4 ms·

If you don't know what fun is, having fun is the same as a ceremony. It's some dumb thing rubes do because "nobody knows why!"

micromacrofoot 3y ago
You see a similar phenomenon in ethology, the reason many animals "play" is a mystery but there are all sorts of loose explanations like "helps train to hunt" that are probably too quick to dismiss the idea that maybe some things simply feel good.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  Those could very well be the same thing. Evolution makes it so that the things which help us survive and reproduce feel like fun. I suspect all of our emotional responses are driven by evolution, and are really our top level instruction on how to live. Then afterwards we come up with rationalizations why we do the things we do.
- Martinussen 3y ago
  Isn't making things feel good/hurt the way we are pushed towards stuff like training to hunt by evolution, though?
- cyber_kinetist 3y ago
  Reminds me of the essay "Whats the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?" by David Graeber (https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-hav...): "Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions. Under this assumption, an expenditure of energy must be directed toward some goal, whether it be obtaining food, securing territory, achieving dominance, or maximizing reproductive success—unless one can absolutely prove that it isnt, and absolute proof in such matters is, as one might imagine, very hard to come by. I must emphasize here that it doesn’t really matter what sort of theory of animal motivation a scientist might entertain: what she believes an animal to be thinking, whether she thinks an animal can be said to be “thinking” anything at all. I' m not saying that ethologists actually believe that animals are simply rational calculating machines. I' m simply saying that ethologists have boxed themselves into a world where to be scientific means to offer an explanation of behavior in rational terms—which in turn means describing an animal as if it were a calculating economic actor trying to maximize some sort of self-interest—whatever their theory of animal psychology, or motivation, might be. That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal. It' s understudied, and those who do study it are seen as mildly eccentric. As with many vaguely threatening, speculative notions, difficult-to-satisfy criteria are introduced for proving animal play exists, and even when it is acknowledged, the research more often than not cannibalizes its own insights by trying to demonstrate that play must have some long-term survival or reproductive function."
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    This is really good, thank you for sharing it.
  - jhbadger 3y ago
    "Animal "play" isn't any sort of "scandal" -- we know that many young animals "play" by fighting with each other -- this is obviously good training for their adult lives. At the end of the day, all animal behavior evolved somehow and so self-interest must be involved, unless you want to bring some sort of creator god into the explanation. Like Graeber's distorted view of Apple's history, I suspect he knew very little of evolutionary biology.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Birds have been seen playing too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo
- bitwize 3y ago
  I think you're cutting to the heart of why fun is even a thing. We do fun things, and find them fun, because they help us mentally prepare for critical real-world scenarios. We don't know this going in, but it feels good and we reap the benefits. Just like adults find sex pleasurable so they have the urge to do it and reproduce, children and adults find play pleasurable so they have the urge to do it and build up our brains. Like, armed conflict isn't fun unless you're a psychopath (in which case militaries are probably very interested in recruiting you). But a de-risked simulation of armed conflict -- anything from chess to sportsball to a modern FPS -- is an almost archetypal fun activity. This is something to keep in mind when considering the ruinous effects of the removal of recess and free play from American schools.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    This is a reasonable and somewhat popular theory but evidence to support it is harder to find than you might imagine. People have spent their entire lives studying animal behavior and still don't have much more than a shrug to show for evidence supporting play as a survival or evolutionary mechanism. Some play does look like hunting (cat and dog owners will notice this), but there's a good amount that also doesn't align with anything else an animal regularly does.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

You see a similar phenomenon in ethology, the reason many animals "play" is a mystery but there are all sorts of loose explanations like "helps train to hunt" that are probably too quick to dismiss the idea that maybe some things simply feel good.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
Those could very well be the same thing. Evolution makes it so that the things which help us survive and reproduce feel like fun. I suspect all of our emotional responses are driven by evolution, and are really our top level instruction on how to live. Then afterwards we come up with rationalizations why we do the things we do.
Martinussen 3y ago
Isn't making things feel good/hurt the way we are pushed towards stuff like training to hunt by evolution, though?
cyber_kinetist 3y ago
Reminds me of the essay "Whats the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?" by David Graeber (https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-hav...): "Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions. Under this assumption, an expenditure of energy must be directed toward some goal, whether it be obtaining food, securing territory, achieving dominance, or maximizing reproductive success—unless one can absolutely prove that it isnt, and absolute proof in such matters is, as one might imagine, very hard to come by. I must emphasize here that it doesn’t really matter what sort of theory of animal motivation a scientist might entertain: what she believes an animal to be thinking, whether she thinks an animal can be said to be “thinking” anything at all. I' m not saying that ethologists actually believe that animals are simply rational calculating machines. I' m simply saying that ethologists have boxed themselves into a world where to be scientific means to offer an explanation of behavior in rational terms—which in turn means describing an animal as if it were a calculating economic actor trying to maximize some sort of self-interest—whatever their theory of animal psychology, or motivation, might be. That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal. It' s understudied, and those who do study it are seen as mildly eccentric. As with many vaguely threatening, speculative notions, difficult-to-satisfy criteria are introduced for proving animal play exists, and even when it is acknowledged, the research more often than not cannibalizes its own insights by trying to demonstrate that play must have some long-term survival or reproductive function."
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  This is really good, thank you for sharing it.
- jhbadger 3y ago
  "Animal "play" isn't any sort of "scandal" -- we know that many young animals "play" by fighting with each other -- this is obviously good training for their adult lives. At the end of the day, all animal behavior evolved somehow and so self-interest must be involved, unless you want to bring some sort of creator god into the explanation. Like Graeber's distorted view of Apple's history, I suspect he knew very little of evolutionary biology.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Birds have been seen playing too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo
bitwize 3y ago
I think you're cutting to the heart of why fun is even a thing. We do fun things, and find them fun, because they help us mentally prepare for critical real-world scenarios. We don't know this going in, but it feels good and we reap the benefits. Just like adults find sex pleasurable so they have the urge to do it and reproduce, children and adults find play pleasurable so they have the urge to do it and build up our brains. Like, armed conflict isn't fun unless you're a psychopath (in which case militaries are probably very interested in recruiting you). But a de-risked simulation of armed conflict -- anything from chess to sportsball to a modern FPS -- is an almost archetypal fun activity. This is something to keep in mind when considering the ruinous effects of the removal of recess and free play from American schools.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  This is a reasonable and somewhat popular theory but evidence to support it is harder to find than you might imagine. People have spent their entire lives studying animal behavior and still don't have much more than a shrug to show for evidence supporting play as a survival or evolutionary mechanism. Some play does look like hunting (cat and dog owners will notice this), but there's a good amount that also doesn't align with anything else an animal regularly does.