Finite and Infinite Games is a book by religious scholar James P. Carse. Kevin Kelly has praised it for "alter my thinking about life, the universe, and everything."
Famous quotes containing the words finite and, finite, infinite and/or games:
“Put shortly, these are the two views, then. One, that man is intrinsically good, spoilt by circumstance; and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man’s nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which regards him like a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical.”
—Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883–1917)
“Any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are “prefabricated” in the sense that we don’t coin new ones every time we speak.”
—David Lodge (b. 1935)
“The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.”
—Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)
“In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults. . . . Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)