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I've just written this little articles that might come in handy for theory - particularly with the Text Adventure competition out there. I personally wouldn't say it's complete as there's a lot more to say, but I need the loo, plus you can only write up so much information at once. If you want I could list up my references up here (though I have written it off of the top of my head, but I got the information used from different books and general research)

Mythology, Culture and Games

Anybody attempting to create a large universe, this can be for the plots for any kind of fiction - whether it be Sci-Fi or Fantasy, a novel or a game. Role Playing Games try to immerse themselves deep into a fictional land with its own cultures and people.

But how do we understand culture? It usually helps to understand our own culture, the culture of neighbours and the culture of our ancestors. Our own culture can be fairly easy to grasp, you probably could take a group or stereotype and say a lot about them - for example, name 3 bands a Goth might like, or how would a skinhead react if you called him baldy? Well you would live for very long I tell you. TV and movies can provide a window to the world out there, of course filter through the propaganda first and it doesn’t hurt to do a little bit of research. Of course this is what this articles is about and it will cover some research...though information on the past can have its propaganda too - the Roman historians and writers are going to be biased towards the Romans.

To those interesting in Norse culture might cringe at the sight of the movie ‘pathfinder’ because the portrayal of Vikings is incredibly inaccurate and unfair - makes for good screenplay, but nothing reliable, hence the problem of movies.

Where do I get my resources then? Well ancient translated texts can be helpful; these can be the great epics, historical and philosophical writing and even religious texts, such as the Bible, those that don’t believe in the bible might be thinking “What? It’s a load of twoddle, 7 days? Yeah right.” But of course the bible is a historic document and it’ll say heaps about their culture, their situation and their enemies. The enemies will be the bit where the bible has a bit of ‘propaganda’, the Assyrians are portrayed as being quite evil, mind you the Assyrians weren’t exactly allies - as Mesopotamian society (Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer) is known for early paganism, no doubt this where some of the stories came from and why the Bible dislikes pagans (and probably where the image of the devil came from, the devil is sort of ‘half man, half goat’, well Mesopotamian demons were half man, half animal) Of course these are ‘probablies’ coming from my own analysis and assumptions.

If we’re looking at History, then you must understand what important features are there in those cultures? Mesopotamians lived in large cities in the desert, where irrigation systems passed water to their homes and it meant their society could strive (these guys being one of the earliest civilizations) they were capable of building their cities and in their society you’ll find there are important things for them: Leaders (a King), religion (A Mesopotamian temple is called a Ziggurat) slaves, farms, entertainment, hunters, armies, scholars etc. Mesopotamian religion was of course Paganism, and their stories we refer to today as ‘Mythology’, these stories of course tie in with ‘entertainment’, in fact early civilisation relied a lot on stories, funnily enough a story remember could tell you how to get to some place, record genealogies (people needed to remember their families, it became handy in court cases - you’ll notice listed names in the Torah and Bible, notice how for Jesus to be recognised as a prophet he would need his genealogy to be traced to the house of David, with no written records, he’d have to remember it) they could provide history as well and warnings, where to get water in the desert etc. so it was more than just for religion and entertainment. Of course in early civilization writing did develop, but it didn’t just happen like that, you’d have earliy ‘pictographic’ pieces - you can see these in the British Museum if you want to, pictographic writing would be a picture of something - these were imprinted on small clay pieces, such as sheep or goats - these were stylised (to make it easier to draw, bear in mind they’d have a reed to write with) they main purpose was just accountancy, so they developed away of recording numbers, here is an example:



It might be difficult to see, but from what I've read on the writing system, the one on the far right (second one down) it seems they have 60 barley crops.

Of course you may ask why the development of ancient mesopotamian writing is important? Well if you're inventing a society or different societies, you might want to think about their language and the implications of writing, so this early stage here will mean that all they could do with writing really was accountancy, that means no tablets, no written documents, the significance of Storytelling and Oral culture is significant. Once writing develops there's room for scholars. The formations here might help with creating your own writing systems or styles - well why did they write like that - well an artistic impression is difficult and takes too long and they have a reed to write with on a piece of clay, to improve their writing different stages of stylisation happened and became 'cuneiform', cuneiform is just lines and wedges. What they did was rotate objects and then stylised them so that they were no longer 'pictographic' or even 'ideographic' (where the grapheme represents something, like the symbol for 'woman' and the symbol for 'mountain' merged into meaning 'slave' (representing woman from abroad) and 'man' and 'bread' became 'eat'.

For an idea of how the script developed here is a table (these are Sumerian - a part of southern Mesopotamia):
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/img/fig01.jpg

To get an idea of what I was just talking about:
Number 4 is Woman (Notice how rude this symbol is - I'll come on to this later)
Number 5 is Mountain
Number 6 is Slave
Number 7 is Man
Number 9 is bread
Number 10 is eat

So that's writing. I said the rudeness of the symbol, well civilisation has always been dominated by men and Mesopotamian society did have a relevance of 'sex', after all that's what priestesses were equipped for as suggested in the Epic of Gilgamesh (where Gilgamesh sends a priestess to make love to the wildman Enkidu in order to civilize him)

Onto storytelling, it's a major part of oral tradition, even when scholars arised and wrote down stories that have been in ciculation for over 1000 years (they reckon the Epic of Gilgamesh started around 3000BC, but was recorded until much later (sorry I don't have a date, as I'm writing this all off of the top of my head, but it was discovered in Babylonia and written in Akkadian Cuneiform - which is quite advanced)

Now, I'm sure some plots or ideas will be in the realms of fantasy, so mythology can be a fantastic place to look. Lord of the Rings is an example, fantastic world of fantasy imitated by others, hugely taken from Norse mythology, the name 'Gandalf' actually occurs in the Norse piece 'Edda' under a genealogical table for the dwarves. Tolkein crafted the Orc language from Norse, so it's quite impressive in that right. And middle Earth is just a translation of the Norse word 'Midgard' - there's also Utgard (Land of the Giants) and Asgard (Land of the Gods) Norse mythology quite conveniently came from Norse paganism (and the only reason we know so much about the Norse is because of Snorri Sturluson, a 13th century Old Icelandic scholar who had to convince the Christian lead land that the Norse stories weren't pagan lies, but had the same sort of value as Greek mythology, of course this meant 'playing' with the stories a bit, the opening of his book 'The Edda' opens with the creation story and leads on to tying Loki with Oddyseus and Thor with Hector and say that Asgard is in fact Troy. If using Norse mythologies, remember the Norse dudes did not come from Troy.

In Norse mythology, like any mythology has a set of races, for them, they were:

Aesir (The Main Gods, there's 12 of them, like the Zodiac)
Giants
Frost Giants
Elves
Dark Elves
Dwarves
Humans

As with any pagan religion, the gods have something special about them (think of Zeus and that lot) Odin is the 'All-father', the father of the Gods, Thor is his son - sometimes referred to as the God of Thunder, he has his own rune (Thorisaz) in the runic alphabet and is one of the comical, angry characters, he's also the strongest of them all, Frey (good with his fists, because he gave his weapon in the pursuit of love) Freya (Frey's sister) is who they preyed to in times of love (she was the most beautiful goddess) Tyr - who had his hand bitten off by the Wolf Fenrir in a broken pact. The list goes on, you also have trouble makers, Loki being the figure for mischief and winding up the gods (His characters was the basis for the Mask would you believe?) he was capable of shape shifting and that's how some of his trickery happened.

Mythological worlds also like having unscientific explanations for the ways of things, such as creation. The Norse world was created from the body of Ymir, a front Giant, Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve slew, his gashes and blood made rivers, his skull the sky, clouds are his brain etc. Mesopotamians believed the rivers Euphrates and Tigris are the tears of the Tiamat. Weather effects were expain differently, wind in Norse mythology is created by a giant eagle, Earthquakes come from Loki's torture (he's being tortured until Ragnorok)

Floods are a common thing in early mythology, there are several flood stories that have lead historians to believe that a massive flood happened. The stories differs, but in the Middle/Near east they are quite similar, you'll heard of Noah's ark, which is almost identical to the story Utnapishtim reveals in the epic of Gilgamesh. Interestingly, the end of the world in Norse mythology, Ragnorok, involves a flood.

So, how is mythology relevant to a world within a game or story? Well mythology came a part of religious ceremony and story tellers would boast the tales of the gods to each other, in prose, poetry or even song. Poetry and song were more common, bards in Celtic culture sang and were very important in their societies, in some cases regarded higher than kings themselves. Norse skalds did in the form of poetry (in a form conveniently called 'Skaldic verse'). You probably wouldn't imagine a Viking standing up and reciting poetry, however in their language it sounds quite strong.

Mythology can hold the center for a society - of course if you consider various aspects for a society to function - it's really been in the last 500 years that a proper literate society has formed - scholars before then could read or write, but for common folks, oral tradition was important.

So if you're designing a new society or type of people, then there is a lot you may need to consider about them in order to make them realistic. What leads up to a society - a written language is formed based on the needs and demands of the people and develop from there, but the language has to be easy to write with thier tools and technology of course as time moves on so does the writing and comes to form new standards. And how does technology develop? Any technology, like writing develops to fulfill needs with the resources they have, irrigation was made to build cities further away from the rivers (which no doubt flooded). Technology can develop from war as well, there's always been way and no doubt that's why they build tall strong walls and weapons improved from 'simple' hunting tools and fighting technique needs development as well and a military.

It's a lot to think about, I know, there's probably a lot more to add and I'll probably add it later - but this should be some 'theory' into the creations of worlds, whether fantasy or sci-fi (I'll dig into Sci-fi later) but the principles here can be applied to Sci-Fi worlds too.

Ooh - interesting! I'm hoping (only hoping!) to get some kind of Newspeak comments into my dystopic text adventure. After all, what better format to comment on the importance of language than a text adventure? This may have to take a backseat to the whole "overthrowing the regime" plot, though.

So I'm looking forward to your sci-fi monograph (or whatever the correct term is), but in the meantime, my comment is: Doubleplus good!

Hehe, cheers - though if you want to chase me up on anything, I can either try to expand further or redirect you.

I think I might add a bigger section to 'language' because it is such a huuuuge topic on its own, and I've only focused on the invention of writing and what it may mean to culture and development of other things.

If what I want to write gets too big, I might just do a short version here and set it out in sections on my website. Depends what time it leaves me - at least it gets me in the right state of mind for writing my novel and doing my Text Adventure and designing a project after that.

Well, if you want any suggestions, perhaps Orwell's idea that language is directly linked to learning capacity and the ability to develop ideas? The idea being, the larger your vocabulary, the more ideas you can express sort of ready-made. For example, if I go into a philosophical conversation with a small vocabulary and I keep mentioning "the idea that nothing really matters and there is no god", I will keep stumbling over those concepts - whereas if I already know what "nihilism" means, I can just define it, move on, and build on the idea. Or, put plainly:

If they have no word for "rebellion" then they cannot rebel.

I suppose that can go into the idea that we experience the world through language and of course the development of language is really what has given our society a function.

Then without language, we wouldn't survive as a species (engaging in mating requires some kind of language, even if basic...unless, well need I say it?)

This is an interesting discussion.

First, I'll qualify, only without a tiresome blow-hard intrusion into this conversation, my remarks stating that I've read a few books regarding issues related to thought reform as they occur on a societal level and as thought reform relates to individual psychology.

If we're discussing cultural lexicons, as they relate to Orwellian concepts, we need look no further than the current election in the United States. Without taking any political sides (I tend to be very centrist and am mostly apolitical) the term "flip-flop" is being uttered by news anchors without much thought as to the implications it holds.

To my mind, it is an argument negating cliché, meaning that one can say, "Because candidate X has changed his position on issue A, he is a 'flip-flopper'." What has happened is that whatever experience or information which actually pertains to candidate X's decision has been completely dismissed by pejoratively regarding him as someone who is indecisive. In essence, by ascribing to candidate X the term, flip-flopper, any rational discussion of the issue is discarded in favor of an easily surmised ad hominem attack.

It seems completely contrary to anything which is actually beneficial unless one is favored by staying away from intelligent argument. Justifications for the ad hominem are presented in seemingly rational arguments which are tacit in the implication of candidate X's pandering - because while population A favors position Y, population B favors position Z, which is, perhaps, favored by candidate W; - AND/OR - candidate X's indecisiveness that implies, a priori , that he lacks confidence, is too inexperienced, buckles under pressure, et al.

Hence, in the court of public opinion, candidate X is impeached with (and I heard this on CNN, this morning) "a fresh charge of flip-flopping." No one has to assuage any concern about the myriad complexities of issue A. With the term, "flip-flop", the concern for those complexities are drawn, by the term's user, away from the attention of the public and in lieu is replaced with the ad hominem cloaked in concern for candidate X's qualification.

To boost the qualification of the argument negating cliché is the use of it by presumably qualified individuals who are thought to be informed about the issues enough to make such assertions without having to qualify them for the public. What is referred to as an "echo chamber" is actually a misnomer that implies a naturally occurring repetition. In fact, pundits repeat such charges ad nauseum in an artificial construct. The media, instead of reporting exact facts pertinent to candidates and issues, reports on what was said, by whom, and without vetting the assertions in the content of what was said.

In such a mechanism, at the public level, it becomes impossible to discuss any candidate or issue on a factually informed level. People are only able to regurgitate the cliché and if someone is actually informed enough to make a point, there are enough cliché’s to impugn their informed assertion with charges like "liberal media bias" or "bible-belt blowhard."

In this mindset, populations begin losing their humanity. To opposing factions, the nuanced ideas and beliefs informing their opponents’ views no longer exist in favor of thinking of them in more condescending terms. The individuals who comprise opposing segments are thought to have less than human capacities. They are not spiritual enough to one segment. The other believes the former to be too religious.

As always, there is a grain of truth to these assertions, but only a grain. While I hesitate to begin a major philosophical argument premised in this discussion I submit a thesis of my own which is informed largely by my experiences: All conflict is based in fallacy. With so much fallacy occurring on so many levels, it is impossible for anyone to arrive at singular truths which may be agreed upon by all parties. In that predicament, society is pitted against itself, led down rabbit holes which lead nowhere in a surrealistic nightmare with no truth to count as one's own and no one to share that truth with.

You know, people who use a priori in a sentence are HOT! Then again I'm a Kant fan-boy. Interesting read Eddie.

Apologies for not adding anything. Lets try a new one.

The Influence and Importance of Language

The influence and importance of Language? I reckon the first thing you might ask yourself...Why would it matter on a game design forum? A simple answer would be to understand how one can manipulate their audience, how they feel, what they think, their reaction...in fact the control can be quite scary. Related to gaming, this article might help you get the frame of mind in creating a plot or using ideas that will be effective.

But where do I start? Language is highly important, society couldn't function without it - its a mean of communcaition, it is thought, ideas, opinions, reflection and all sorts. An easy target for talking about the influence of language is the new media. Ever noticed how people who use one source of media tend to share similar opinions and those opinions tend to differ from those who use other news media - liberal and conservative tend to be the main sides - now you could say that it's because the news media of choice relates better to one sort of person and not so to the other - this could have some truth.
Before I get onto the bullying of Newspapers, I want you to think about a psychological experiment, it's an was an experiment on Eye Witness testimony.

Loftus and Palmer in 1974 thought they would try something - they had a group people who watched the same car crash (on a movie) and were asked questions on it afterwards. The questions were worded differently each time, to see if the word effected how they percieved/remembered the situation. The question was "how fast do you think the car was going when it hit/collided/bumped/smashed with the other" interestingly the estimated speed change between people (not necessarily by an expected ranged of error) For those who had 'hit', the average speed estimated was 34mph, for smashed the average was 40.8. When asked 'was there broken glass?' the people who had the word 'smash' tended to say yes. This of course shows how people 'see' the situation differ dependant on the language, now of course this was for Eye-Witness testimoney, but a similar pattern emerges within certain Newspaper writing.

Now think of any newspaper article, think about how you've reacted to it, have you thought "oh that's terrible"? or "What a horrible man"? I'll write an example relating to actual news:
"Cambridge University students had a nice surprise when entering their exam yesterday afternoon, students taking the English literature exams were faced with two extracts, one poem by classical poet, Sir Walter Raleigh and the other by none other than drugged up pop-star Amy Winehouse.
The examiners provided the excuse that Sir Walter Raleigh was then what Amy Winehouse is today.
First the A Level exams are getting easy and now University students are having their exams made easy for them by using icons they can easily relate to.

"Cambridge University students entering an exam yesterday were asked to compare a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh and Amy Winehouse - it is normal for two classics poets to be compare in such exams but students might have been thrown in trying to find common ground between the two, however a Cambridge University profressor claims that 'Sir Walter Raleigh was no different to famous pop-icons today, like Amy Winehouse'."

The first is similar to the original article in the Daily Mail, except I think a bit more subtle (to keep the word count down...plus I don't have the original article). What was your reaction, my reaction to the original article was actually: "Bugger, the education system's just getting worse", then I thought about it and concluded that the question is actually quite a clever one, a brilliant one if you will and almost became jealous - I studied English literature at A Level and am studying Writing at University, so I already started coming up with ideas on how to go about comparing them and thought "shame on you Daily Mail, I can see why political comedians ridicule you". This is an example of how the way you represent something through language can control or effect a person's opinion or point of view. Also on the note of new media, it can be the eyes and ears to the people, for a vision of the world outside of their circle, so incidentally representation is important. Parents reading articles on education may not be up to date with the standards of education, when their favourite media claims it is dumbing down, they may believe them, even if it's mere speculation. Having a lot of 'evil' foreign people in the news can have the knock on side effect of fear, especially when they use words like 'terror', 'extremism', 'fear' in the article, due to how many times the word 'Muslim' appears with those words people might even fear Muslims, I've seen this happen. My parents have always been Daily Mail readers, interesting to see how my mum has said that a lot of Asians cause trouble in the UK, are into gangs and that they're dangerous, some have known the Daily Mail to provide different articles to do with Asian violence and general violence foreigners have committed. But I've never met a violent foreinger - I know a black guy was looking to start a fight in London with us, but in my experience most people to watch out for have been white, male British people. Of course it may be a speculation of my Mum, but I've looked around and seen these have been the sort of excuse the BNP have used and the amount of Islamaphobia I've seen - on our University forums somebody made a post about the Muslims and sending them home and of course I remember a post made here saying "I am offended by Muslims". For the record every Muslim I've met in real life or spoken to online are brilliant.

But I digress. Just to put The Daily Mail in the deep end again and for a final word on representation, I read an article not so long a go about Google, sort of a backlash after the Viacom incident, it seems the journalists wanted to add salt in the wound or something. Google are providing pictures of houses etc. with their maps, so you can look at locations/streets as well as have an aerial photo. The article just said "type in the post code and address to find the place", but they just focused on how this is invading your privacy and is a useful tool for stalkers. Two major flaws: 1; a stalker would need your post code or address, if they have that then they already know where you live, 2; it's a picture of your street, anybody is capable of walking down the street - it shows nothing of what you're doing (ironically they post a picture from this service of someones house)...of course anyone would find it ironic that a Newspaper like the Daily Mail is complaining about the privacy of people...*Let's flick to the middle pages* ooh look Prince Harry is getting sloshed with his mates - look at what all the celebs are up to, David Jason drunk...

Now that was more of a rant there, but consider this: how accurate of a representation is this really? How effectively has the newspaper represented Google. It appears to have used the Viacom incident and Google's map services as a spring board to say "your privacy isn't private any more", which isn't true. In fact they called the camera google is using "spy-cameras".

Of course, now you can say I've misrepresented the news media by using the Daily Mail and nothing else.

Now moving away from all that - I'm trying to avoid this article from being about the misrepresentation of the media, though it's really tempting to go down that road. I'll bring it a bit more close to a purpose - your language, the words you use, how you use them it's all important to how your deliver a message, there are different sentence types that can imply different things. An exclamation mark represents an emphasis, whilst a question mark can imply confusion.

Consider active and passive sentences - in the English language we have a typical synatx of Subject, verb, object and it's the subject of the sentence that grabs our focus, it's where our interest lies. "I will kill Peter Rabbit" the focus is on me and the sentence is active - little focus is on the object, but rather the 'actor' (or subject) so my action is the most important, thus your opinion will be directed at me, which it likely to be hatred (unless you support my action). The passive version "Peter Rabbit will be killed by me", the focus is on Peter Rabbit, so you will think more about him and you might feel sorry for him, or celebrate the fact he's about to be killed. So here the exact same situation, different wording, different reaction. The syntax too can provide the order you see things, so with a statement like: "I went to the Zoo last week", the imagery is - Me->Moving->Zoo, passive: "The Zoo was a place I visited last week" The Zoo->Me there.

Now...where does gaming come into all of this? This is all just Language stuff. Well, it is really, but start thinking about the logic here - the words you use and the methods you use them in are important to the reaction as I have shown - the different between passive and active, how word order in important, how representation effects perspective and opinions. I may be a cheesy example, but Iraqis, how do your represent them in a war game in Iraq? How do you representation your soliders? Compare two movies: Rambo 2 and Full Metal Jacket, Rambo represents the soliders of Vietname as heroic, honourable, powerful, Full Metal Jacket represents them as being ammoral or in some cases psychotic. Active and passive, they may not appear significant - but they are, in your design a passive approach to something might be more effective than an active one. What if, you wanted a scene where somebody is shot, where do you want your audience to focus? The death or the shooting? What's more important...again if it's a war time thing, Rambo, you mostly see Sylvestor Stallone killing the Vietcong, Full Metal Jacket there's a scene in the helicopter, you see the shooting, but the camera is focused on the innocents being shot for a moment.

Anyway...there...that's it, I've written another one - I should really aim for game central, but I think the focus on language is important because it's how we see the world, it's how we think and communicate, so any 'art' form is just another way to communicate language...if you really want to go far then games are a language used to tell a story (not all games, pacman has no story) or something artistic.



[EDIT]

I didn't give you any pictures in this one...so here you go -

Because we love him and this part of FMJ was so brilliant:


For most of the scene the focus is actively on that guy, the soldiers aren't important until one gets bullied - it builds up an opinion for the guy and plus we like watching him, because he's funny.

Thought-provoking stuff guys!

I'd like to comment on the idea of argument-negating (or "thought-terminating") cliches for a moment. I agree wholeheartedly with Eddie Zilker: they are mental shortcuts which are often taken due to sloppy thinking. An example could be if you're having a discussion where you are trying to argue your case logically - but let's say you're losing. Unable to recover any argumentative ground, you simply end with something along the lines of "well, your expert is stupid" or "Everybody knows you're wrong". In place of step-by-step thinking and a logical approach, you've stooped to thought-terminating cliches which have the appearance of logic and truth but which are essentially empty shells. It is all too easy to fall into this trap, though: we have heard so many cliches that it's easy to simply pluck one out of the air.

That example was one isolated incident in a culture of (generally) logical argument (or so I hope). However, imagine a culture where the citizens have only been exposed to these cliches: where there is no concept of logical thought, but only of these mind-numbing abbreviations.

I've never been given a definition, but I think the rules of logic are basically as follows: use the available evidence or your own experience to draw a conclusion from a situation/evidence etc. This can then have another conclusion drawn from it. In this way you can form a chain of logical thought and arrive at a conclusion which will probably be correct, as long as your analysis and estimation was correct. The guiding rule here is, "use evidence to reach conclusions". But what if the citizens of this cliche-filled state were conditioned to follow a different set of rules, such as "your leaders are always right"? With logic abandoned, a news story might run thusly:
"Our leaders recently ambushed a group of renegades hiding in the woods. The renegades were complaining because they believe our leaders routinely shoot any citizens who show signs of rebellion or discontent. Our leaders replied by saying that such thoughts were dangerous to the stability of everybody's freedom: as such, it was deemed necessary to execute each and every one of those renegades. There were celebrations in the streets following the event, where the whole nation rejoiced that its leaders are so wise."
Clearly, the leaders are hypocritical, but because there is an absence of logic and the leaders are blindly revered, this does not matter.
Another kind of thought-terminating cliche could be deliberate hyperbole (or exaggeration). Let's say a father has an unruly son. The mother says, "our son is unruly - I think you should do something about it, because I don't think he should waste his life like this." This is fairly reasonable.,But if the father replies, "Hey, what do you want me to do, tie him up and beat him?" then the conversation is stopped dead. While it's obvious that this is not what he should do, and that there are other, less cruel methods of dealing with the problem, those are obscured - possibly by the fact that we momentarily agree with the father that beating him would be extreme, and possibly because the idea of a beating grabs our attention long enough to derail the conversation.

But I would also like to touch upon the importance of summarising concepts. Think, for a moment, of a cube, or a sunset, or Father Christmas. While I can't be certain, it seems likely that these will all be very visual images: when I think of these things, I have a picture in my mind. But now think of freedom, or of pythagoras. What comes into your head when you think of a particular idea - say communism? Not the political affiliations or the leaders or the ramifications, but the basic idea whereby everybody is equal and is governed as such. It is very difficult to think of these things without thinking in words, rather than in pictures. Words, then, are not only tools in our attempts to communicate, but are tools with which to think. They can be the building blocks of ideas: it is difficult, for example, to sum up the concept of a video game without using words. A picture would give the feel, but words would be able to sketch a far more accurate outline of the actual feel of the game.

But what if you were working from the opposite direction in our communist example? Let's say that you had formed a government but that there was a radical portion of the population who believed in equality in government and that everything should be nationalised, as well as lots of other unusual, non-capitalist ideas. You would need to combat them, and while you were making plans and trying to understand them you would naturally refer to them often. But simply saying "those who believe in equality in government and that everything should be nationalised, as well as lots of other unusual, non-capitalist ideas" every time you want to refer to them is long-winded. Calling them "rebels" is a thought-terminating cliche, because it would assign a label to them which might be undeserved and which would almost certainly be inaccurate due to its connotations. But to call them "communists" might be beneficial: this label is generally accurate, plus it allows for expansion of thought: now that you have a word for these people, which differentiates them from sect A but links them to sect B, for example, you are able to simplify the view you have of the group, and in so doing you may be able to move on from the problem of defining them and look at more complex matters. This is starting to sound a little vague, but if you have words such as "large", "titanic", "over-sized", "bulbous", "immense" and "grandiose" as well as "big", you can begin to make subtle alterations to the way you describe things which allow for an extra level of detail. In the same way, "communists" could be used in the example above to differentiate them from other rebels. But it is important not to allow "communists" to become a cliche (as it probably did in the Red Scare period), and to remember that though such simplifications can make it easier to analyse a problem, they can also give misleading conclusions.

So... how might this be used in a game? Well, I'm not entirely sure. However, it strikes me that a cliche is not necessarily the same as a summary. (Eg. "You're a crazy communist red!" is not the same as "the population of China is officially communist".) Also, we generally look more favourably upon reasonable summaries than we do upon great sweeping cliches. (And, yes, I realise that the previous sentence is basically a big sweeping cliche.) But in practice it can be difficult to tell the two apart: if somebody says something is "enormous" or "gigantic", they could be totally accurate - it might be so large that the word "big" simply does not denote its size. But, at the same time, what if it is just a bit on the big side, and they are only exaggerating? My suggestion, then, is to put the player into a game where they are fed information from a very restrictive system - perhaps they're a marine fighting for a totalitarian state. Feed them cliches, but do not reveal that these are cliches. This could be done by restricting information and by establishing a sense of trust between the newsreaders (for example) and the player: perhaps they appear to have told the truth since the game began, so the player believes them. Then, the truth could be revealed, the hypocrisy and greed of the leaders could be revealed and the player would then be fed summaries, rather than cliches.

Well, it might work. It'd have to be done well, though.

Hehe, I'm saving this quote next time I face my next debate - this is exactly the trait I find in arguments and probably a habit we've all picked up at some point. There's no shame in being wrong - now, with politicians, as the public we find it hard to sit in their shoes, now think about the millions of eyes judging every word you say - it's quite a lot of pressure, so it would seem 'making sense' is sacrificed for public appearance...though I'd respect any politician that'd grow a spine. Though on normal innocent debates, it's can be interesting to see people walk in with good points, but when they have nothing to add, they stay using hollow words that eventually turn into insults. I've actually had somebody say "PWND NOOB", this was on my university forum, so it's true, students can act like 12 year olds when they don't get their own way.


I suppose this would come close to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which was basically a criticism on philosophical thought that always took that a priori out-look on things, where philosophers thought the answers to the questions in the world can be access through thought alone, which isn't true, any successful argument follows logic and some evidence to support it...at the same time he didn't use that as an excuse to shoot down God (as some people I know will as soon as the word 'evidence' is thrown about...Kant was Christian himself - I think his 'moral argument' was his attempt to support the idea) Interestingly he said that no thought is of pure cognition, because all thought begins with some kind of experience. (which is true, story ideas as an example maybe entirely thought up, but experience has influenced those thoughts)


But I think philosophy of language will have to stop with me there for now, because I'm tired - probably not the best think to think/talk about when half asleep.

Wow, excellent posts, by the both of you. If only I could put my thoughts on paper...er...something.

Keep up the good work, this thread is excellent for those crafting intricate stories, and I look forward to more.

Cheers, though it's difficult keeping this all relevant to game design, but I certainly hope whoever wishes to read these can see what can be applied where - we talk about language, 'art' is a medium of language, gaming is becoming an art-form, so as long as there's that connection it's all relevant. Of course lets hope people have the time and will power to read through our long posts





But words aren't necessarily the most effective language, like with art forms, they may not be as concrete as words are but are an interesting means of communication. But of course though tends to use words and it's because of this level of language we are capable of advancing more that other animals, it's how we developed. One of my lecturers talked about a certain part of the brain that determines the capability for language, our's is quite large compare to animals, now some apes have the capability of expressing certain types of language but the reason they can yet develop it is because that part of the brain is much smaller, but if apes continued to use this parts of the brain, no doubt in generations to come it'll get bigger. An interesting case to look at is the Bonobo called Kansi - she is capable of understand human speech and there's a computer she and other bonobos can use to talk to humans, an example is where she used the computer to ask for food or to play. What's also interesting, Kansi has used this computer to communicate to another bonobo.

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Now to talk about the 'reciever' of language, Kiwi you use your freedom example where somebody may think of 'communism' or perhaps 'democracy', this is how people apply the words they recieve, they use their version/experience of the word. Even with Santa Claus, the image in each of our heads is different and that's based on our version of Santa, you might think of the people who pretend to be Santa at schools when you were a kid, with the fake beard - or you may think of Coca cola Santa or ever Nightmare Before Christmas Santa.

How we interpret the language we recieve is based off of our individual experiences, so any 'experience' we've had isn't necessarily exactly the same all the way round. This can be one of the problems with using language, so I'm leading up to is the meaning behind my signature:

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality."

Any statement you make out of experience cannot be accurately universalised, but you can only assume or make comparisons. So if I was trying to express an experience or concept that I've had or something I understand, but my audience hasn't, then it's impossible to accurately communicate it...for example, if I wanted to express the horrors of war (though I have no experience myself) you have to be careful with your 'language', now many people have tried - Wilfred Owen wrote a fantastic poem using descriptively language people can understand in order to relate the horror of the battle field in WW2, Steven Speilburg used certain shots and effects in saving private Ryan to show you how horrible it is and of course none of us have experienced these things (or at least I hope) yet they try to represent these horrors to us. Of course the difference between Wilfred Owen and Spielburg is that Wilfred Owen actually experienced those things in battle - but what Spielburg experienced were testimonies of other people's experiences and that's what you'll find you can rely on for representation. Of course the Second World War is represented in many different ways.

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I agree, but:

You talk about logical thought, some, like Wittgenstein would argue that all thought is logical, especially consider that's the opening line of his book. He also talks about how it's only that true thought that can depict the world. The reason all thought comes from logic is because even if the thought is foolish, it comes from some kind of reasoning, which would be: "I like my life, the government run this country, they seem to know what's best, I trust they'll do the best." And people who tend to have that kind of thought tend to be those who benefit or those who think they benefit - like those who vote labour in the UK benefit from the party, not because they lack any kind of logic. But yes, "your leaders are always right" is definitely a foolish train of thought to fall under, governments are human and they're subject to wrong doings, mistakes etc. as much as we are, which is why the conclusions of your example group is wrong and perhaps ignorant, but it isn't illogical - this based on evidence of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Henry VIII and a lot of leaders that have existed would suggest that leaders are capable of wrong doings and decisions, but for that to apply to your reasoning, such things may need to occur to you first. Of course this is if you agree that a logical positivist's definition of logic is the right one.


Enjoy!

I agree, but as you said:
You basically summed it up pretty well, in that words may not always be the best method of communication, but they do allow for more complex thoughts. The Kansi example is interesting - also, I watched a show a while back where they did a series of tests on a sealion. It would push the correct button for food. It had been doing this for a while, but by the end it was able to distinguish between letters and numbers, so if it worked out that it had to push only numbers to get its food, it would only push numbers.

I agree: and this is an interesting idea. I suppose the idea is that we have a mental experience "bank" (which is basically our memory) and we try to apply what we have learned and put in the bank to any new experiences (which are also put in the bank for later use). This is fairly straightforward stuff, but it links in with the "describe red to a blind man" idea.

Now I'd like to rant about proverbs!

A proverb is a short statement with a moral or message attached to it, often using metaphor. For example, "A stitch in time saves nine". The message is "fix things quick or they may get worse", the metaphor is of a piece of fabric unravelling. I used to think that proverbs were useful little bits of cultural wisdom that were, in general, still relevant today.

But then, I read an article in the Spectator which made me realise that for every proverb which says one thing, there is another proverb which says the EXACT OPPOSITE. For example, A stitch in time saves nine but shouldn't we look before we leap? If you're in for a penny you should be in for a pound, but shouldn't we never throw good money after bad? Out of sight, out of mind - unless, of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Proverbs, it turns out, are nothing more than pithy little cliches selected by the speaker whenever they want a sure-fire way to win an argument, but which can be instantly thrown out again when they need to take the opposite stance.

A cliche' is nothing more than an answer that multi-tasks - the thought I had yesterday, before reading this thread.

VERY interesting stuff, here.


Regarding part of the first post Seppuku Arts made subsequent to mine: "He lies like an eye-witness." - Russian Proverb (aka cliche')

Pardon if my paraphrasing of what I gleaned from your post omits specific nuance but I thought the mention of the eye-witness experiment in conjunction with people's interpretations of the news was relevant to that Russian proverb. Paraphrasing, Shakespeare said, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.'

An author, on the Jon Stewart show recently posited that each of us is subject to our view of the world being sought out in the news we read. If, for instance, I believe that the world is close to an end, I might seek out sources which verified my opinion. In a sense, I would be finding evidence which informs my beliefs about the world I live in.

If I am looking for evidence that my nationality, race, religious affiliation, et al, is entitled, I will find that evidence whether that evidence comes from like-minded people who editorialize on my views or through my own lens which interprets otherwise neutral events to fit my hypothesis.

In such a way, logic is skewed. Through myriad psychological stressors, attachments, and conceits I co-opt an attitude with my logical interpretations that fits my view of the world. If you've ever argued with these people, be it on-line or in person, you may have marveled at how their opinions seem to have a permanent quality to them. They are immutable and obdurate to any form of reasoning which impeaches their world view. They will argue, often with mere conjecture, and to reference a latter point made in Darth Kiwi's post, engage in all manner of conversational terrorism.

Having up-ended several arguments from one of my former, racist interlocutors, he pointed me in the direction of a comprehensive official analysis of illegal immigration's impact, that I read. In fact, while it didn't paint a flattering picture of the problem in America, it was a distinctly neutral document that only vaguely reinforced the opinions posted, in his name, on the message board. I had asked him for specific points raised in the document which were pertinent to the opinions he had vociferously argued to which he replied, "Just look in the document. It's all there." - as though I would somehow be able to derive his very conceits from the document which didn't even come close to addressing the documented and cited points I raised in my arguments to him.


The other thing which came to mind, while I was reading all of the posts, was bad, governmental, public policies. Enter another cliche'/proverb: "Money is the root of all evil." I'll use, for my examples of bad policy, two current situations in America and China. America has a horrible if not prolific problem with the use of illegal drugs which is due, largely, to America's own drug policies. In the seeming cause of public welfare, a war on drugs has been waged which is largely responsible for around 1% of our population being in prison - the largest percentage of any population in the world.

The impact of this seems to only reinforce the problem, and when you observe the fact that there are an awful lot of people with their hands in the so-called cookie jar, like PhARMA, Private Prison Industry, Tobacco and Alcohol who benefit from drugs being vilified to the extent that they have, either by comparison - even though marijuana is far less damaging than alcohol or tobacco - or through shear profit, via the private prison industries. A drug czar, who makes a profitable living in his government position, is not likely to favor more lenient policies when lobbyists from any of the above would argue strenuously against such a policy change.

In China, the one child policy has not only wrought a severe disparity in the ratio of men to women, but has also made child kidnapping a national epidemic. Routinely, government officials require, albeit somewhat tacitly, additional proceeds to compliment the exorbitant fees for having children without a birth permit. Human trafficking yields significant dividends, as well.

My point, with all of this, is that in the hypothetical dystopia, there are inevitably those policies, as within the real world, which makes it quite dystopic. Heretical rebuke is answered with recrimination. Beyond the flawed reasoning is the cliche' "Money talks and BS walks." Those who espouse that the policies they employ are for the public good are often those who benefit from maintaining the status quo.

Kant's (I love Kant, BTW) logic is never heard from. Pure reason is made obsolete in the face of windfall profit. Ironically, even though the bomb-maker's device bit him, such as with the current state of financial implosion in the face of outright deregulation in the mortgage market, the bomb-maker remains unfazed with sociopathic determination to thwart misfortune by only adjusting their strategy.


"Atoms are invisible. All cats are made up of atoms. Hence, all cats are invisible." ~ Unknown


"Truthful words are not beautiful.
Beautiful words are not truthful.
Good men do not argue.
Those who argue are not good.
Those who know are not learned.
The learned do not know."

~ Lao Tsu - Tao Te Ching

The beautiful thing about a proverb, is that when it is properly used, it is an accurate answer to any one of life's dilemmas. Unfortunately, all too often, proverbs are hijacked for reasons, be it to discharge abuse and/or coral populations, that subvert the welfare of all those involved.


Darth Kiwi, I believe, also hit on something in his discussion of animals, language, and obtaining rewards. There is the classic experiments of Pavlov, who made dogs salivate by associating their dinner with a ringing bell.

Humans, while we have cultivated our abilities with language to a degree much more rigorous degree, are quite insanely reliant on symbols.

IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME THEN WHY DO YOU THINK I'M YELLING AT YOU ON THE INTERNET, RIGHT NOW?!?!

Language, inherently, may push past the archetype or it may enforce it. A simple collection of words that, placed out of order and context, make only the sense given in their narrow definition, serve to form, once assembled, a recognizable idea which may then be interpreted, internalized, and realized.

It was discussed, earlier, that animals have a very limited understanding of the nuances which form language. I had a discussion with a computer science major, a couple of years ago, about how computers have a rough time with human languages. There is something, fundamental to understanding, occurring in our neural pathways that allows for recognition of the correctly assembled sentence.

You'll pardon me, I hope, if my discussion of language in the hypothetical dystopia is touching on a lot of tangents, but I feel it would be remiss not to include technology in tandem with pertinence to language and our own, fallible, reasoning.

A comedian friend of mine, a long time ago, said that the reason comedy was so hard was that it relied on the correct sequence of words. Take the word, "Smoothie" he said. "Inherently, there's nothing funny about that word. If anything, on a hot day, you think about how you'd like to have one."

He went onto the word, Tuna. "When someone says the word, tuna, you think of a fish, a tuna-fish sandwich, sushi."

"Take the word, warm.", he said. "You are thinking, cozy, fire-place, blanket, cuddling, basically good, right?"

"Now, put the words together and what do you have?"

A warm tuna smoothie.

I know that putting it in writing perhaps didn't do the joke any justice. I also know that, at the level of connections our minds make, it seems highly unlikely that a computer, relegated to static variables that would be assessed in an AI's hypothetical neural network, will be able to share the same understanding of the joke that we do, never minding that AI's inability to conceive of the vomit inducing taste and texture associated with those words.


Today's AI - and it's not really AI - but in the form of functioning on a societal level may be realized in calling the help-desk for support, as I recently had to, and getting an automated voice. The automated voice asked me a battery of questions which led me to the conclusion (reached by me) that my fire-wall was the culprit between me and my internet connection. In trying to terminate the connection, I found myself yelling, "NO!", repeatedly, to the computer's "I'm sorry, I did not understand. Did you have anything else you needed help with or are you finished?"

If you look at the second sentence uttered by the automaton, it actually makes no sense. If one says, "No." they are saying it to two contradictory and erroneously conjunctive questions. If the computer had an understanding of what it was saying - a thought that occurred to me right before I hung up the phone in a then nervous frustration - it did not understand that there was no correct answer to the question.