Lately I feel the urge to broaden my personal view of games and the behaviour of play. I came to realise that I probably skipped a few steps by diving deep into the world of the motivation to play games. Games seem to be implicitly linked to so many things like the image of a child having fun, innocence, no serious implications, past-time silliness and the behaviour of play itself. I'm probably not qualified to paint a picture of games and play that's sound in all the related areas of expertise like biology, neurology and anthropology. But I want to move forward in my understanding of games and will just give it a shot.
The behaviour implicitly linked to
games is "play". Games are played, though sometimes we simply say we
game*. That there are words created for these phenomena almost makes
you forget that the behaviour of play is not exclusive to the human species.
There does appear to be a minimal level of intelligence before playful
behaviour is displayed. Playful ravens, wolfs, seals, felines are
easy to imagine. Still it would be a blast if fish or Cephalopoda
were found with playful behaviour. Regardless of the species,
playful behaviour does seem to fade as age increases.
Playful behaviour of other beings
should not be judged through human morality, else it can seem quite
malignent.
Playful behaviour always seems to lack
serious implications or a fixed goal. The seal in the previous video
was not meant to be eaten, like a clean and efficient kill.
There are probably exceptions but a lot
of playful behaviour seems to be embedded in social contact. Playing
with others is more fun of course and creating cards to play
solitaire seems to be a prerequisite for more intricate solo play.
Unless monkeys program their first game.
Source: Wikimedia - New York Zoological Society |
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