Finite and Infinite Games

TL;DR - James P. Carse developed the concept of Finite and Infinite games. The point of a finite game is to win the game. The point of an infinite game is to keep playing. This concept has applications for how we play, for our mental health, and how we live our lives.?

Spitting infinite game

On December 14, 2017, the art of freestyle hip hop was permanently redefined. Black Thought, the MC of the Roots, came through the Hot 97 radio station and delivered 10 uninterrupted minutes of intricate improvised wordplay. In other words, he spit hot fire for an eternity ??????????

Finite & Infinite games

Black Thought’s freestyle is an artistic illustration of an Infinite game, in contrast to a Finite game.

The distinction was first discussed in the book Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse, a professor of Religion at NYU. (Side note: For his book The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek borrowed the concept of finite and infinite games and applied it to corporate strategy).?

In Carse’s framing, the point of a finite game is to win the game. The point of an infinite game is to keep playing.?

Black Thought was playing an Infinite game. True, he wasn’t literally rhyming forever. But the point of his (word)play was to keep playing, for a ridiculously long time by the standards of freestyle.?

Win and go home?

There’s an inherent contradiction with finite games: winning the game ends the game. Carse observes, “Finite players find themselves in a strange situation: they are playing against play itself.” The card game Uno is but one of many examples of finite games. Once someone wins by playing the last card in their hand, the game is over.?

In an infinite game there are no winners and no losers. For an infinite player, the “essential strategy would be to keep everyone in play.” Take a video game like Alto’s Adventure, which belongs to a genre called "endless runners." I think of I Spy as a game with infinite leanings.?

Infinite games and the brain

When it comes to play for our mental health, is it better to play finite or infinite games? I think the answer is both/and, not either/or.

You could make the case that infinite games are better for your mental health than finite games. Dr. Andrew Huberman talks about how low-stakes play is especially beneficial for developing neuroplasticity, because you’re not so wrapped up in the outcome that you get stressed. Infinite games are by definition low-stakes, because there are no winners or losers.?

On the other hand, some people have more fun with Finite games and others with Infinite games, and many people have fun with both types. This is because everyone has their own unique play personality. Some play personalities, like The Competitor, would naturally gravitate toward Finite games. But I think most people have multiple play personalities they enjoy, so it’s natural to like both Finite and Infinite games. I know I do.?

This pertains to one challenge I have with defining a game as either Finite vs Infinite: I think it is a bit reductive. As with most things in life, real world play doesn’t fit neatly into a binary.?

Finite and infinite games are not mutually exclusive. Kids get this intuitively. Often when my kids and I are playing an (ostensibly finite) sports game, if they're winning by a lot they’ll let me catch up. It’s not because they are feeling sorry for me. No way. It’s purely so they can prolong the game, turning it for a time into an infinite game. Of course, when the game is close again they’ll get back into finite mode and fight hard for the victory. In this way they mashup the finite game and the infinite game.?

To infinity and beyond . . .

What Carse was actually doing with his book was making a philosophical point about the meaning of life. For him, the word “play” is almost synonymous with “being.” As he puts it, play is a “metaphor for any number of complex human engagements whenever they take on a competitive, or cooperative, character.”?

He views infinite games in the biggest picture sense possible. The closing chapter of his book reads, in its entirety, “there is but one infinite game.” This doesn’t just mean our individual life, it means all of human existence, past, present and future. It might even mean all of the universe (or multiverse). The point of all existence is to keep everything in play.?

I find this a helpful thought. Whenever we feel stuck or defeated, we can think of our current state as not the final outcome of a final game, but rather a moment in a much bigger, much longer infinite game. The point, as it was in Black Thought’s freestyle, is to keep playing.