16. THE GIVENS OF GAMES, MOSTLY

We turn now to another important source of doubts—givens.  In this episode, we restrict our discussion of givens to games, then apply the lessons learned to doubts.

Givens are those things which are accepted for what they seem to be without further thought.  Let’s take chess as an example.  When as a child I was told that such and such a piece was a pawn, I accepted that as a fact.  When I was further told that the pawn was permitted to make a certain number of moves, I likewise accepted those rules as facts without digging any deeper.

Because I learned about all the rules governing the movements of all the other pieces, I was able to enjoy a life-time of games.  

Similarly, cards of a typical deck are given.  Different sets of rules governing the same 52 cards give us different games.  One set of rules gives us solitaire, another gives us blackjack, another one gives us twenty-one and so forth. 

In short, all games are formed from certain combinations of given things (like pieces, boards and cards) and the rules governing them.  

Every time we play a game, we rely on these givens.  We may call this the Inevitability Property of Givens, because we inevitably rely on an arbitrary set of givens--we have to use some pieces and we have to follow some rules--in order to play any game.  In short, you cannot play any game without a set of givens.

It follows that questioning the givens is pointless.  We call this the Absurd Question Property of Givens.  This means that when we doubt givens, we tend to ask silly questions.  Who would play chess with an opponent who wants to know why the pawn moves as it does?  

Looking beyond games, we can see that vending machines, computer programs and so forth share these two properties.  

For example, the givens of a vending machine includes the parts, the programming and the coins required to make it work.  If I want to buy candy from it, I am bound to accept the terms required by (the makers of) the vending machines.  I cannot get candy from a vending  machine without accepting its givens.  Therefore, if a certain vending machine features the given “Coins Only,” then I must either use coins or find another machine.  Asking about why the machine only takes coins gets me nowhere.  For me to shove dollar bills into some part of the machine and then claim that the machine is broken is just silly. 

It may be objected that this view of things is merely an argument for a mule-headed kind of conservatism.  Not at all.  If I want to find a vending machine that does accept bills, I may.  I can even produce my own vending machine that accepts paper money.  However, as long as I am standing in front of someone else's machine, it is still a waste of time to ask silly questions.  
Furthermore, if I produce my own my new vending machine, it will, when all is said and done, still be a package of inevitable givens to another potential user, and it will still be absurd for him to raise silly questions, like "Granted that this machine accepts coins and bills, why doesn't it accept denarii and drachmas?"  
We may now see that whereas givens of games are inevitable, the Absurd Question Property only arises when someone commits himself to a game (of chess or of a vending machine) and in his effort to win the game (capture all of his opponent's pieces or get a candy-bar) starts whining about the injustice of it all.  
By contrast, someone who decides to invent a game based on, say, chess,  is deliberately not committing himself to the old game.  When he asks "Why can't the pawn have a new move?", he simply clarifying his thoughts about a new set of givens for what he hopes will be a better game.