, which was on the subject of creativity, I stated that creativity is most often the result of two disparate things being brought together, rather than divine inspiration. It’s taking two subjects that happen to fit together like chocolate and peanut butter, and mooshing them together to create something that is new. Marrying city management and games, let’s say, or being inspired by gardening to come up with Pikmin. Obviously, in order to accomplish this, you need to be in contact with things outside of your normal daily experience; you can be pretty sure that most every combination of things close by will have been tried already: games and aliens, games and elves, games and pointlessly sexy submissive bondage chicks wrapped in snakes, etc.

It’s more than just disparate elements that must be brought together, though. You could seamlessly integrate say, games and martial arts, and end up with something that doesn’t jump out as creative to anyone, if you miss the underlying point of the martial arts piece. This demonstrates that you’re not just marrying elements together: you’re actually trying for a melding of mental models.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that language shapes our perceptions of the world. In Spanish, for example, there are two forms of the verb “to be,” which can perhaps be described as a permanent or intrisic state of being, versus a temporary condition. According to the rules of Spanish, life, marriage, and love are temporary affairs, whereas your job, gender, and temperament are permanent conditions. This resonates because one of the touchstone texts of the field of virtual worlds, Snow Crash, has as a plot point the notion that a specific language was actually designed to program the human brain (see also Delany’s Babel-17).

A lot of the discussions here about nomenclature here aren’t me speaking from the mount with authority about how things work — I don’t claim that sort of authority; rather, they are me fumbling towards new mental models. I’m doing that fumbling because I’m not satisfied with the models I have. Up-ending our definitions of things like “single-player games” or for that matter “puzzle” (in the book) is in service of altering the perspective on something that seemed too familiar. Some are calling this “Raphspeak,” but if anything, it’s better described as a nascent “Raphview,” a way to think about the issues. In the process, existing language gets bent into somewhat different shapes.

Some of the preconceptions that I am trying to challenge are mine, and some are more generally held. The process of walking through the relationship between client and server in virtual worlds is, for example, new thinking to me, an elucidation of a mental model I didn’t know I had. The example of a game grammar is different — it’s trying to bring in mental models from completely different spaces into the world of games, and for me it’s a totally new mode of thinking that is powerfully shaping how I regard games.

The industry, I think, is caught in a few mental models that are pretty widely discussed at this point: the huge importance of graphics, for example, despite the burgeoning casual games market; the importance of retail distribution despite the signals from even the retailers themselves as they change their business models away from new games and towards used ones; the value of professional content creators versus the rise of user-created content… I could go on. I do not have a crystal ball as to which of these models will survive and which will fail as business conditions change, but I do know that I think that the industry as a whole, and especially the current MMORPG segment, is at an inflection point. If there’s a time to try to build fresh mental models, this is it.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Faith wrote on April 10th, 2006 at 11:06 am:

[...] Comments [...]

raccaldin36: Raph Koster Sums Up my Efforts wrote on April 10th, 2006 at 11:38 am:

[...] is linguistic drift. =) A language changes over time due to changes in the culture utilizing it.(Post a new comment) Log in now.(Create account, or useOpenID) [...]

Gamers With Jobs Press Pass » Blog Archive » Impossible Thinking In Games wrote on April 10th, 2006 at 4:21 pm:

[...] When news is slow, I like to read developer blogs and see what’s shaking. Raph Koster, the now former Sony Online Entertainment developer, has updated his site with a look at The Power of Impossible Thinking and how it relates to games. His point near the end is what got my attention. The industry, I think, is caught in a few mental models that are pretty widely discussed at this point: the huge importance of graphics, for example, despite the burgeoning casual games market; the importance of retail distribution despite the signals from even the retailers themselves as they change their business models away from new games and towards used ones; the value of professional content creators versus the rise of user-created content… I could go on. I do not have a crystal ball as to which of these models will survive and which will fail as business conditions change, but I do know that I think that the industry as a whole, and especially the current MMORPG segment, is at an inflection point. If there’s a time to try to build fresh mental models, this is it. [...]

categories | The Cesspit. wrote on April 11th, 2006 at 7:55 am:

[...] Bloggers Hack ‘n Slash – broken RSS feeds etc? 1 hour 10 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever FanFaire Report Part 2 – PvP 3 hours 55 min old, Aggro Me The Kleenex guild 4 hours 10 min old, Tobold Carnival of Gamers 15 hours 35 min old, Nerfbat – Grouchy Gnome Grouchy Gnome Is… 16 hours 52 min old, Nerfbat – Grouchy Gnome Spring 2006, Week 2, Day 1: Waking or Sleepwalking? 17 hours 59 min old, Geldon Sticky: “iiiieeeeeeeeeeeee” IE 19 hours 14 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever Sticky: “iiiieeeeeeeeeeeee” IE 19 hours 14 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever Humor in games 20 hours 21 min old, Mischiefbox Because I’m a shameless self promoter in love with myself 20 hours 27 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever Because I’m a shameless self promoter in love with myself 20 hours 27 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever Don’t fall over dead, stop playing the game 21 hours 14 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever Don’t fall over dead, stop playing the game 21 hours 14 min old, MMODIG – unbeliever WoW Journal – 10-April-2006 21 hours 30 min old, Tobold Simplify for fun 22 hours 32 min old, Mischiefbox Government At Work: Giving Bad Games Free Press 23 hours 53 min old, Zen of Design – Ubiq Mental models 1 day 10 min old, Raph’s Koster Website Fallen Heroes 1 day 40 min old, Amber Night Just gimme one more DKP, man… I’m beggin’ ya 1 day 1 hour old, BrokenToys – Lum Loot and Luck 1 day 2 hours old, AFK Gamer – Foton Xbox Slayings 1 day 2 hours old, AFK Gamer – Foton THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO… 1 day 3 hours old, N3RFED – Cosmik FanFaire Report – Part I 1 day 3 hours old, Aggro Me PATCHING BY NUMBERS 1 day 8 hours old, N3RFED – Cosmik Pardon Me, I’ll Be Camping The Wicked Witch of the East 1 day 10 hours old, Zen of Design – Ubiq more [...]

Heartless Gamer said on April 10th, 2006 at 11:46 am:

Pretty much what I’ve been thinking for a while. But the question is… will the next generation of game designers who come off of college programs and game design degrees have the same prowess for imagination as the Miyamoto’s of the world? Or are these new college bred designers the wrong way to go for this industry?

Raph said on April 10th, 2006 at 11:58 am:

Well, surely the answer to that depends on what the programs are teaching as a worldview, doesn’t it? I’ve seen significant amounts of variation from school to school, so I don’t think there’s a single monolithic agenda being pushed at all. There’s a range from more vocational sorts of schooling to very theoretical or experimental work; comparing programs like The Guildhall and Georgia Tech is really comparing apples and oranges in many ways.

Schools can certainly teach creative thinking. So I would overall say the development of varied programs is a good thing.

Jythri said on April 10th, 2006 at 1:57 pm:

Interesting topic. A few years back, I used to rant at length that the first MMO with largescale succes would be one that broke the RPG mold with fantastic innovative features. WoW sorta dimmed that branch of my thinking.

Part of me wants to think that now that a standard is set with WoW, that other WoW-clones (even IF done to that level of quality) will have less appeal to MMO gamers. Then again, I thought I would totally be burned out on doing what I pretty much did in Telengard, Questron, and Ultima 1 — hack, loot, level, repeat. Every RPG I’ve played for the last twenty years has done about the same thing. And I still like them well enough to keep repeating the process.

Still, I think the next big leaps will be both in the out-of-the-box creativity as well as gross refinements of underbaked parts of current MMOs. Example – Baldur’s Gate and Fallout didn’t give us drastically new technology; they just gave us great branching paths, smooth graphics, and wonderful stories. I can’t help thinking that eventually some MMO will do something remarkably innovative with Guilds as far as features, collaborative content, and management utilities. Nothing technology innovative, but the “best implementation” of a current lackluster area of MMO development.

I love the “blending” of types idea as well — There’s still space for a MMORTS (Age of Conan? Atriarch?), MMOSimCity, MMOCatan…etc. I’d still love to see diplomatic PVP, or a MMO that truly empowered a collaborative storytelling experience, or something that did more to allow actual artistic contribution (music, drawing, etc.) within the context of the gameworld.

I think schools might be able to help encourage this blending development. I also think independants will push it further, as they can often risk more (on an albeit smaller scale) to find the elusive new Peanut Butter cup. I still contend, though, that the new wildly creative ideas won’t come from a think-tank, as much as they’ll come from some Thomas Edison type who pursues wild ideas until something lights up.

Patrick said on April 10th, 2006 at 7:20 pm:

How about “social relationality instead of spatial relationality”, and to nest that, “spatial representation instead of spatial simulation” and its collorary, “social simulation instead of social representation”.

I think anyone who plays with that frame will have a very interesting design career, but thats just me being biased.

MikeRozak said on April 10th, 2006 at 9:25 pm:

To change your world, you first have to change your own thinking.

Not to be too cynical, but you also need to change the thinking of…

- He who writes the checks.

- They who buy the game.

The industry, I think, is caught in a few mental models that are pretty widely discussed at this point: the huge importance of graphics, for example, despite the burgeoning casual games market; the importance of retail distribution despite the signals from even the retailers themselves as they change their business models away from new games and towards used ones; the value of professional content creators versus the rise of user-created content…

Here’s a naturalistic take on mental models… Kanagroos are the same as deer. They look completely different and locomote differently, but they fill the same evolutionary niche. Whenever you look at a game/idea, keep this thought in mind. Most compemptorary MMORPGs are all deer. What is the kangaroo equivalent?

Patrick wrote:

You should look at Chris Crawford’s stuff. You might also check out Seed. But being cynical once again, “social relationality” would actually require a bit of AI (gasp! A MMORPG with AI… never heard of such a thing…) And, it would attract a different demographic (teenage boys aren’t known for their understanding of complex interpersonal relationships; That’s usually left to women.)

Michael Chui said on April 10th, 2006 at 10:01 pm:

Not to be too cynical, but you also need to change the thinking

He said first, man. Play nice.

What is the kangaroo equivalent?

I don’t follow… if they’re the same thing in all but looks and movement… what’s different? Unless you think some MMORPGs need to hop?

StGabe said on April 10th, 2006 at 10:03 pm:

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that language shapes our perceptions of the world.

It is important to note that this “hypothesis” is heavily debated and the “strong” interpretation is considered by most (even those I would consider far too structuralist) to be false. For perspective you should also look at post-modernist approaches and their anti-structuralist sentiments. I studied cognitive science in grad school for a couple of years and, while I loved the opening half of Snow Crash, I did a lot of cringing when we were handed all the linguistic/cognitive nonsense at the end. That stuff really has absolutely no basis in biology and has more basis, I believe, in what is a convenient and easy misconception about how throught works.

I do think most linguists and cognitive scientists would agree that there is at least some tendency to think in terms of the words you have at your disposal but I think that much or most thought supercedes this. Clearly, for example, Spanish speakers do not understand less of the world just because Spanish has a quarter of the words that English has. When learning to speak another language, no matter its grammatic structure, I don’t think you need to completely reshape your thoughts around new grammatic structures (generally you just find ways to map these grammatic structures to existing understanding). Surely there are holes between languages — concepts that exist in one and not another. However these are almost all directly derived from cultural differences and it is an understanding of a culture that is required, not the adoption of a word, in order to get across these concepts concept. In the end you may put a label on the concept and thus learn a new word but this is strictly optional.

In my view, which is heavily shaped by later writings of Wittgenstein and is friendly to some but not all postmodernist tenets, language is a tool and should always be viewed as such. We should avoid, like the plague, the notion that language represents Platonic ideals. Linguistic meaning is generated through understanding and understanding only. If I say brick it is your ability to point to a red, clay stone used for building that indicates the meaning. Nothing more.

Said simply: language is usage. And there’s really no point in telling people how to use a given word. If there is understanding among their community about what that word means then it has meaning and is useful. If you need a label to put on a concept that you don’t think it is adequately represented then by all means create a new label.

StGabe said on April 10th, 2006 at 10:13 pm:

Think aboout it this way. If the Shapir-Worf hypothesis were right then it would entail that creating new words is fundamentally a better way to enhance understanding than trying to change the meaning of old words. If we have two words then we understand two things versus understanding only one thing if we have but one word.

I agree with the need to shake up perceptions. In fact, one perception I would like to shake up is the idea that language shapes reality and is the sole arbiter of how we understand reality. I just think that this doesn’t require trying to topple existing usage of words. Look at how widely your “single-player” blog post was misunderstood. It turned a lot of heads, surely, but it did so because no one really understood what it was saying and the meaning it had to them was one that was clearly false. In the end very few will have understood what you had to say. Better to have said all the same stuff within the framework of how people already use language because language has meaning only as it is understood.

Of course you have your a Raphview as I have a Gabeview but is it the world’s responsibility to cater to our view of how words should be used or is it our responsibility to translate our views into the words that the world understands? Which strategy will lead to the greatest understanding?

Michael Chui said on April 10th, 2006 at 11:28 pm:

I’m naturally obligated to disagree with you heavily, StGabe.

My view of the SWH coincides with Matthew 12:34 (“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh”); that is to say that language is a reflection of mental conception.

Back in December, I wrote up a rather… esoteric essay on something I call “Concept Space”. It’s just a mental model I use for thinking about language. To put it shortly, a “term” used by one person describes a particular part of the total concept space, and in order for other people to understand it, their mapping of term to space must reasonably overlap.

Presupposing the existence of a hypothetical “World” is erroneous; everyone has a separate and unique worldview, by necessity. Similarities in such views are the backbone of communities, but there is never any real homogeneity.

Terms precisely don’t have a Platonic Form; that’s why it’s even possible to disagree about them in the first place. Terms are descriptions of reflections, which necessarily fumble about in an attempt to describe a hypothetical form.

Changing language around is an effective way of “shaking up preconceptions”. The idea isn’t to topple old ways of thinking and replace it with your own. It’s to force people to think, “Wait, that doesn’t make any sense; I don’t understand this, after all.“

StGabe said on April 11th, 2006 at 12:04 am:

Changing language around is an effective way of “shaking up preconceptions”. The idea isn’t to topple old ways of thinking and replace it with your own. It’s to force people to think, “Wait, that doesn’t make any sense; I don’t understand this, after all.”

See but this assumes that there is a Platonic ideal underneath that they do not understand. Otherwise, what is it that they don’t understand? The meaning of a word IS what they understand it to be. It can’t be “wrong” it can only be useful or not useful.

Let’s say I have something I call a “widget”. To me and my community of peers a “widget” is one of the long silver things that sprouts out of the back of my TV. Other TV’s have round-shaped discs that sprout from them which me and my peers call “dongles”. You might explain to me that both of these have the same purpose of receiving signals that are then translated into images on my TV which is something that I and my peers did not previously understand. That doesn’t mean, however, that I need to pick one word for both (i.e. that my new meaning for “widget” and “dongle” has to be “something that picks up signals for a TV”). I can still mean by “widget”, one of the silver things that sprouts from the back of the TV. You have just revealed to me a shared property between two concepts I have. I am still “right” to call a “widget” a “widget” and a “dongle” a “dongle” because my peers understand what I mean when I say either. If I want to go on and create a word called “antenna” and use that as a description of dongles and widgets then that’s fine. Furthemore, this is a clear way to advance the language as it is easy for me to describe an “antenna” in terms of “dongles” and “widgets”. Eventually, if my community finds this “antenna” word to be useful enough it may even displace “widget” and “dongle” in usage. This has to do with its “usefulness” and its acceptance among the community however, and not because of the “real” meaning of “widget” and “dongle” wasn’t what we thought it was.

And if we never group the words “dongle” and “widget” together or create a words “antenna” it is not true that we cannot understand that these two things are in fact responsible for receving TV signals.

Morgan said on April 11th, 2006 at 12:48 am:

Clearly, for example, Spanish speakers do not understand less of the world just because Spanish has a quarter of the words that English has.

The quality of the words used in a language are more relevant than the quantity of words developed in a language. I think you’re forgetting that language encompasses far more simple symbolic illustrations.

Surely there are holes between languages — concepts that exist in one and not another. However these are almost all directly derived from cultural differences and it is an understanding of a culture that is required, not the adoption of a word, in order to get across these concepts concept.

Let’s backtrack: you and I agree that language is a utility for communication; actually, language is the only tool that is available for communication. How do we understand cultures and cultural differences? Language, which includes the senses. A blind man can communicate through his other senses; however, he does so while adapting to his blindness. Sight is a tool. The tools we use — whether natural or manufactured — define our identity, our history, and our behavior. This is quite simply a truth of human existence that is observable in all facets of life. When our tools are changed, we change; otherwise, when our tools change, we cease to function — or build new tools.

… is it the world’s responsibility to cater to our view of how words should be used or is it our responsibility to translate our views into the words that the world understands? Which strategy will lead to the greatest understanding?

You cannot satisfy the expectations of every audience using a single approach. When providing a grammar for game design, the grammar is provided for a specific audience: game designers. The "world" is not the intended audience; thus, the objective of enabling the "world" to understand this grammar is unneeded.

Morgan said on April 11th, 2006 at 12:59 am:

The meaning of a word IS what they understand it to be. It can’t be “wrong” it can only be useful or not useful.

The meaning of language is only useful when those involved in the communication cycle can exchange information effectively. The standard method for ensuring the usefulness of meaning is the provision of a reference. The reference is then constructed of the history of such meaning. If a language user sends a message that is incompatible with the message received by the recipient, conflict arises. This conflict is currently described in terms of whether the messages sent and received were "correct" or malformed.

MikeRozak said on April 11th, 2006 at 1:57 am:

Michael Chiu wrote:

Not to be too cynical, but you also need to change the thinking
He said first, man. Play nice.

I wanted to point out that many problems are interrelated, forming a Gordion knot. It’s not easy to untie.

What is the kangaroo equivalent?
I don’t follow… if they’re the same thing in all but looks and movement… what’s different? Unless you think some MMORPGs need to hop?

The “purpose” of a deer/kangaroo is to eat grass, shrubs, and low-hanging leaves. They are medium-size grazers, and prey for medium to larger carnivores. Deer and kangaroos are different solutions to the same problem.

Whatever the “purpose” of a MMORPG, whatever needs that it fulfills, there are other ways to approach the same basic set of issues/needs. The new solution(s)t may not look anything like a MMORPG.

If you try to design a new “deer” but limit your design to being 4-legged and placental, you’ll never come up with kangaroos. It’s about being stuck in a mental model.

StGabe said on April 11th, 2006 at 2:16 am:

The standard method for ensuring the usefulness of meaning is the provision of a reference.

References are just tools used by communities to suggest what understanding is accepted. They capture snapshots of how language is generally understood in a culture at a certain time. That culture is shifting at all times however, which is why references get updated regularly. At the end of the day it is usage that tells the dictionary what it should have in it, and not the other way around. The dictionary, does not itself have defining power, it merely reflects terms as defined culturally. A subtle distinction, but an important one.

The quality of the words used in a language are more relevant than the quantity of words developed in a language.

Actually I completely agree and you caught me being a bit glib. However I think the same sort of heavy-handedness I was guilty of in making that analogy is really at the root of the interpretation of language used with Sapir-Whorf or the way which the book Snow Crash looks at language. Is there really a concept that can’t be described in some combination of English words? If not, then how is our language “shaping” our thought? Germans use the same word for “wife” and “woman”. Does this fundamentally shape the way they think about women? Not really. I think when you reduce any example of applying Sapir-Worf that you will find that it sort of dissolves in the details.

Basically I think Sapir-Worf is a confusion of correlation and causation. Sapir-Worf is saying that not having a word for something means that you don’t have a concept for it. In fact I think it is very clear that it is exactly the other way around. Cultures for whom certain concepts aren’t important tend not to have words for those concepts, though they may be aware of them. When the culture does start finding those concepts to be important then they find labels and inntroduce them into regular discourse.

You cannot satisfy the expectations of every audience using a single approach. When providing a grammar for game design, the grammar is provided for a specific audience: game designers.

I think that any time you try to rewrite language for a subsest of users you are crossing a barrier that will cut you off from other people. You are making your language that much more like Greek to other people. I think that any rewriting of language for a specific subculture should only be done if absolutely necessary. Otherwise you are just cutting your ties to other cultures (and the part of this post that I agree with is that which says that it is important to combine ideas from different cultures, so why would we shut ourselves off from these cultures needlessly?).

Mostly I find that any endeavor that takes words too seriously ends up wasting a lot of time. I think that is the sort of thing going on whenever you try to hard to find out what a word “really means”. Certainly it is worthwhile to find out what other people mean by that word but that is different. That doesn’t involve exploring externally to usage to try and find some “real”, “true”, “right” meaning. It doesn’t really matter how you define your terms as long as you define them. Saying that a word X “really means” Y instead of the Z that everyone thinks it does is a waste of time. Allow X to mean Z and then move on and find other words to describe your Y. If Y is an important concept then it probably deserves its own moniker anyway. If not then I’m not sure what the big fuss was about in the first place.

Michael Chui said on April 11th, 2006 at 2:29 am:

See but this assumes that there is a Platonic ideal underneath that they do not understand.

No, it assumes that you know something related that is different from what they know. Both your knowledge and their knowledge is related by this single word, and your challenging its definition challenges their view of the world through that word. It forces them to think about what that word could mean, expanding the possible concept space that word encompasses, and preferably reshaping that content. That reshaping is literally changing one’s worldview, or shaking up one’s preconceptions.

It’s not a question of correct or incorrect, accurate or inaccurate. It’s difference, the recognition of the existence of difference, and an attempt at its resolution. I’m not positing the existence of a Platonic culture by which all other cultures are but mere reflections of; I’m saying that there are cultures, and they can, will, and should clash, and definitions will change over time due to it.

It’s the idea that someone else has a different perspective, even a radically different one, and it’s worth considering that perspective as potentially valid, whether partially or wholly.

A word cannot have a real meaning, not in my model. That implies an absolute origin, and I don’t think one exists, just as there isn’t one in the physical universe, either.

Words are placeholders for concepts otherwise inexpressible.

StGabe said on April 11th, 2006 at 3:09 am:

No, it assumes that you know something related that is different from what they know. Both your knowledge and their knowledge is related by this single word, and your challenging its definition challenges their view of the world through that word.

Ok, so:

1) You know something about the word that someone else doesn’t know.
2) You assert that this is part of the definition of this word.

You are therefore saying that their usage of the word was incomplete because it doesn’t include your knowledge. However, this implies that this meaning was somehow always a part of the word and was discovered when you brought it up. It implies some underlying meaning to the word that is more than just that which is meant when the word is uttered. That extra something is your Platonic ideal.

It’s a category error. If I call the silver rods on the back of my TV “widgets” and you tell me they receive TV signals then you haven’t told me anything about the word “widget” but rather you have told me something about the things I refer to when I utter “widget”. I now know something about widgets that I never knew before even though I still mean “the silver rod on the back of the TV” when I say “widget”.

Look at it this way. If I know say to someone:

“Hey, did you know that widgets receive signals for the TV?”

Let’s say that “widget” now means “things that receive signals for a TV”. Then that sentence means literally:

“Hey, did you know that things that receive signals for a TV receive signals for the TV?”

It’s a tautology. In fact, I am referring to the fact that those silver things actually have a purpose and I need my original, culturally-understood meaning of the word to do so.

Raph said on April 11th, 2006 at 7:02 am:

Well, it’s clear people have differing mental models for language, at any rate.

I actually had in there a statement about how Sapir-Whorf is debated, but ultimately removed it because it was beside the point.

Inventing gibberish words out of whole cloth to create new terms is not how language generally evolves either. Usually, neologisms are coined by merging or modifying other words (“web log” -> “blog”, “home page”), appropriating words from elsewhere until their sense has changed completely (“tape drive” -> “floppy disk drive” – > “hard drive”, “page”, “bug”, “web”), puns (“bit” -> “byte” -> “nybble”), or abbreviation (“k”, “gig”). In oher words, through evolving usage. Trying to stretch current words to fit is a natural first step for that.

The whole point of this post was that there isn’t a Platonic ideal under all that, but that changing the perspective from which we view things often teaches us things about stuff we thought we knew.

Amaranthar said on April 11th, 2006 at 8:10 am:

“If there’s a time to try to build fresh mental models, this is it.”

Yes, and I’ve waited a long time for this point to come.

I think you’re right about the chocolate/peanut butter analogy when thinking about innovation. Few ideas are truelly new, most come from previous ideas and are either joined together like this or expanded on in similar fashion. A mouse trap in the joining of mechanical springs with older versions of trapping. A better mouse trap is one that expands on the old, but catches them alive for that humane effect. (Note from personal experiance, this scares the pee out of them, don’t tip the trap when checking for captives. However, this can be wildly amusing to little boys.)

It seems to me, as it has for a long time, that MMORPGs have been staring at innovation in the eyes for as long as they’ve been around. The idea of a persistent world, coupled with the idea of massive social encounters, has been there all along. Yet, these ideas were barely expanded on when the industry stepped backwards into the single player mental model. Swept away were the beginnings of advances towards these two ideas. The reasons for why were easy to see. There were problems, both technically and socially. But it was easier to simply take out the causes of the problems than to fix them. But that model is being worn out. And it never was enough, as you can witness the complaints of boredom and lack of “content”.

Expectations are a big thing in all this. Raph says that MUDs and MMOs are the same thing, yet I expect an MMO to have moving graphics, and MUDs not to. But if I take out the expectation of mine in what Raph was trying to say, and look at it from his perspective, related to what he was trying to say, I suddenly understood him. Language is bad this way. Trying to shape what our minds can do into words can have an effect like this. Especially if people aren’t “on the same page”.

Expectations have to be considered in designing innovations too. A game world where humans can fly, well, that’s expected to be magic (or sci-fi equipment), not a natural thing. My point here is that players are going to expect the games to relate to them in an expected manner, from experiances in real life combined with those from literature and other games. Mooshing all this together in a proper way, and meeting players expectations in how it’s applied to the game.

Innovative ideas aren’t going to be anything really new, just expanded ideas of expectations. Some expectations just haven’t been attempted effectively yet.

Michael Chui said on April 11th, 2006 at 9:14 am:

No.

Example: Person B defines “space” to be “anywhere where there isn’t stuff”, whereas Person A defines it as “anywhere outside the Earth’s atmosphere”. B says to A, “I think space should be filled up.” A thinks this is absurd; how can you fill up all of space? Maybe he doesn’t mean the same thing I do. I should think about this, perhaps ask questions, and I’ll learn something from the mental exercise.

Perhaps he will decide he’s right and that B is completely wrong. In this case, he’d have to convince B. Perhaps he decides he’s wrong and throws out his own definition for B’s. Or, perhaps he decides that they’re both right and expands the definition of “space” to include B’s, and further suggests to B that he include A’s definition.

A word does not have meaning by itself. A word is mapped to a concept space. A word can change its mapping if its user changes his worldview, even slightly. There is no Platonic ideal if there is no meaning outside of a single subjective perspective. If a word is not mapped to a concept, it is definitively gibberish, or meaningless, to you.

Think of it in terms of physics. Let’s say you have a theoretical empty space. Put a mass there. It’s a term. It’s what you mean when you say Term A. Now, put a second mass. This is what Person B means when he says Term A. These two masses will now exert a force upon each other. This interaction will cause their shape and their position to change. Now, in the simple world of physics, this generally means they’ll come closer together; this isn’t necessarily true in language, but the point is that their position changes.

Nothing absolutely determines their position. Position is always relative.

Using tangible objects as examples makes it harder to see; try defining an abstract concept under this method and see if you still think there’s a Platonic ideal underlying it.

Philip Isles said on April 11th, 2006 at 10:05 am:

creativity is most often the result of two disparate things being brought together, rather than divine inspiration.

A professor of mine once said that creativity is the chance encounter between an umbrella and a sewing machine on an operating table.

Mei said on April 11th, 2006 at 12:22 pm:

This is radically differnt than a corporation claimming gamers don’t want to think… they just want instant gratification.

I personally think a great video game should be more than an exercersise program based on walkthrough connect the dots or who can develop a grindathon the fastest. Where have the truely thinking mini games gone? The old Bards tale the might and magic puzzle mysteries the math games! When I go to play a game I want to think I can have an edge on the competition based on my learned skills and not on my twitch ability. Right now because limits of my entertainment dollars best thinking game I have installed is freecell. Sad but true.. it has twitch.. and you have to think 3 moves in advance.

Change is good. It keeps the playerbase paying to figgure out new systems.

StGabe said on April 11th, 2006 at 8:58 pm:

Perhaps he will decide he’s right and that B is completely wrong.

The thing with this example is that the word does not have a meaning yet. It is prior to definition of terms. As Wittgenstein would have it, meaning is what a word is understood to be. If these two people aren’t conveying correctly what they mean by a word then they don’t have a common language yet, there is no meaning being transferred. They do need to, at that point, come to some agreement about what they mean.

You are saying that a word has meaning before it is used to communicate something. I am saying that it only has meaning after it has successfully communicates something.

There is a difference between:

1) I understand what you and your culture mean by word “X” but you are wrong.
2) I don’t understand what you and your culture mean by word “X” and we need to come to some understanding of what it does mean.

The dialogue I am concerned with is dialogue of the former sense. That’s what is going on with words like “singleplayer”, “multiplayer”, “MMORPG” and “MUD”. It is very clear how they are used in practice by our culture of gamers and while certainly different people have some slightly different perceptions, there is already a core of understanding there and it isn’t like your example where it is unclear to the parties involved what a term means in their context.

StGabe said on April 11th, 2006 at 9:08 pm:

That I agree with. I just think that playing language games almost always just gets in the way. Like I said, you are arguing during part of the article that progress comes through the meetings of very different ideas and conceptual models. I agree. However, if we build language to be inclusive and to confuse those who come from different areas then aren’t we just closing doors?

I’m not saying that discussing language is bad. We do need to figure out where our mental models for words are different but when we hit something that is already well-understood, let’s leave that well alone, and find other ways to express ourselves.

Morgan said on April 11th, 2006 at 9:59 pm:

*sigh*

Michael Chui said on April 11th, 2006 at 11:29 pm:

*grins* I think we have agreement, StGate, so I desist. Let me offer something I thought of yesterday, but couldn’t couch into something contextual.

Language can (theoretically) be codified using mathematics. (ref: Chomsky) Mathematics is necessarily described by language. Language is a method of descriptive expression. Mathematics is necessarily descriptive. (ref: Godel)

It’s been, maybe, what… a month? since Raph asked what it is that games model. I believe I have an answer to that: they model Change. Or, if you prefer, Dynamics. The most critical element of a game is the potential for difference between two points of time. If you could call that an element. Dunno.

I haven’t thought this out, so I won’t defend it and can’t elaborate it. But it’d be nice to hear feedback.

Mike W said on April 12th, 2006 at 8:22 am:

A couple of things…

Unifying games and other things cannot be not disparate. If a game is something with rules and goals, then the supposedly disparate things presented are just instances of games already.

My argument is dependent on the interpretation of the words ‘games’. I could see Raph’s point if his intended meaning for “games” was something like “novel but pointless time-wasting activity” which admittedly is a lot like the meaning that the general populace gives it. But it’s not very useful for a game designer.

StGabe your argument about language and understanding is very good, but Sapir-Whorf uses ‘perception’ not ‘understanding’. I suppose you could argue they are the same, but that is non-obvious.

Immediately, however, I would say they are not, given my interpretations of the words. My meaning for ‘perception’ is somethign like “the method by which we incorporate new information into our models of reality” whereas ‘understanding’ would be more like “the state of having incorporated new information into our models of reailty”.

Regarding the question: “What do games model?”. This question is about an nonsensical as “What do models model?”. Different games are models (and contain models) of different things.

Oogami said on April 13th, 2006 at 12:36 am:

I am not sure about others, but my mind do feel somewhat different when I communicate in the different languages that I am versed in. Some people have even commented that I seem to undergo a slight “personality change” when speaking in Japanese, for example. I do not really notice this, but that is other people seem to be perceive me in “Japanese mode” vs “English mode”.

I am not really sure about how a language *by itself* might shape my perception of the world, but the journey of acquiring another language does have a significant effect. Knowing another language also opens a direct door to a whole new world’s worth of concepts for assimilation (when one’s willing to be open enough about it). If a language learner refuses to integrate new perceptions (usually cultural) while learning a new language, significant mastery will never be attained.

I guess one reason why many people find it an uphill battle to learn foreign languages that are totally ‘alien’ to their mind, is because they subconsciously refuse to think differently.

Mental models

31 Responses to “Mental models”

Meta

Recent Comments

Categories

Tags

Recent Trackbacks

Archives

Twitter @raphkoster

Academics

Comics

Game devs

MMO devs

News/Forums

Other

Players