Entries by Charles

In between Big Bang and Heat Death

[ cross-posted frpom Zenpundit — a terrific example of the DoubleQuote form, essentially showing a single Sembl resemblance, and thus the smallest form of Sembl game — and why the form is useful ] . Some time in between t-zero and t-aleph-null, some time between the First Day of Creation and Judgment Day, some time […]

Hipbone/Sembl: psychological perspectives

[ a Jungian view, Hipbone/Sembl and the feminine, also an early use of the games in dream-analysis online ] I just received an email from Eve Jackson, an old friend of mine, Jungian analyst and Buddhist practitioner, who has recently been exploring my HipBone Games and expressed her interest in their web-based development as Sembl. […]

Of children, cultural differences, and computers

[ cross-posted from Zenpundit — kids, computers, creativity and games ] . . It’s quite a triumphant story, with African kids in the foreground and Nicholas Negroponte and MIT playing the role of proud parents pushing them forward from behind… With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per […]

Steven Pinker on Analogy

[ cross-posted from Zenpundit — importance of analogy as an under-developed cognitive skill ] . There was a interview with five prominent “science writers” in the Guardian a few days back, titled Science writing: how do you make complex issues accessible and readable? and one of the writers, Steven Pinker, makes two highly interesting observations: […]

Form is insight: a musical experiment

[ cross-posted from Zenpundit — here’s a musical experiment from the book / project i seem to be writing, which offers a grand slam intro to contemplative and artistic approaches to creative thinking, and hence a fresh angle on intelligence ] It looks very much as though I’ve been beginning to write parts of let’s […]

Form is Insight: the project

[ cross-posted from Zenpundit — about the book (or post-book project) i seem to be writing — based on Sembl thinking — which offers a grand slam intro to an array of box-free contemplative and artistic approaches to creative thinking, and hence opens fresh angles on intelligence ] . One thing I can promise: whatever […]

A triptych for Jane McGonigal

[ Cross-posted from Zenpundit — on play, games, vertigo and koan — technically this is a ludibrium, a jeu, a jest — a dervish whirl for the mind ] . I’m joining the conversation Jane McGonigal is leading over on Big Questions Online — our topic is How Might Video Games Be Good for Us? […]

On Super Mario Brothers and mental parcours games

According to 25 Years of Super Mario Bros: A Look Back Through Mushroom Kingdom History, from which I grabbed the Mario Bros portion of the graphic at the foot of this page, “Since 1985’s release of the second-most selling console game of all-time, over 200 Nintendo titles have featured the eponymous Mario Bros” — on […]

Moves in the Glass Bead Game as Hesse describes it

I’d like to turn our focus here to the Glass Bead Game as Hesse describes it in his novel, Magister Ludi, and in particular to the range of play, and the nature of moves: putting that in game designer’s terms, I’d like to talk about the gameplay as Hesse envisions it. ….. First, the subject […]