thread: 2006-01-10 : Pulling Coplayers In
On 2006-01-11, TonyLB wrote:
Okay ... confession time for me.
I don't think "push" and "pull" make all that much sense as terms. I think they are intuitively appealing, but I don't see how they hold up when you look closely.
Game-theory looks at (say) a chess game and says that the only move that has value in itself is a move that establishes checkmate. All other moves, no matter how brilliant, have value because they constrain your opponent to moves that aren't as good (again, probably defined by reference to his ability to then constrain you). Because of your move N, the opponent has a different set of possible moves N+1, which in turn gives you a different set of possible N+2, and so on into the vast network of sequences, all ending with checkmate for someone (or stalemate).
It's not really possible to break the game apart and look at all (or any) of white's moves in isolation, then say "Yep, that set of moves was better than the set of black's moves ... that's why white won." The push-and-pull, the dance steps into the future, are what inform each and every move.
It seems to me that you're combining our intuitive notion that we wholly "own" the characters ("This is one thing because it's being instigated by me on your character, that is another thing because it's being instigated by me on my own character") with our intuitive notion that we wholly "own" our actions ("This is one thing because I did it, that is another thing because you did it") and getting a very seductive but not really true distinction. Does that make sense?
Now ... I expect that I'm wrong. I'm missing something that you folks are catching. But I don't know what it is.
