The game of Elephant begins when someone drags an elephant into the room.
Epistemic status: a jeu d’esprit confabulated upon a tweet I once saw. Long enough ago that I don’t think I lose that game of Elephant by posting this now.
Everyone knows there’s an elephant there. It’s so obvious! We all know the elephant’s there, we all know that we all know, and so on. It’s common knowledge to everyone here, even though no-one’s said anything about it. It’s too obvious to need saying.
But maybe there are some people who are so oblivious that they don’t realise it’s there? What fools and losers they would be, haw! haw!
But—dreadful thought! -- suppose someone thinks that I’m one of those naive, ignorant people? I can’t just point out the elephant, because then they’d think that I don’t know that they already know, and they’d all pile on with “No kidding, Sherlock!” No, actually, they wouldn’t say anything, it would be common knowledge the moment I spoke, and they would lose by pointing it out, but they’d all be thinking that and knowing that everyone else was thinking that.
So somehow I have to make it clear that I do know it’s there, and I know that everyone knows, and so on, but without ever being so fatally gauche as to say anything explicitly.
And everyone else is doing the same—everyone, that is, except for the losers who aren’t in on the common knowledge.
So now the game is for each person to make it clear that they’re not one of the losers, while hunting for and exposing the losers. And it has to be done without making any reference to the elephant, or even to the game of Elephant that we are all playing. Anything that looks like an attempt to be one of the winners, loses. Who is winning and who is losing is also assumed to be common knowledge, so no reference can be made to that either. Everything must be conducted by what are outwardly the subtlest of signals, but which are again presupposed to be perfectly and commonly legible to everyone. Each player must say or do things that only make sense if they have the common knowledge, but which have no demonstrable connection with it. Any suspicion that they are acting to win proves that they are not confident that they are winning, so they lose. Every action in the game is itself another Elephant that no reference must ever be made to. Everyone is mentally keeping a scorecard, but the contents of these scorecards are just more Elephants.
Doing nothing at all is a losing move. You can’t win without doing something to demonstrate that you are winning, but if you are detected, you lose.
The person who dragged in the elephant may not be winning. Perhaps they don’t realise the significance of what they dragged in, and have already lost. In some games of Elephant, no-one dragged it in, the Elephant is some aspect of the common situation of the players.
Who has even realised that a game of Elephant is in progress? The fact that the game is on is another Elephant. Every thought anyone could have about the game is an Elephant: the moment you utter it, you lose.
The game of Elephant begins when someone drags an elephant into the room.
Epistemic status: a jeu d’esprit confabulated upon a tweet I once saw. Long enough ago that I don’t think I lose that game of Elephant by posting this now.
Everyone knows there’s an elephant there. It’s so obvious! We all know the elephant’s there, we all know that we all know, and so on. It’s common knowledge to everyone here, even though no-one’s said anything about it. It’s too obvious to need saying.
But maybe there are some people who are so oblivious that they don’t realise it’s there? What fools and losers they would be, haw! haw!
But—dreadful thought! -- suppose someone thinks that I’m one of those naive, ignorant people? I can’t just point out the elephant, because then they’d think that I don’t know that they already know, and they’d all pile on with “No kidding, Sherlock!” No, actually, they wouldn’t say anything, it would be common knowledge the moment I spoke, and they would lose by pointing it out, but they’d all be thinking that and knowing that everyone else was thinking that.
So somehow I have to make it clear that I do know it’s there, and I know that everyone knows, and so on, but without ever being so fatally gauche as to say anything explicitly.
And everyone else is doing the same—everyone, that is, except for the losers who aren’t in on the common knowledge.
So now the game is for each person to make it clear that they’re not one of the losers, while hunting for and exposing the losers. And it has to be done without making any reference to the elephant, or even to the game of Elephant that we are all playing. Anything that looks like an attempt to be one of the winners, loses. Who is winning and who is losing is also assumed to be common knowledge, so no reference can be made to that either. Everything must be conducted by what are outwardly the subtlest of signals, but which are again presupposed to be perfectly and commonly legible to everyone. Each player must say or do things that only make sense if they have the common knowledge, but which have no demonstrable connection with it. Any suspicion that they are acting to win proves that they are not confident that they are winning, so they lose. Every action in the game is itself another Elephant that no reference must ever be made to. Everyone is mentally keeping a scorecard, but the contents of these scorecards are just more Elephants.
Doing nothing at all is a losing move. You can’t win without doing something to demonstrate that you are winning, but if you are detected, you lose.
The person who dragged in the elephant may not be winning. Perhaps they don’t realise the significance of what they dragged in, and have already lost. In some games of Elephant, no-one dragged it in, the Elephant is some aspect of the common situation of the players.
Who has even realised that a game of Elephant is in progress? The fact that the game is on is another Elephant. Every thought anyone could have about the game is an Elephant: the moment you utter it, you lose.