Chess has the rule, and our conversation has the rule. In this sense, we admit that chess and conversation are kinds of games. However, there exist a big difference between chess and conversation. That is, chess has a definite rule before we play it but our conversation does not. We only recognize the rule of conversation only a posteriori. Therefore, we have computer programs for chess but not for conversation. Any computer program cannot mimic natural conversation, failing to pass the Turing test as the result. We don't say that conversation never has a rule a priori. The conversation simply doesn't seem to obey the same rule at the same situation, nor its rule changes by itself all the time. Such characteristics are better to be called "play" than to be called games.
How rules are modified and how situations evolve? The essential characteristics of life such as learning, development and evolution can only be understood in this "play" context. For example, we cannot understand what is learning by just studying how to learn things. But more importantly we have to study how to learn what to learn. This is also anthropologist Gregory Batson's beautiful message.

Dynamics of play shows a new complexity dimension that is entirely different from chaos or complexity of the computational theory. We call the complexity as the open-ended complexity. Here in this forum, we discuss this open-ended complexity from many different aspects ranging from theories of dynamical systems to artists’ points of views.



Ikegami Takashi heads the Ikegami Laboratory at the University of Tokyo (Komaba Campus). His research in the area of artificial life and complex systems focuses on interests in evolutionary systems and cognitive developments.

Papers related:

T.Ikegami, Evolvability of Machines and Tapes,
Artificial Life and Robotics vol. 3 No. 4 (1999) pp.242--245.

T.Ikegami and M.Taiji, Structures of Possible Worlds in a Game
of Players with Internal Models
Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica Ma. 91(1998)pp.283-292.
also see Physica D(1999) 134, 253--266.

I.Igari and T.Ikegami, Coevolution of Mind and Language.
(2000, Unpublished)
(It can be downloaded from http://sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ikeg/list.html)

G.Masumoto and T.Ikegami, The Lambda-Game
(to be published in the proceedings of the European Conference for
Artificial Life, 2001).

Book:

K.Kaneko and T.Ikegami, Evolutionary Scenario of Complex Systems
( Asakura Publ. 1998).