27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Rules are the Persistent Identity of a Game Across Cultur...
There are at least two senses in which the RULES schemas offer a "formal" way of looking at games. First, the term formal is used in the sense of "form": rules constitute the inner form or organization of games. In other words, rules are the inner, essential structures that constitute the real-world objects known as games. For example, consider two games of Go that differ in a variety of ways. They might differ in terms of:
Material: one version is played with stones on a wooden board; the o... 1 
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notes21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus
Evolutionary History Through Macro and Micro Observations
Everything in the cosmos has a history. The old dichotomy between the "historical" sciences (like geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology) and the (for want of a better term) "functional" sciences (like physics and chemistry—some would call them the "real sciences") was always supposed to be that fields like physics study dynamic processes and discover immutable laws of interaction among particles composing the cosmos—while the historical sciences study, well, history—the suppose... 1 notes
notes15 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Games Allow Experimentation
One way to achieve genuine engagement in students is to provide them with the opportunity to experiment with scenarios in which they can examine complex issues and interactions. Games provide a safe and interactive way for kids to engage with complex ideas, put themselves in others’ roles and analyze issues from a perspective different from their own. This gives game-based learning incredible potential to provide students with a reason to engage with difficult content and to feel invested i...Folksonomies: game-based learning
Folksonomies: game-based learning
1 notes
notesLet’s play! Transforming My Teaching to Match My Students Miranda Salguero
05 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
"Bug" is Not an Insult
Look at them, the bugs. Humans have used everything in their power to extinguish them: every kind of poison, aerial sprays, introducing and cultivating their natural predators, searching for and destroying their eggs, using genetic modification to sterilize them, burning with fire, drowning with water. Every family has bug spray, every desk has a flyswatter under it … this long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs ha... 1 notes
notes25 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
RPG as a Game of Imagination
It's a game of your imagination, where you get to tell storeis by taking on the roles of the main chractes-characters you create. It's a game that offers a multitude of choices-more choices than even the most sophisticated computer game, because the only limit to what you can do is what you can imagine. The story unfolds like a movie, except all of the action takes place in your imagination.
There's no script to follow, other than a rough outline used by the Gamemaster (GM): you decide what ...Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
1 29 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Reality Teaches Us
At birth one may stand at the cross-roads for only a few lal. The adjustments are peremptory. The human mechanism must adjust itself to the new world. If it does,—then life. Sometimes it is necessary to "slap" it. That is "science" giving a first lesson in adjustment. An adequate supply of oxygen for the cells of the body is the first problem man faces when he comes into this world. Every pink pill is not a piece of candy. Science goes to the rescue and re-establishes adjustments. Man tires... 1 notes
notesWe start out trying to figure out the world, and science teaches us the lessons, but when we overbelieve--go beyond empirical evidence--we "may spoil the garden."
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Causality as a Conceptual Tool
Causality itself is an evolved conceptual tool that simplifies, schematizes, and focuses our representation of situations. This cognitive machinery guides us to think in terms of the cause—of an outcome’s having a single cause. Yet for enlarged understanding, it is more accurate to represent outcomes as caused by an intersection, or nexus, of factors (including the absence of precluding conditions). In War and Peace, Tolstoy asks, “When an apple ripens and falls, why does it fall? Becau...John Tooby on how causation is a way we simplify the world to more easily understand it, but it can also over-simplify.
08 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
We are Ultimately Responsible for Our Fate
Thus it is that (to ensure feeding and breeding), "Nature" during the aeons of experimentation which we call "Evolution" has developed a variety of fixed preservative instincts, traits, and characteristics in the animal world. From the animal world, we as animals have inherited such of these instincts, traits, and characteristics as were necessary or most favorable to Man's survival and present dominance.
"Gifts": Peculiarly Human.
In addition to these, man lias acquired, attained, or bee... 1 notes
notesIf we choose to interfere with evolution and nature, then we are responsible for the consequences, but if we choose not to, then we are also responsible for the consequences.
07 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Does the Universe have a Purpose?
Anyone who expresses a more definitive response to the question is claiming access to knowledge not based on empirical foundations. This remarkably persistent way of thinking, common to most religions and some branches of philosophy, has failed badly in past efforts to understand, and thereby predict the operations of the universe and our place within it.
To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desi... 1 notes
notesIf it does, it's difficult to see what that purpose would be in light of what we see around us.
30 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
The Past and Who Has Access to It
What we know about the past—and who has access to such knowledge—has changed dramatically with each such change. The changes run far deeper than the mere proliferation of data points. As written records of large estates held in monasteries in France achieved legal and social dominance, the role of women as the tellers of the past fell into decline (Geary, 1994): The technological and the social were deeply intertwined. The outcome was that different kinds of records were kept. With the in... 1 notes
notesThe past was once only available through memory, then only available to those who had access to records, and now available to everyone.
