Wisdom's Play

Infinite Games

Infinite Game Rules In essence, infinite games have no rules. The primary difference between finite games and infinite games is that (as suggested by the term "infinite"), infinite games never end. In one respect an infinite game is identical to a finite game. Infinite players also freely choose to play. If they must play, they cannot play. Infinite players cannot say when their game began. They do not care because their game is not bounded by time. The purpose of the game is to prevent it from coming to an end and to keep everyone in play.

Infinity There are no spatial or numerical boundaries to an infinite game. No world is marked with the barriers of infinite play, and there is no question of eligibility. Anyone who wishes may play an infinite game. While finite games are externally defined, infinite games are internally defined by personal choice. The time of an infinite game is not world time, but time created within the play itself. Since each play of an infinite game eliminates boundaries, it opens new horizons of time to players. For this reason it is impossible to say how long an infinite game has been played, or even can be played, since duration (progressively decelerating time at higher levels of existence) can be measured only apart from that which endures. It is also impossible to say in which world an infinite game is played. There can be any number of worlds within an infinite game.

Distinctions Finite games can be played within an infinite game, but an infinite game cannot be played within a finite game. Infinite players regard their wins and losses in whatever finite games they play as but events in continuing play. Unlike the rules in finite games where the rules of a finite game may not change during play, the rules in an infinite game must change in the course of play. The rules are changed when the players of an infinite game agree that the play is imperiled by a finite outcome, by the victory of some players and the defeat of others. The rules of an infinite game are changed to prevent anyone from winning the game and to bring as many people as possible into the play.

Rules If the rules of a finite game are the contractual terms by which the players can agree who has won, the rules of an infinite game are the contractual terms by which the players agree to continue playing. The rules of an infinite game have a different status from those of a finite game. Infinite game rules are similar to the grammar of an evolving language, while those of a finite game are like the rules of debate. In the case of grammar, the rules change as a way of continuing discourse. The rules of debate end the speech of another person. Infinite rules, like the grammar of a living language, are always evolving to guarantee the meaningfulness of discourse, while the ruIes of debate must remain constant.

Infinite Rule Changes By agreement, the rules of an infinite game may be changed at any point during the course of play. The rules are always designed to deal with specific threats to the continuation of play. Infinite players use the rules to regulate the way they will take the boundaries or limits being forced against their play into the game itself. The rule-making capacity of infinite players is often threatened by the impact of the power of finite players attempting to impose boundaries against their play. Such boundaries may be the loss of material resources, the hostility of nonplayers, or death.

Objectives of Rules The design objective of infinite rules is to allow the players to continue the game by taking their limits into their play while knowing that even mortal death is one of the limitations. It is in this sense that the game is infinite. Continuing the game beyond mortal death intimates that no limitation can be imposed against infinite play. Since limits are taken into play, play itself cannot be limited. Finite players play within boundaries. Infinite players play with boundaries.

Surprises Just as surprising an opponent increases the chances of winning in finite play, infinite players play with the expectation of being surprised. Surprise causes finite play to end. Surprise is the reason for infinite play to continue. Surprise in infinite play is the triumph of the future over the past. Infinite players do not regard the past as having an outcome. With each surprise, the past reveals a new beginning. Since the future is always surprising, the past is always changing for infinite game players.

Infinite Play Is Not a Role Infinite players do not relate to others through the abstract requirements of a role. Infinite players are concrete persons engaged with concrete persons. For that reason an infinite game cannot be removed from the whole, for it is not a part of the whole presenting itself as the whole, but the whole knowing it is the whole. Infinite players play with each other knowing that what they begin cannot be finished.

Openness Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in frankness, but a vulnerable openness. It is not a matter of exposing one's unchanging identity (the Absolute Self of the Thought Adjuster that has always been), but a way of exposing one's unceasing growth, the self that is evolving. The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed. Surprise does not alter some separate past, but one's own personal past.

Training and Education To be prepared against surprise is training. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. Education finds increasing richness in the past, because it sees what is unfinished there. Training regards the past as finished and the future as requiring completion. Education provides continuing self-discovery. Training leads towards a final definition of self identity by repeating a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future.

Death Infinite players experience mortal death, but since the boundaries of death are always part of playing, the infinite player does not die at the end of play, but during the course of play. The death of an infinite player is unscripted with an unknown outcome. Death does not end the game. Infinite players offer their death as a way of continuing the play. Since their play is always with others, infinite players live and die for the continuing life of others. While the finite players play for immortality, infinite players choose to play as mortals. Infinite players play unscripted, toward the open horizon, toward surprise, where nothing can be scripted.

Vulnerability Infinite play requires complete vulnerability. To the extent that they are protected against the future, finite players establish a boundary of invulnerability.  They no longer play with but against others. While the finite play for life is serious, the infinite play of life is joyous. Infinite play resounds with laughter, not at others who came to an unexpected end thinking they were going somewhere else. It is laughter with others with whom they have discovered that the end they thought was coming has unexpectedly opened. Infinite players laugh not at what has surprisingly come to be impossible for others, but over what has surprisingly come to be possible with others.

Inherent Paradox Just as finite play is inherently contradictory, infinite play is inherently paradoxical. The contradiction of finite play is that the players desire to bring play to an end for themselves. The paradox of infinite play is that infinite players desire to continue the play in others. They do not play for themselves. They play only when others go on with the game. Infinite players play best when they become least necessary to the continuation of play. It is for this reason they play as mortals. The mortal sons of God (created just a little below angels) volunteered to begin incarnations toward an earned evolutionary ascent to Paradise and beyond beginning at the mortal level.

Evil Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. Therefore, they do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the impulse of evil itself. They only attempt to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere. Although any one who wishes can be an infinite player, and although anyone can be strong, finite power cannot cause irremediable damage to infinite play. Infinite play cannot prevent or eliminate evil. Though infinite players are strong, they are not powerful and do not attempt to become powerful.

Love and Sex The sex of infinite play does not focus its attention on parts of the body. It is their existence, not their bodies, infinite players make accessible to others.

Summary The joyfulness of infinite play lies in learning to start something one cannot finish. While finite players acquire titles from winning their games, infinite players have only their names. Power is a feature of finite games only. The power attained in finite play is not unscripted and endlessly open like infinite play, but scripted for a conclusion. Since there is no way for infinite players to look back to make definitive assessments of the power or weakness of earlier play, infinite players contend with the power of finite players by looking forward, not to a victory in which the past will achieve a timeless meaning, but toward ongoing play in which the past will require constant reinterpretation. Infinite players do not oppose the actions of others, but initiate actions in such a way that others will respond by initiating their own infinite actions. A term is needed to stand in contrast to "power" as it acquires its meaning in finite play. For infinite players, that word is "strength."