Understanding, episode 2: Play

John Kellden
3 min readOct 13, 2019

In a network, we play to win^n.

In a network, the best place to store knowledge is in other people. A win^n weaving of engagement and return on engagement, through work, knowledge, play, autopoiesis and generativity.

Win¹: How do we win?

This question has been gamed to death, now with Twitter having more or less gone to the dogs, turned weaponized discourse.

“Play is a cultural activity through which a society frames itself. Play is an expressive and/or narrative activity to construct collective and cultural identity. Play allows people to create and recreate cultural identity in light of their reality.”
— Johan Roos

Win²: How do we win-win?

Through extending our analog/digital filters, into online, digital, virtuereal, in ways that forms and shapes different circles and graphs, how we talk, know, like, trust and transact together — in return and in kind — in a context of…

Win³: How do we win-win-win?

Through engaging in conversations that mind and matter, weaving social cognition together with participatory inquiry approaches, towards social, connected, digital learning and, over time, scalable learning.

Win⁴: How do we win-win-win-win?

How do we build a new, different, better autopoietic system, with faster, more responsive, more trimtabbing feedback loops?

Through open data and knowledge ecosystems, informed by warm data, guided by symmathesy and aligning around orchestrating purposes.

Cards imply play. Play is how we narrate thinks, things, gatherings and human evolution.

Win⁵: How do we win-win-win-win-win?

Through dialogic pursuit of best options, including metalogic trimtabbing, systemic inquiry and intelligent leverage, co-evolving with emergent purpose.

This win⁵ set of patterns of play, patterns of interaction, when practiced and sustained over time, is what shamen of old refer to as “luminous path”.

Through large finite set pattern languages, significant parts of this can be digitally augmented.

The core constraint is not residing solely in digital, but rather our ability to extend our identity and our social cognition, into digital.

Win⁶: How do we win-win-win-win-win-win?

Through engaging in a 21C Transition of our own enacting, shaping, making and happening.

We made it? What happened? We happened.

21C Transition
One of the advantages with patterning and pattern languages is, you can connect the dots in systematic and symmathesic ways.

Here, transition is no longer an abstract noun, but rather a proactive, presencing, verb.

There’s also language magic at work, with all the win^n words, transforming how we language, how we make meaning, using what definitions of what words that works and worlds, our wielding and wending, including re-defining existing.

Something in the way we move, attract us like no other cobbler.

Conversations that Mind and Matter
Weaving thinks, things and gatherings into aligning data, intelligence, knowledge and autopoiesis, into win^n.

Conversations that Mind and Matter

Win⁷

It is perfectly possible to posit a win⁷ as well, but we don’t need it, since that is essentially a superset of presence, a proactive surrendering to what is, transforming our karma into dharma in each and every moment. Words are redundant when our moments invite us into movement and trust; trust and movement.

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup

All the other win^n are both conceptually and practically useful, both in their own write and as parts of a re-aligning with essential character and evolutionary purpose.

All Together Now: Meaning-Making-Moving-With
The win⁵, win⁶ and win⁷ are the evolutionary whereto and why,
to the win², win³ and win⁴ what and how.

First, second, third and fourth order cybernetics: a set of feedback loops between essential character and evolutionary purpose. Between engagement and return on engagement.

Win, in a context of win^n, is co-extensive with experience, as in and as if each and every experience, is (obliquely, secretly) a learning experience.

Experiences here seen over a long period of time, including beyond individual lives: the evolutionary journey of the soul.

Signs are co-extensive with life.

Understanding, episode 2: Play

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John Kellden

Cards catalyzing stories, Conversations that mind and matter, Digital communities and collaborative narratives