andrewducker | Categorisation - 1500 words of theory

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'"

Over here Blackmanxy asks whether there's a purpose to this categorisation of RPGs.

I've run into this question on numerous occasions before (not about this list, per se, but the question of categorisation in general) and it's a fairly frequent occurence that people don't understand the urge that leads people to break things down into categories and try to pigeon-hole various instances into them.

Blackmanxy's a fairly smart chap and it's obvious from his comments that he knows that all such categories are inherently arbitrary. They are based around what one (or more) people see as the defining characteristics of the genre (or medium or species or whatever) and as such are always going to be very biased in favour of whatever it is people want to show. The way a zoologist categorises animals is not going to be the same as the way a farrier does, for instance, because one cares about the ancestry of the animal while the other cares about the type of fur they produce. Neither is a more accurate way of categorising the animals, neither is The Truth about the animal, they are both useful in different situations, depending on what you are interested in.

Another problem with these lists is that there are always things that fall through the cracks. Any categorisation of genre, for instance, falls down in about 5% of all cases where film either cross genre or ignore them entirely (Is "Alien" Science Fiction or Horror? What genre does "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" fall into?). Genre is a particularly vague categorisation method, so it's not surprising that there are such large problems with it, but nearly all category sets have similar problems (genetic categorisation is a possible exception, as I believe it's impossible for a species to descend from two separate branches of the evolutionary tree, but every so often evolution throws in a wild card such as the duck-billed platypus, which lays eggs, has a stinger and is still a mammal).

So, having decided that Blackmanxy is right and that not only is there no one true categorisation but that any categorisation we do make is going to have holes where it doesn't map onto reality, what is the point of categorisation at all?

The answer? Because it's impossible to talk about things without categorising them. Now, in the traditions of philosophers everywhere I'm going to push this as far as possible and say that every time you use a verb or a noun, you're engaging in categorisation. If I say "Grab a chair" I'm actually taking a whole group of different motions and possible effects and grouping them together as "grab" and doing the same with "chair" which could cover a wide range of different types of object that can be sat on, ranging from a normal straight backed chair to stools, swivel chairs, settee chairs and possibly as far as cushions and particularly comfortable rocks depending on the definitions of the participants in the conversation.

And it’s here that the problem lies, "The definitions of the participants in the conversation." Any definition is a statement of category. It says "When I talk about X, I am referring to this particular way of looking at something, in this particular circumstance." If find that the majority of arguments of intelligent people stem from one of two sources, either different experiences or different definitions. I’ve both been in and seen many arguments where two people were arguing the same side, but unable to see it because they both thought the other person meant something different because they hadn’t agreed their terms beforehand.

Of course, most conversations don’t start with an explanation of definitions. You assume that, as you have similar backgrounds and experiences, that the other person means the same thing as you when they use the same words. The problem being that you learn words inductively - you just pick them up as you go along based on how other people use them. On one level, this is a really useful thing to happen as words change their usage over time and the language mutates into the forms that people use it in, making it a remarkably flexible tool. On the other hand this makes exact communication very hard.

Many's the time that myself and Erin have had arguments during which she's said "Well, everyone on the planet except you would have understood what I meant." Leaving aside the discussion of my possible alien origins, this is a fairly obvious misconception - that the way that you use language is the way that everyone uses language. Not only that, but I've had numerous discussions where referring to the dictionary to show that the way that you were using the word under discussion was the correct way was met by howls of "That may be the way the word used to be used, but everyone knows that's now what it means now!"

There's obviously both a tendency towards believing both that the meaning of words is obvious (and your definition is correct) and that any discussion of them is irrelevant. However, this means that any meaningful discussion is absolutely impossible. If you don't have terms and definitions organised in advance, you can have semi-meangingful chatter about a subject, but you can't actually analyse it, form theories about it or hammer out exact problems and solutions. The reason why theorists and scientists use complicated language is that each word has a precise definition. They avoid using ordinary english precisely because of the preconceptions attached to it. If fact, if someone tries to explain very complex things using plain english, chances are that they are going to tie you up in linguistic knots (for a great example of this, see Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which gets you to agree that you can use the word "Quality" in one context and then uses at least 3 different meanings of the word elsewhere to fool you into thinking it has a coherent argument).

However, coherent definitions most definitely aren't enough. People interpret. It's pretty much what the brain does - take various rules, definitions, ideas an inputs and tries to make sense of them given it's own experience. This means that either a definition has to have multiple exact examples to tie down exactly what it means (and few people are good enough writers to do this perfectly) or there has to be massed discussion to hammer out a general concensus. Failing to do this leads you back to the interminable arguments, only this time it's worse, because everyone has the definitions and examples to prove they are right.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine, depressed about the way that our gaming sessions went, tried to introduce us all to a theory of gaming. He'd read the theory, seen that it pointed out very clearly his problems with what we did and wanted us to understand as well. At the very least the theory gave some useful terms for discussion so that we could talk about his perceived problems, codify what it was each of us wanted out of the games and see where we all stood.

The main reaction was one of confusion. None of us could (a) understand why he had a problem or (b) understand why anyone would want to take gaming (a fun, simple thing) and talk about it in complicated terms as if it was a degree course. Eventually we were all cajoled into reading it (some of us more easily than others), discussion happened, we tried to get things sorted out and it all fell apart in as messy a way as things have ever fallen apart in my experience. Leaving aside the personal fallout, following the messy ending, I had the two people who had fallen out both pointing out to me that their interpretations were completely valid interpretations of what had been discussed.

From what I saw and understood (and I didn't write the theory, so my interpretation is as fallible as the next man) they both had very good points. And those points could almost certainly been cleared up if they had been discussed at length. But, sadly, it all fell apart over the arguments based on the conclusions people had come to, because the discussions never took place over the actual theory, but only over the game people wanted to play.

To sum up, yes, making the definitions and producing the slices into different categories is a vital part of any kind of serious discussion, but it's important to remember that your definitions are arbitrary and only to be considered useful in the context that you made them. It's also vital that proper discussion of those categories takes place, to find the flaws and the areas of disagreement before you then go on to the next stage of discussing what to do with those definitions.