There’s a great article over on Less Wrong about how the only things in the world are ‘real’ things, and if you can’t take joy in real things then you’re going to be pretty disappointed. For me it boiled down to ‘if you are only able to find wonder in the things that are not real, like unicorns, dragons, wizards; if you’re only able to find joy in things that have not been ‘explained away’; if hearing an explanation for a phenomenon robs it of it’s wonder, then you’re going to be pretty disappointed.’
I was reflecting on it, as I do from time to time because it’s got some good ideas. Anyway, I was reflecting on it and I was thinking about the feeling of wonder, it usually seems to be reserved for things that are mysterious and unreal. It does at times feel like adding a scientific explanation to something diminishes it somehow. But not always, and I think I found a bit of an idea on why, and perhaps this could be used to improve a game. I’m thinking that the feeling of wonder is all about your expectations of novel experiences.
If you think about a subject, and you anticipate that further investigation of the subject will yield novel information, novel experiences, really anything novel, then that subject will hold for you a feeling of wonder. Think about it, take Skyrim for example, you get out of the first city and out into the countryside and you can go anywhere. There are villages with people to meet, caves with wild animals, and cottages with bandits hiding behind secret walls in the basement. All sorts of neat places to explore, and novel things to experience. It’s full of wonder, at least that’s how I felt. Then what happens when you’re twenty or thirty hours in? I actually don’t know because I only started playing it recently and I’m only about three or four hours in. But based on my experiences with Oblivion I’m going to assume that eventually you being to recognize that all of the caves are pretty similar, all of the ruins are pretty similar, if you’ve seen one ruined fort, you’ve seen them all. And with that recognition the sense of wonder fades away. You no longer anticipate novel experiences.
To take this back to the initial subject of scientific inquiry destroying the sense of wonder, I think that only happens if you don’t understand the science very well. Take rainbows for example, they appear mysterious and otherworldly, then someone tells you that it’s just sunlight reflecting off of water particles in the air, then it appears to be wholly explained. There’s nothing more to know about it, and therefore nothing new to anticipate. The wonder is gone. However if you know enough about the science then, I assume, because I don’t know this much about the science, but if you know about it, then I’m thinking that you probably know how many more things we don’t know about. To a layman it appears that all of the questions are answered, but to an expert there are a wealth of deeper questions hiding behind the surface level explanation.
I know a little bit about machine learning, and I find those subjects endlessly wondrous. Genetic algorithms? Holy cow, those are some of the most fantastic things on the face of the earth. That Google deep dream stuff? Those images were some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. They were recognizable, but at the same time felt deeply alien. It felt like there were all sorts of potential images that could be output.
Anyway, I’m thinking that in order to sustain a feeling of wonder, a game needs to continually surprise the player, keep them guessing, ensure that they are never able to feel that they can predict what is coming. Because as long as they don’t feel like they can predict what’s coming, then they are going to be able to find some interest in the game.