Finite and Infinite Games

The rules are changed when the players of an infinite game agree that the play is imperiled by a finite outcome—that is, by the victory of some players and the defeat of others. The rules of an infinite game are changed to prevent anyone from winning the game and to bring as many persons as possible into the play.

Just as an infinite game has rules, a culture has a tradition. Since the rules of play in an infinite game are freely agreed to and freely altered, a cultural tradition is both adopted and transformed in its adoption. Properly speaking, a culture does not have a tradition; it is a tradition.

In still another way is machinery contradictory. Using it against itself and against ourselves, we also use machinery against each other.

“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (Heisenberg).

“Conspicuous abstention from labour therefore becomes the conventional mark of superior pecuniary achievement and the conventional index of reputability; and conversely, since application to productive labour is a mark of poverty and subjection, it becomes inconsistent with a reputable standing in the community” (Veblen).

Infinite speech does not end in the obedient silence of the hearer, but continues by way of the attentive silence of the speaker.

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” (Bacon).

It is apparent to infinite players that wealth is not so much possessed as it is performed.

More often what one intends to preserve is a public personage, a permanently veiled selfhood.