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The Journals of Doc Surge is the personal blog of Chris Billows. This blog’s purpose is to explore ideas and concepts through the discipline of writing as an exercise to further personal understanding.

Check out more about me, some of my thoughts on Games and Hockey.

Sep 04

Everything Counts at Death

September 04, 2021 by Chris Billows in Republic of Bloggers 0 comments tags: Defining Life, Human Condition, Meaning of Life
An open letter to Chris Bateman responding to his blog-letter Every Cause of Death Matters at Only A Game as part of the Republic of Bloggers. Feel welcome to provide your own input via the Comments.     Dear Chris, I want to commend you for taking on a topic that is wholly lacking in our sensationalism-driven, hyper-sensitive COVID-19 fixation thanks to our modern media. You elaborated eloquently about how we don’t have a rational relationship with reporting on the causes of death and this leaves us poorer and more vulnerable to false information. I could not agree more. I’m believe you exaggerated your position to in order to make your point and in doing so lost some of the nuance that I feel compelled to address. You alluded to it in your statement: This principle does not mean that we are wrong to care about some causes of death more than others – on the contrary, it would be reckless to replace it with a principle that ‘every cause of death matters equally‘. I’ve known you long enough to recognize you are pitching a position with the hope that somebody will engage with it and so I will happily […]
Aug 01

Play Motifs – VERSION 3.0 (AUG/21)

August 01, 2021 by Chris Billows in Playstates Theory 1 comments tags: Game Philosophy, Games Analysis, Playstates
I am re-calibrating my definitions as I evolve in my understanding of Play and Video Games. I am introducing the definition of Play Motifs as a replacement for the Playstates term. For the past four plus years I’ve worked on elaborating on my Playstates theory and as it evolved out of Gamestories I have found the need to evolve out of Playstates. Because it is really a continuation and renaming, I am carrying on the Version Numbering to Version 3.0 from previous Versions 2.0 and 1.0. I was originally going to produce a number of free guides called Playstates and analyze the different aspects of making a video game. My plan is still do that but do it in a new project that I plan to launch next year. I will be writing down my thoughts in a diary-themed analysis that will look at Video Game graphics, animation, music, and alchemy (the changeable nature of video games). It was during this rethinking that I realized that Playstates is too narrow when it comes to discussing video games. So Playstates will be redefined to be all aspects about video game development while the five specific Playstates that I’ve identified will now […]
Jul 03

High-Stakes Recreation & Playstates

July 03, 2021 by Chris Billows in Playstates Theory 0 comments tags: Playstates
In a previous blog post Playful Work & Serious Leisure I shared a matrix of Work-Leisure that outlined eight different states of being when it came to Work & Leisure. Being a theoretical person, I thought it would be enjoyable to combine that matrix with my concept of Playstates, particularly how it should be possible to find each of the five Playstates in the realm of Recreation. This would also further validate my Playstates theory, being able to find it in other concepts. Recreation is the socially sanctioned use of leisure time. It is those activities that society wants us to do when we are not working and tends to entail some kind of personal development or challenge. But as I do this thought experiment I saw that playful activities such as Puzzles, Playgrounds, and Games can be taken very seriously and can become high-stakes. Here is my Matrix with the emphasis being placed on Recreation. Recreation is a range of activities that combine Leisure and Seriousness.  *Recreation*   Leisure   Fun     |     Serious —- + —- Playful     |     Grind   Work   Inspired It is conceptually easy to link up Seriousness […]
Jun 27

The Power of ‘Yes’ and ‘Maybe’

June 27, 2021 by Chris Billows in Republic of Bloggers 0 comments tags: Components of Human Nature, Human Condition, Human Mystery, Virtuous Discourse
A response to Chris Bateman responding to his blog post The Power of No at Only A Game as part of the Republic of Bloggers. Feel welcome to provide your own input via the Comments. I made a quick on-blog comment to Chris’ post but felt there was more to share. The idea of three different responses, each with their own power was something I wanted to delve a little more into. Chris eloquently explains that The Power of No as represented by four women philosophers give us a powerful beacon to see the importance for a small number of people to raise their voices in opposition to absolutism. It is necessary for there to be principled opposition to majority because majorities are not without fault or ignorance. Human nature being as it is, is well served by a conscience and the Power of No is this practice. Yet human nature is a multifaceted thing for the Power of ‘no’ is challenged by the power of ‘yes’ and the power of ‘maybe’. ‘Yes’ is the desire to belong to certainty in a world full of uncertainty or horror. It is a powerful magnet and it does not matter if the […]
Jun 27

Response about Ludic Narrative

June 27, 2021 by Chris Billows in Playstates Theory 0 comments tags: Blog Response, Games Analysis, Playstates, Video Game History
I posted a response to The Digital Antiquarian blog post: Ludic Narrative née Storygame These kind of thought experiments can be allot of fun. Humans love to categorize things and there are a few of us that obsess over them (sheepishly raises own hand). I’ve spend the past few years working on a theory that points to a layer of play that cuts across genres, themes, and motifs. It is called Playstates and sees there being five distinct motifs of play found in Video Games and in all other aspects of play. They are more like an chemical compound than like a border. Some products will have more toy-play and some will have more narrative-play and some will have game/sports-play. We see these eventually congeal into the popular genres that have captured our imagination. We would see RPGs being x parts game-play, x parts playground-play, x parts narrative-play, and so on while IFs would be mostly narrative-play, puzzle-play, and some parts playground-play. One thing that old Adventure and IF video games used allot of is puzzle-play. The puzzles were there to delay the narrative reveals. This became frustrating for many who wanted to see the story mostly or wanted to […]
Jan 16

Too Comfortable to Consider Politics

January 16, 2021 by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings, Republic of Bloggers 0 comments tags: Corruption of Democracy, Political Opinion
An open letter to Chris Bateman responding to his blog-letter Considering Politics at Only A Game as part of the Republic of Bloggers. Feel welcome to provide your own input via the Comments. Dear Chris, I’m writing this blog-letter to one of your really old articles – Considering Politics you posted way back in 2006! I stumbled on that article a few years ago, bookmarked it, forgot about it, then re-read it, and started drafting a response about three years ago. Some fascinating ideas are worth coming back to, especially these kind of idea starters that prompt us to look at things from a new perspective. I love your idea of meta signals/temperaments that cut across political movements. Your analysis makes sense and is possibly one of a few factors that driver voter participation and attitude towards politics. I also think that there may be an overarching factor that affects all of those signals/temperaments. I have a theory that voter disinterest, increased amount of non-voters, and general disdain towards politicians and politics is because Western Liberal Democracy does such a good job of creating comfort and disinterest. Let’s call it Too Comfortable To Care. We have systematically created more and more […]
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