“There are at least two kinds of games,” writes James P. Carse. “One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”
Continuing the play? Yes, like the marriage envisioned by a couple on the day of the ceremony. Educating yourself is similar since it is expected to continue until the end of your days.
The finite games feature fixed rules and known players. The encounter comes to a defined end in which a person or a team wins. Examples Olympic athletes, election winners, or defeating the bad guys in a war.
Some games include various features. Your company wants to make more money than its competitors (a finite target), but the rules of how they do that are flexible. The freedom to develop new products reveals the absence of confining limitations. The game can last as long as the business survives.
A finite game tends to be public or have an audience. Infinite games are often more private. As in the case of learning new things, no challenger is required. Self-fulfillment is all that counts.
If you wish to become the wealthiest man on your block, you can be said to have created a hybrid type of contest, perhaps in your own mind alone.
You might achieve a temporary triumph by purchasing a grand, spacious, custom-built home. Ask yourself, however, whether this would offer the lasting joy of a lifelong love of a spouse or dear friends. Does a house in some personalized competition give you the sustenance of a profound religious faith?
Other infinite games include raising a child in a satisfying lifelong bond that transforms itself as the youth learns, grows, and becomes an adult. For this arrangement to flourish, there can be no winners or losers.
Both parties in the parent-child pair must modify themselves, adapting to each other and being considerate and loving as they grow and age. Victory is not the goal. Maintaining affection is.
Doing so enables the relationship to continue even as it develops new versions of itself. It begins with the mom and dad serving as caretakers of the baby, sometimes ending when the roles are reversed. Ideally, those changes fit the evolving nature of each one’s human qualities.
At their best, infinite games between two people are transformative. The best of them allow the parties to learn more about the other, trust more, find ways to recover from differences, learn to apologize, show generosity, negotiate, and understand their partner as the individual wishes to be understood.
An infinite game’s lack of rules is inherently flexible but needn’t always be respected.
If you come to a marriage in which the man’s way is dominant, the husband’s intention is to have power over the other. You might say he has established a finite game and set the conditions to suit himself.
Such a set of circumstances has been founded within what might have been an infinite setting.
Even if his partner agrees, time may alter her wish to live by her husband’s regulations. Instead, she might try to transform the game, which will require abandoning the behavior specified when the couple began their life together.
How is it like an infinite game?
Suppose you ask string quartet players of long-standing.
They often liken the group to a marriage, where the musical interpretation is created by the ideas and differences among the two violinists, violist, and cellist. They must get along, meld, adapt, and grow their musical intelligence. The four also travel together on tour.
The only winners are the composer and the audience.
Of course, one must make a living to fulfill their needs, as well.
In playing music, raising a family, working on a marriage, or fostering a charity, I’d like to think there is something more elevated than making stacks of dollar bills we will never spend if we become rich enough.
It is your turn to create the answer we are all searching for: how shall I live without gaming myself?
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Each of the photographs was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. In order, they are:
I love the example you offer of the string quartet…coming together but the payoff (or so it seems) is for the composer and audience…and yet…those intrinsic rewards. The goodness of creating and being part of something larger, impactful? The greatest ‘games’ of all – for me – come with a side order of synergy. Thanks, Dr. Stein! 🥰
I agree, Vicki, the quartet obtains satisfaction in the best of their performances. Some dollars and cents, too, though they come to music for the love of it. Thank you.
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Dr. Stein, thanks for sharing this illuminating perspective of life’s relationships in terms of finite and infinite games. It becomes clear that our diverse relationships will fail when our rules of engagement and intended goals are in apposition. Tragically, we witness these conflicting finite and infinite games of life playing out at the highest level of our governments worldwide.
Agreed, Rosaliene. You might be interested in Tim Alberta’s recent book, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.” Very near the end, Alberta talks about the infinite game that ideally follows from church teaching (one in which the focus should be on the gift of an afterlife rather than things of this world) and the finite game (one with winners and losers, good guys and bad guys) that some church communities have put forth following from their political leanings. He believes the later priority has come to dominate the former in many cases. Alberta is both a journalist and an Evangelical, whose father was an Evangelical Pastor.
Thanks very much for the recommendation, Dr. Stein. I’ve added it to my To Read List.
What an illuminating construct with which to exam our lives and relationships. Especially when so many of the rules we establish in relationships are unspoken. Fascinating and helpful, Dr. Stein!
Thank you, Wynne. You might be interested in what I wrote to Rosaliene, since, like Tim Alberta, you are the child of a pastor, although I don’t believe you grew up in the same religious sect that Alberta did.
Very illuminating post. Add to the mix that even in well known or established game scenarios, we will have different players acting according to the set of rules they may have been brought up with or have chosen to adopt, and each party may be convinced that their set of rules is correct whilst the others are wrong. We have so much to learn to be able to interact without hurting or sabotaging each other.
Yes, absolutely, Tamara. You might find my comment to Rosaliene of interest. As usual, you see things clearly. Thank you.
Thank you for the simple yet immensely powerful phrasing of “Both parties in the parent-child pair must modify themselves, adapting to each other and being considerate and loving as they grow and age. Victory is not the goal. Maintaining affection is.” Kind of sums up a lot of the frustrations and wasted energies I experienced as an adult.
Good to hear from you, Steven. I’m glad it hit home. All the best to you!