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    Finite and Infinite Games
    Finite and Infinite Games
    Finite and Infinite Games
    Audiobook4 hours

    Finite and Infinite Games

    Written by James Carse

    Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

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    About this audiobook

    “There are at least two kinds of games,” states James P. Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “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.”

    Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end.

    What are infinite games? How do they affect the ways we play our finite games? What are we doing when we play—finitely or infinitely? And how can infinite games affect the ways in which we live our lives?

    Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world—from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion—leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything, from how an actress portrays a role to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory, but infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander.

    Carse has written a book rich in insight and aphorism. Already an international literary event, Finite and Infinite Games is certain to be argued about and celebrated for years to come. Reading it is the first step in learning to play the infinite game.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 1, 2018
    ISBN9781508256809
    Author

    James Carse

    James P. Carse is Professor Emeritus of history and literature of religion at New York University. A winner of the University’s Great Teacher Award, he is author of The Religious Case Against Belief (2008) and Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience (1994). Carse lives in New York City and Massachusetts.

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    Reviews for Finite and Infinite Games

    4/5

    233 ratings17 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Very interesting book about human psychology.
      Thanks James great book!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This basically provides a mechanism by which the ideas of Paul Tillich, renowned 20th century theologian, are translated with flawless clarity to contemporary secular culture. Bravo!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      The author has a lot to say. None of it worthwhile. "Gardening is a horizonal activity". Get your kids interested in science and maybe they won't end up like this guy, spouting vapid profundity.
    • 5/5
      This book didn't affect my perception on reality like I hoped it might, but Carse executed nicely on what I think is a brilliant concept.
    • 1/5
      Many people talk about how this book helped them learn about themselves. I have to agree; this book taught me something about myself. But what it taught me is apparently quite different than the lessons others have learned.What I learned about myself is that I have little tolerance for the minutia and excruciating details of this kind of meaningless philosophical discussion.It is not that I do not understand the value of philosophies, or how they shape our thinking. But, from my perspective, the detailed drivellings contained in this book served no purpose other than to help me see that a deep-dive into senseless word explorations and mindless details provided nothing but a cure for insomnia, except for those times my blood pressure rose when I realized how much time I was wasting on this book.At the end of it all, I left with this one thought. Why? Why did I care about any of this? What did it have to do with my life? Where is the (look out for this word) practical application?Again, I understand that philosophy is not always about the practical. But, at the very least, there should be a practicality in challenging or changing the way we think about things. I did not see anything profound, I did not find anything that altered my perceptions, and it did not change me.if this works for you – good on you; but, for me, the only change was realizing the waste of time inherent in philosophical extrapolations gone wild.
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful - must read - book, beautifully writen in a simple and clear style and yet its simplicity provides a profound insight into life as seen through a perspective of an infinite game or a finite game.For instance in finite games players play in the boundaries, but to play an infinite game we must play with the boundaris.I heard of the book from reading Kevin Kelly's list of the 10 books that most changed his thinking and this was one of the book that I had not read. I loved this book so much I bought 10 copies and gave them away to people I thought would truly appreciate this simple and yet profound perspective.
    • 3/5


      Frankly, I'm not sure what to think of this. There are some fascinating ideas, but there's also some less than solid chains of logic. Then again, maybe I just didn't understand it.
    • 5/5
      "There are at least two kinds of games. 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."~~back coverI read a trade paperback, with this ISBN & cover.I've had this book for 20 years or more, and every time I read it, I get more out of it. It's not an easy book to read -- it takes a lot of thought to begin to understand the author's meaning. But it's well worth the effort! I first read this book when my metaphor for living was 'to be in the world as a warrior', and this book drove me to understand that metaphor is an infinite game.
    • 4/5
      This was definitely a worthwhile read. In fact, I should read a second time before reviewing.

      That said, I found the opening premise quite interesting, and some of the expansion on it quite worthwhile. But... frankly, I did not follow everything here. I think part of it is that I'm not sure I agree with all of it.

      I don't know that infinite players are actually 'better', and that is clearly the judgement expressed. A sincere religious fundamentalist seems an infinite player; so does a sincere terrorist. Though Carse clearly would not agree, I think a 'true believe' in almost any thing would fit... even though embracers of ideology are called out here.

      Yeah... disagree on points AND need to reread.
    • 5/5
      A profound book which has changed the way I look at everything. I suspect that some of the changes will be permanent. (I agree with dogrover that he overuses chiasmus though.)
    • 3/5
      Carse has a bias, does use loaded words. Then, there is his concept of being able to walk off the playing field rather than engaging in a "game." Each person can get conscious of whether the relationship is finite or infinite, whether there are winners and losers, or only winners. Consciousness and choise make the difference.
    • 5/5
      Continually pushing my personal horizons, Carse reminds me of what I often choose to forget: that everything of importance is rooted in personal choice, and that choice and joy are inseparably connected.It is daunting to write a review of a book that almost causally overturns much of the conventional view of society and its attendant honors. Yet that very self-consciousness is a reminder that genuine communication is only achieved through vulnerability. A kind of of wild freedom, impossible to capture in simple text, nevertheless hovers just outside the edges of this book. It incites without compulsion and cuts without malice. It sings, stings, worrys, gnaws, and finally sleeps. It doesn't care what you do, but only the withered in spirit can be left unchanged.The writing is straight-forward and unadorned (though it may rely a bit too much on chiasmus at times). The thoughts are succinct, but require consideration before they come easily. Of the four books I read in one three-week period, this was the shortest and took the longest to finish.
    • 3/5
      I actually think I bought this book when it first came out when I was around 14. When I first read it thru gulping it like water I thought to myself this is so obvious, this is how I think. Typical teenage know it all response. But after a couple of months I realized it had changed the way I thought and interacted with people. Truly life changing for me at 14.
    • 1/5
      This book was like being cornered by that annoying, extremely arrogant philosophy major slash persistent pothead we all knew in college that would corner people at parties and drone on and on about how there's all sorts of levels to, like, humanity and stuff, and how, like, we just, like, don't even, like, realize, man; and, that he has it figured out and he is better than the lot of us for it.

      Carse builds his life philosophy on a foundation of redefined, loaded words that describe a black and white world masquerading as a world in shades of grey; and, he uses his loaded words to clearly describe himself as infinite (superior) and others as finite (inferior). He speaks of the overlap (a finite game can be played within an infinite one); but, he describes the two in opposite terms (according to what he has decided these words mean). The words that he chooses to redefine are words that already have definition and connotation in our world. Instead of finding a word that better describes his philosophy in a neutral manner or, better yet, coining a phrase with no connotation based on his concepts and a logical etymology, he chooses words that do not entirely describe what he is describing so that he can imply a value to it.

      Infinite vs. finite is a clear example of his use of loaded words. Who among us would choose finite over infinite? None. Of course, that example might just be too obvious. I can hear people thinking, "that’s the point." There are other examples, such as machine vs. garden, resonance vs. amplification, etc. These are loaded phrases that he uses to show the superiority of his world view. They are phrases that he, then, ties himself to specifically, and then fills in behind with his beliefs. It leads us to, not only, see his argument as obviously superior (of course infinite is better than finite...), then, also, leads us to see him as superior (someone who has chosen infinite over finite is better than those that choose otherwise...); but, it also leads us to either ignore or elevate dubious arguments that fall in behind it. For those that would say that Carse doesn't apply the infinite to himself specifically, re-read it and note that he will refer to "finite players" and "finite games"; but, then, he often says "when I am playing in an infinite game..." or "as an infinite player I do this...", not to mention the whole "I am a genius" section.

      Once we have accepted his superiority, we are not skeptical of what he says behind it. His view has a fundamental lack of practicality to it, a distinct naïveté and, in at least one case, makes excuse for malice. Finite games, in his implication, could and should be entirely eliminated. With finite games eliminated, we would live in peace, fostering culture and creation, expecting the unexpected and fostering the perpetuation of surprise, and everyone would help all in a world of total harmony with each other and nature. This world view ignores fundamentals of human nature, and of the human psyche. It is a view that assumes that all are capable of this transcendence and that transcendence will always take this form.

      There was, a point at which I found him throwing a malicious act into a list of "infinite" acts of play: adultery. One might call me a fuddy-duddy; but, while I understand that we are better off than the days when adultery was criminal and stoneable sin, I also understand that adultery is a negligent (at its very best) or malicious (often and at its worst) act that should not be added to a list of benign sexual terms such as celibacy and homosexuality. He says you cannot call an infinite player adulterous because it is a concept that requires boundaries; but, infinite players are not concerned with boundaries. If his world view allows for, what I would consider, a malicious act, then what other ideals does this world view hide that is unspoken? Is there no value to maintaining, at least, some order over anarchy?

      In that lies a great deal of his naïveté. Again, like the jerk we all knew in college, he banters about all the "freedoms" that we would have with transcendence, but ignores the effect on others. Others, thus, are either obliged to come to the same transcendence, or, they must (therefore: deserve to) suffer the acts of the enlightened. In a sense, this is the urban-spiritualist version of Stalin's Soviet Union: "Be enlightened, or get out of the way." Of course, this book is packaged nicer than a Siberian gulag, so we don't fear it.

      I made a promise to myself a few years ago that I would finish the books that I started to read. I used to read a few chapters and then drop them. I wanted to see things through. Within those few years, I have read some really, really horrible stuff: stuff that no one should ever read. I persevered, though, and had no regrets. I was following through.

      After reading this book, I have concluded that my promise was the promise of a fool. I would not wish this book on my worst enemy. It is some of the worst hippie, urban-spiritualist, arrogant, catch-phrasey, pop philosophy bull$#!+ that I have ever read in my life. I should have known that it was going to be a horrible book when I saw that an “in praise of” quote on the back was written by Robert Pirsig. If a book ever corners me and talks my ear off like this again, I will have the infinite wisdom to put it the hell down.
    • 5/5
      connects the dots in life to an extraordinary extent. gets a little weaker towards the end though. nevertheless, a work which repays quite a few careful re-reads.
    • 2/5
      I dunno, man. Lots of "It is not the case that x is y; rather, y creates the preconditions for x." I keep thinking this kind of book will have game theory in it.
    • 5/5
      A great little book on a way to look at life. Finite games have rules and you have to try to win the game. Infinite games are those which the goal is not to win, but to play. If you try to win, you lose because when you finally win, you're no longer playing. The goal in the greater game of life is to play. We have to spend much of our life in finite games, but why do so many give up any notion of the infinite game. Have fun, go out into the world and play.