This comment doesn’t really go anywhere, just some vague thoughts on fun. I’ve been reading A Theory of Fun For Game Design. It’s not very good, but it has some interesting bits (have you noticed that when you jump in different videogames, you stay in there air for the same length of time? Apparently game developers all converged on an air time that feels natural, by trial and error). At one point the author asserts that having to think things through consciously is boring, but learning and using unconscious skills is fun. So a novice chess player gets bored quickly having to think through all the moves, while an expert ‘just sees’ the right moves, and has fun. It made me think of the concept of flow and of Alan Kay’s work on Squeak and Etoys, making learning more fun and intuitive with computers (particularly learning mathematics) I think it’s called constructionist learning.
It does seem though that we don’t have much of a theory of fun, most of the stuff we know we learn through trial and error. If we had a decent model of fun we might be able to make boring learning activities fun, which would help with motivation and akrasia and so on.
I think Flow is one of the most important ideas to have come out of psychology. My hypothesis for why it’s not more widely known is that the creator’s name is so difficult to spell and pronounce.
My belief is that the learning part of your brain sends a signal to the decision-making part, when the former is experiencing a type of stimulus that is highly learnable. That signal is treated by the decision making part in the same way as a more typically pleasant signal (food, sex, etc) would be. Flow is thus an evolutionary adaptation that makes us seek experiences that help us learn more rapidly (the underlying assumption being that not all stimuli are equally learnable).
I think Flow is pretty good as a theory of fun, or as a theory of fun-from-learning. Flow is the best way to learn. The problem is that not all ideas can be learned in a way that meets the Flow criteria (rapid feedback, ability to experiment, clear goals, challenge keyed to ability level). So the interesting questions in my view are how to rephrase learning problems in such a way that one can enter Flow states when approaching those problems.
I think Flow is one of the most important ideas to have come out of psychology. My hypothesis for why it’s not more widely known is that the creator’s name is so difficult to spell and pronounce.
It’s a sad comment on academia and humanity that this hypothesis is not the least bit implausible.
A few years ago I had developed a theory of game playing and low pressure social group interaction which starts at a similar place as Koster’s. I was able to take that starting point about play and patterns and produce empirically testable hypotheses with formal mathematical models of what is happening during play.
And then I stopped working on it because I couldn’t seem to get across the concept that learning and fun might be related well enough. Now that I’ve had a chance to read his book, I might have to reconsider.
This comment doesn’t really go anywhere, just some vague thoughts on fun. I’ve been reading A Theory of Fun For Game Design. It’s not very good, but it has some interesting bits (have you noticed that when you jump in different videogames, you stay in there air for the same length of time? Apparently game developers all converged on an air time that feels natural, by trial and error). At one point the author asserts that having to think things through consciously is boring, but learning and using unconscious skills is fun. So a novice chess player gets bored quickly having to think through all the moves, while an expert ‘just sees’ the right moves, and has fun. It made me think of the concept of flow and of Alan Kay’s work on Squeak and Etoys, making learning more fun and intuitive with computers (particularly learning mathematics) I think it’s called constructionist learning.
It does seem though that we don’t have much of a theory of fun, most of the stuff we know we learn through trial and error. If we had a decent model of fun we might be able to make boring learning activities fun, which would help with motivation and akrasia and so on.
I think Flow is one of the most important ideas to have come out of psychology. My hypothesis for why it’s not more widely known is that the creator’s name is so difficult to spell and pronounce.
My belief is that the learning part of your brain sends a signal to the decision-making part, when the former is experiencing a type of stimulus that is highly learnable. That signal is treated by the decision making part in the same way as a more typically pleasant signal (food, sex, etc) would be. Flow is thus an evolutionary adaptation that makes us seek experiences that help us learn more rapidly (the underlying assumption being that not all stimuli are equally learnable).
I think Flow is pretty good as a theory of fun, or as a theory of fun-from-learning. Flow is the best way to learn. The problem is that not all ideas can be learned in a way that meets the Flow criteria (rapid feedback, ability to experiment, clear goals, challenge keyed to ability level). So the interesting questions in my view are how to rephrase learning problems in such a way that one can enter Flow states when approaching those problems.
It’s a sad comment on academia and humanity that this hypothesis is not the least bit implausible.
We totally need an article about Flow. Who’s up for writing one?
A few years ago I had developed a theory of game playing and low pressure social group interaction which starts at a similar place as Koster’s. I was able to take that starting point about play and patterns and produce empirically testable hypotheses with formal mathematical models of what is happening during play.
And then I stopped working on it because I couldn’t seem to get across the concept that learning and fun might be related well enough. Now that I’ve had a chance to read his book, I might have to reconsider.