Play is also separate because it obeys different
rules from the rules that we're normally expected to follow.
For example, if I'm playing rugby, I can run into you and knock
you on your butt if, I'm a little old for that but maybe I could have 20 years ago.
If I do that in everyday life, I see someone, I see you out on the street and
I run and smash and knock you over, I'm going to go to jail for assault.
So the rules, what you can do,
what you can't do, are also different when you're playing.
So, play is free, play takes place in a separate space, and
play is also uncertain by its very nature.
There's certain things in this world of ours that are sure,
the sun will likely rise tomorrow, death and taxes and
some other things that just always seem to happen.
But games are by their very nature
things that don't have a resolution that we know in advance.
Yes!
That you know world class soccer team is gonna beat that
lesser soccer team 99 out of 100 times but maybe once, there'll be that upset.
In general, we play games because we're not absolutely certain who the winner is.
That's why we play them, to find out who the winner will be and who the loser.
So play is free, it's freely chosen,
it happens in a separate place and it's uncertain.
But this leaves still open the question of, why?
Why is it that we make this choice to play?
The answers to this question of why are really quite complicated when you start to
think about it.
And the reasons why people play can often be quite different.
It may be, and often is, that we play for release and
relaxation from the humdrum routines of every day life.
It can also be in team games the sense of cooperation,
the pleasure that comes from working with other people to try to win a competition.
And, also emphasized that the particular pleasures for particular
different kinds of games are different, depending on what that particular game is.
For example, mountain climbing.
The struggle to get to the peak, and the sense of accomplishment of being on
top of the world as against say, tennis, where maybe the pleasure is
getting your opponent moving, the great serve, the overhead smash.
Or the pleasures associated with a card game like poker.
Using your mind, out thinking your opponents, bluffing,
maybe winning some money in the process.
So the pleasures attached to different games are different
depending on the sport, or the game.
What I wanna talk about in the second part of this lecture is the theory about why we
we like to play of one particular original social thinker and that's Sigmund Freud.
I'll see you for the second part of the lecture.
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