Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9102883" data-attributes="member: 71699">Comparing agency across sets of (pre)lusory goals is empty of meaning. That is because for P1 to play the specific game that P1 sets out to play, they must voluntarily give up agency in just the right way to constitute that play. To propose that they could gain more agency to play that way by doing things excluded from that play is nonsensical. I can't gain more agency to play Chess by taking up agency to sprint across open fields for the touchline.This is not "particularly arcane" and it is not a matter of examples. It proceeds directly from the uncontroversial reasoning that to play a game is to voluntarily accept unnecessary obstacles, where to play different games is to accept different unnecessary obstacles.Thought on prelusory vs lusory goals may help bring superficially diverse intuitions into alignment<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Prelusory goals include human needs or desires that exist in some form prior to play. I wish for muscular exertion and expression. I wish to create stories.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lusory goals must be post-awareness of play. I want to play The Judge in Stonetop. I want to master King defense in Chess. I want to decide the ludic-resolution of premises. Such goals can be specific, detailed and complex, but they're made conscious of the possible play.</li> </ul>What I can obviously meaningfully do is appeal to those who share or I feel ought to share my prelusory goals. I can say something like "playing football requires and encourages muscular exertion and expression, while playing chess will not." That's meaningful even if I know nothing about football and chess. I could advocate for different positions - from goalkeeper to defence to wings to forwards - that demand greater expression of particular facets of muscular exertion and expression. And I could talk about my favoured football codes, in terms of the affordance to the prelusory goal.Once I have brought the conversation fully into the realm of games of physical exertion and expression, it becomes obviously more tenuous for me to promote say football over tennis on grounds of muscular exertion and expression. It can't possibly help the tennis player to have more agency to kick the ball toward touch. To even suggest it feels like a gauche error. If I set out to argue that footballers are the supreme exemplars of muscular exertion and expression, other athletes would surely dispute my claims. What I can meaningfully do - and what some have often done here and in other threads - is connect stated (pre)lusory goals with lusory-attitudes and means. Those are not claims that "game X has more agency", they're claims that "game X has more agency to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y". Or even "were game X to change rule Z, there would be more agency to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y". Such claims must accept that if other players aren't attempting to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y, they can't possibly gain "more agency" by switching to game X or changing rule Z.I said that at the outset, via the analogy of tastes for fruit. And [USER=6690965]@Pedantic[/USER] - and [USER=5142]@Aldarc[/USER] if I read their posts correctly - have urged toward a similar (if not identical) view. [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] I hope this better clarifies that my views are not in hard-contradiction with yours on this point.</blockquote>

Verification