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Caroline Howard's avatar

On the subject of games, I've often thought they have quite a lot of overlap with work. I wonder if there is any universal distinction between games and work - I'm not sure I can think of any.

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Caroline Howard's avatar

I played your game as applied to my parents and then to my children. Interestingly, it was slightly easier with regard to my children - perhaps for evolutionary reasons? But it was difficult with both, and I didn't get to 10 differences.

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Caroline Howard's avatar

Thank you for this. "Most problems of Western philosophy are grammatical at heart, especially with the verb “to be” and the way nouns are formed." This sounds intriguing - I would love to know more.

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Pen's avatar
Mar 13Edited

This blog is super interesting and has my brain going in all different directions.

Have you heard of E-Prime, the restricted form of English without the verb "to be"? I think it solves many problems in English, although it is difficult to get the hang of. (I have used 'to be' three times in this comment already.) https://time.com/archive/6636963/language-the-un-lsness-of-is/

'Signatura rerum' - the signature of things? I have yet to understand this theory.

xx

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Bryan Kam's avatar

This is great! Didn't know Korzbyski (originator of "the map is not the territory" in the 1930s) also opposed the verb to be, but it makes sense. After Neither/Nor and Both/And, I'm planning to write a book called Not To Be against the verb "to be" and its relatives.

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Pen's avatar

Check out 'Et cetera' literary magazine (vol.49, issue 2) https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40095928

Bourland says that "to be" ascribes fixed identities to things, but the essence of things is to change. I'm ANNOYED (with myself) that I didn't bring this up with you before.

I have a book that touches on this that I will bring to FFB tomorrow. The book does reveal some pretty strong arguments against E-Prime. We shall discuss.

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Pen's avatar

#famous

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