Prototype theory

I accidentally meandered while discussing why 'Games are not art' into a semantic argument about what is art (and by implication what are games). Now, I tend to not like getting in to semantic arguments as they inevitably devolve to either a) a position of we agree to disagree or b) tortuous logical arguments involving set theory. And as far as I am concerned, semantics are a relatively solved problem. And the solution is Prototype Theory.

(I'm just waiting for my former linguistic lecturers to cringe internally and leap to the defense of another theory of semantics).

Prototype theory basically says that you can grade the members of a category so that some members are more central than others. And you can distinguish central from less-central members of a category using real world testing of various kinds.

So a Prototype Theory version of what is art would involve ranking things that are more 'art-like' from things that are less 'art-like'. So paintings would be more 'art-like' than sculptures, which are more 'art-like' than music and so on. And then testing things like reaction time using a number of experiments outlined in the Wikipedia article I linked to above to verify the ranking.

So an argument about whether games are art would probably involve ranking various games as more 'art-like' and less 'art-like'.

Which is what most people intuitively do when talking about games as art. Well Ico is art, maybe Shadow of the Colossus, but not Postal or E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. At which point someone arguing from a logical position would try to argue for Postal or E.T. on exactly the same premises they were using to argue against either of these.

So no amount of reasoned logical argument will resolve the issue, no matter who weighs in or what arguments are used.

I'll leave you with Wittgenstein's famous arguments about what constitutes a game:

Consider for example the proceedings that we call `games'. I mean board games, card games, ball games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? Don't say, "There must be something common, or they would not be called `games' " - but look and see whether there is anything common to all. For if you look at them you will not see something common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! Look for example at board games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. Are they all `amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.