Experiments in living

Richard Feynman uses chess to explain how the rules of nature are uncovered.

The above is how we must live with our own needs and natures. The workings are hidden, but we can perform experiments in living.

This is coming at the game from one one angle, but approaches radiate from each object. Another attempt is to simplify the problem and take things down iteratively - what sits behind this and what sits behind that.

In some ways, all computer games can be reduced to the classics: Pong, Spaceman, PacMan, Donkey Kong and so on. Hitting, shooting, dodging, jumping. The reason why the truly classic table games [go, chess, cards and so on] have not changed for a long time, is that ever flashier pieces would add little to the experience. In its day, Pong was as fun as GTA IV.

For example, why do we want money? To buy things, to feel secure, happy, powerful and so on. Whatever, keep asking why and work from there, and perhaps you'll get some more direct route to your goal

For example. I used to day dream about being a writer, but as much of the dream was the lifestyle as the act of sitting down and typing for a few hours each day - which anyone can get, any time. Just sit down and type, and you have that part down pat.

I've used the quote below before. It's one of my favorites, as if you switch the boy to girl then it's pretty much exactly how envisioned my future as a teenager:

As a child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous, they lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

William S Burroughs

Was the writing really important? I think so. And the desire for simplicity and to get at root causes works only so far, so often, and it's probably best not to press the case beyond when it feels strained. We eat for nourishment, and in theory taking shots or pills to get the same results would achieve the same ends, but at the expense of everything we enjoy about the process. So the guiding principle isn't only simplicity, but whether it feels right at the time and works over the long term.

Some extreme examples. Drinking heavily and eating to excess feel right at the time but don't work over the long term. Taking pills and shots instead of real food works over the long term but feels wrong. This is not a static process, but one of self-experimentation, observation and change.

Howard Bloom reaching a peak in a classic clip, although if you watch the longer version you'll see he's nearly always like this.

Town and country

Howard Bloom suggests that evolution works fast enough for humans to have been genetically influenced by cities. I'm not convinced, but what do I know? Anecdotes and prejudices, easily swayed.

Humans adapt well to cities, that's why we're all moving to one, but I ought to find out how second and third generation hunter-gather immigrants survive in an urban landscape, if they're really at a disadvantage to those born into more connectedness, allowing, of course, for the confounding factors of racism and active social exclusion.

The supposedly ideal community - the hunter-gatherer band of 25 or so - can still exist in the city, circles of colleagues and friends. And like Will Self said, you can make a choice to live in a more natural way, following rhythms that make deep sense, although this is far easier for people not to tied to offices, nine to five. At times like this I love my job, free all day Tuesday until 5pm, working on proof-reading, doing other things.

I grew up on and off in small villages, and don't romanticize the life in a genuinely small community. It's dull to be in the middle of nowhere with no books and no like-minded folk, where everybody feels they have an interest and a part of you. The easy anonymity of the city is for me, with all the facilities and opportunities for satisfaction and pleasure.

A decent city has unplanned diversity at all scales, is an organic, emergent whole, a realization of the prevailing ideologies and practices of the inhabitants, freeze-framed and stilted over time. Human artifacts, especially those which are emergent, the product of a huge mass of choices over time and space, are expressions of human nature. Which is not to say that they're necessarily good or healthy, but only that they're likely to conflict with human drives in the most superficial ways. But that's pretty glib - how could it be otherwise? Well...consider the clear inhumanity of a centrally planned community, the expression of one ideology and vision, as opposed to one that has grown up slowly, reshaped by economic, social and environmental variations at a very fine grade. The former is the standard state architecture of empires and dictatorships, grand slabs with no life. The latter is one of the things I love about Tainan. In my neighborhood of a square kilometer we have restaurants, convenience stores, morning and afternoon markets, schools, bars, supermarkets, parks, a hospital clinics, a university, two movie theaters, two swimming pools, tennis courts, a convent, temples, brothels, tailors, dentists, travel agents, hardware stores, bicycle shops, electrical repairs, plumbers, beauticians, barbers, bookstores and more, all amongst the homes of rich and poor people, crammed together, and there's not a dull part of it, unlike in the newer, more sanitized and planned parts of time, where there's nowhere to walk and all your needs demand motorized transport.


I don't think we needed to evolve to adapt to cities. The city was already inside us, and a need for connections and size that was once met by natural landscapes can now be met by urban spaces.