Wittgenstein's
puzzle was "how do words mean?" i.e. by what mechanism. He wasn't
looking to brain science, nor occult "mental processes" nor even to
logic, so much as to grammar.
He realized that words gain meaning not by pointing to essences (St. Augustine's model) but by operating, by doing, in the context of what we could choose to call "games".
Lifting a paint bucket up a ladder is what conveys what "ladder" means. The meaning of "paint" inheres in how we use it. One ends up describing little fragments of action, against the backdrop of rules.
The grammar of "games" is useful because we say we're "following rules". This was considered serious and good philosophy in time, not idle wordplay. Real insights derive from studying his work (I would aver, many agree).
Another link to "game" and "games" is through my writings around the Fuller corpus, as Bucky invented "World Game" as his antidote alternative to war games, already ongoing.
"What if we are all on the same side, sharing just the one spaceship (i.e. Earth), what simulations might we play then?"
We want humanity to succeed as a whole, not watch some winner take all in some "you or me" debacle.
In a recent Youtube I aim to address those who might be offended that World Game is a trivialization, precisely because of these "game" connotations. We seem to make light of the human condition.
But then Great Game is in the literature already, loosely referring to the same global jockeying for position that Fuller did.
He wasn't being all that original, which is to our benefit as we like to transition more than we like to abort and reboot.
He realized that words gain meaning not by pointing to essences (St. Augustine's model) but by operating, by doing, in the context of what we could choose to call "games".
Lifting a paint bucket up a ladder is what conveys what "ladder" means. The meaning of "paint" inheres in how we use it. One ends up describing little fragments of action, against the backdrop of rules.
The grammar of "games" is useful because we say we're "following rules". This was considered serious and good philosophy in time, not idle wordplay. Real insights derive from studying his work (I would aver, many agree).
Another link to "game" and "games" is through my writings around the Fuller corpus, as Bucky invented "World Game" as his antidote alternative to war games, already ongoing.
"What if we are all on the same side, sharing just the one spaceship (i.e. Earth), what simulations might we play then?"
We want humanity to succeed as a whole, not watch some winner take all in some "you or me" debacle.
In a recent Youtube I aim to address those who might be offended that World Game is a trivialization, precisely because of these "game" connotations. We seem to make light of the human condition.
But then Great Game is in the literature already, loosely referring to the same global jockeying for position that Fuller did.
He wasn't being all that original, which is to our benefit as we like to transition more than we like to abort and reboot.
