6 ms·

The book, even a crappy book by a weak author, will be more thought provoking than the video game.

SwiftyBug 2y ago
What do you mean? What makes a book more thought provoking than video games? Disclaimer: I do not play videos games. I just don't enjoy them. I'm not in defence of them. I'm just thought-provoked about why you think video games are essentially less then books.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Writing is literally the conveyance of thought itself, and nothing else. A picture of a rock might or might not provoke any particular thoughts about rocks in the viewer. But if I write anything more than the purely descriptive "there is a rock" then I have conveyed some sort of thought about the rock or rocks in general, and at the very least you have been introduced to my thought, and very likely you have also reacted with some thought of your own. And the mechanical process of reading gave you the time and venue for that to happen. Even if I do try to be purely descriptive, it's impossible to seperate my perception from the output. I can only describe what I noticed and considered noteworthy. I litetally cannot write the equivalent of a photograph of a rock, but can only write my thoughts about that rock. The photograph may contain more data, but no opinions and no understandings. The viewer can possibly have no thoughts at all about it, and not actively notice most of the data, or the significance of various bits of the data, but the reader must have at the very least the thoughts of the writer, and it will be almost impossible not to have some sort of thougts of their own in reaction to reading the writers. Other things also provoke thought, including video games. But I only asserted "more".
nickthegreek 2y ago
I assure you that Baldur's Gate 3 is more thought provoking than Green Eggs & Ham.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  The existence of contrived exceptions does not disprove anything, and I would not agree this would be an exception anyway. An incurious person can fail to think about anything at any time.
  - James_K 2y ago
    > An incurious person can fail to think about anything at any time. And you fail to think about games. Interesting what you say about yourself.
    - Brian_K_White 2y ago
      I said nothing that proves I don't or didn't think about games. That is pure fabricated assumption. It is a contrived exception because you have to pick a special video game and a special book to make it work, and the example will not hold when picking 100 books at random and 100 games at random, and that's even granting that the cherry picked example even holds, which I actually deny.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    It's not contrived. Pulp fiction is real, and there are plenty of computer games that aren't "pulp games".
James_K 2y ago
Just because you choose not to think about games doesn't mean they don't provoke thought. There are many people who read books such as "50 Shades of Grey" and don't think very much about them at all. Indeed you can think equally about a video game as you could some fiction book. They are likely intellectual objects of similar complexity. A book can, however, provide useful information. I assert this is the benefit that a book has over a game. You can think about either as much or little as you want, but the benefit of a book comes from the information therein and not from some kind of abstract mental exercise involved in the process of reading.

What do you mean? What makes a book more thought provoking than video games? Disclaimer: I do not play videos games. I just don't enjoy them. I'm not in defence of them. I'm just thought-provoked about why you think video games are essentially less then books.

Brian_K_White 2y ago
Writing is literally the conveyance of thought itself, and nothing else. A picture of a rock might or might not provoke any particular thoughts about rocks in the viewer. But if I write anything more than the purely descriptive "there is a rock" then I have conveyed some sort of thought about the rock or rocks in general, and at the very least you have been introduced to my thought, and very likely you have also reacted with some thought of your own. And the mechanical process of reading gave you the time and venue for that to happen. Even if I do try to be purely descriptive, it's impossible to seperate my perception from the output. I can only describe what I noticed and considered noteworthy. I litetally cannot write the equivalent of a photograph of a rock, but can only write my thoughts about that rock. The photograph may contain more data, but no opinions and no understandings. The viewer can possibly have no thoughts at all about it, and not actively notice most of the data, or the significance of various bits of the data, but the reader must have at the very least the thoughts of the writer, and it will be almost impossible not to have some sort of thougts of their own in reaction to reading the writers. Other things also provoke thought, including video games. But I only asserted "more".

nickthegreek 2y ago

I assure you that Baldur's Gate 3 is more thought provoking than Green Eggs & Ham.

Brian_K_White 2y ago
The existence of contrived exceptions does not disprove anything, and I would not agree this would be an exception anyway. An incurious person can fail to think about anything at any time.
- James_K 2y ago
  > An incurious person can fail to think about anything at any time. And you fail to think about games. Interesting what you say about yourself.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    I said nothing that proves I don't or didn't think about games. That is pure fabricated assumption. It is a contrived exception because you have to pick a special video game and a special book to make it work, and the example will not hold when picking 100 books at random and 100 games at random, and that's even granting that the cherry picked example even holds, which I actually deny.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  It's not contrived. Pulp fiction is real, and there are plenty of computer games that aren't "pulp games".

James_K 2y ago

Just because you choose not to think about games doesn't mean they don't provoke thought. There are many people who read books such as "50 Shades of Grey" and don't think very much about them at all. Indeed you can think equally about a video game as you could some fiction book. They are likely intellectual objects of similar complexity. A book can, however, provide useful information. I assert this is the benefit that a book has over a game. You can think about either as much or little as you want, but the benefit of a book comes from the information therein and not from some kind of abstract mental exercise involved in the process of reading.