Play could be the basis of physical reality
The principle of play repeats so often in nature, it’s worth asking whether it’s the basis of physical reality. That’s not as wild an assertion as it seems, and even more plausible and less inconsistent than our image of a mindless robotic universe.
I don’t deny that what I’ve presented so far is a savage simplification of very complicated issues. I’m not even saying that the position I’m suggesting here—that there is a play principle at the basis of all physical reality—is necessarily true. I would just insist that such a perspective is at least as plausible as the weirdly inconsistent speculations that currently pass for orthodoxy, in which a mindless, robotic universe suddenly produces poets and philosophers out of nowhere. Nor, I think, does seeing play as a principle of nature necessarily mean adopting any sort of milky utopian view. The play principle can help explain why sex is fun, but it can also explain why cruelty is fun. (As anyone who has watched a cat play with a mouse can attest, a lot of animal play is not particularly nice.) But it gives us ground to unthink the world around us. —David Graeber, What’s the point if we can’t have fun?
- see also: play gives meaning to life, and play is not an anomaly
- makes me think of Calvino’s Cosmicomics, legitimately one of the best books on cybernetics and theories of the universe while being completely playfully absurd
- also makes me think of Borges, of course, and Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems