While I call this game "wars", you can play it in groups cooperatively, or solo. Of course, some people make wars on themselves...

 

General rules:

• Find an Object to define.
• Move 1: Маке a definition of the Object.
• Move 2: Call "Too Wide": something that is not your Object, but is defined by your definition (a counter-example). Call "Too Narrow": something that is your Object, but is excluded by your definition.
  
• Move 1': Give a new definition that fixes the problem found in Move 2.
• Repeat Moves 1 and 2 until nobody is able to make a Move 2, or players like their definition well enough, or players get too emo to continue

Here is an exampe piece of a game s-c-r-i-p-t, played cooperatively. Game moves are in bold, unlike the extra chatter.

Katherine: Let's define glass. Glass is usually used to let the sun shine inside, even when it's cold outside, and it won't get cold inside. Maria: Too wide! Plastic. We can also use plastic for windows. Katherine: Definition! Also, to make glass, you need to melt sand. You can also color it. Maria: Too narrow! Lenses from glasses. Hmm, now you need to widen your definitions, and to make them more open. Katherine: But then it will be easy for you to win! Can I now make war with you? I'm tired that you are fighting me. Maria: Definition! Transparent material made of melted sand, and used for light to go through and sometimes to insulate from other temperature. Katherine: Windows in rockets aren't supposed to let in the light. They let in the night. Maria: How poetic. Katherine: That was a joke. They are used to see what's in space. Maria: Everything that we see is made of the light. Katherine: What about black? The quiet light. Maria: Anyway, find something that has our definition, but isn't glass. Or find something that's glass but doesn't fit! How about... Too narrow! Teacup. ...

 

It helps to write down the moves for future reference. Re-reading such a "history of war" after a game brings much laughter. If you play the game at the beginning of some learning journey, such as a mathematics or an education course, the notes will be quite useful later, when you grow in the mastery of the material, and the corresponding sophistication of definitions. If several people play, the note taker should jot down their names, their game moves, and the more amusing of their other comments. However, you can play without keeping records, say, on car trips.

This game, according to the Natural Math ideal of humans as creators, is a great opener to a new topic. Trying to construct your own definition, while somebody (possibly yourself) is poking holes in it at every step - challenging, baffling, scary, exhilarating. Some teaching folks or textbooks open a topic with their own definition and follow with "a series of simple, repeatable exercises" explicating the definition; but that's not much of an adventure, is it?

I can't predict how your definition wars will go, because it depends on what you choose to define, and who is playing. I can offer these observations of what may come of it, as reasons why I love the activity:

• Players will develop some general strategies for building definitions. These strategies are indispensable any time you are creating any scientific work - and also any time you find yourself in the middle of a political, religious, parenting, or any important debate. People who can form powerful and elegant definitions have such an advantage in any conversation, sometimes I think it's unfair. For some advanced lists of strategies and traditions on defining things, try searching for "definitions" in sources on both science and rhetoric; Wikipedia's article on definitions is a good start. The whole of Wikipedia is a recording of a giant, (mostly) cooperative game of Definition Wars.
• Even young children quickly realize that many things in life are hard to define, and attempting to define them will cause group tensions and infinite iterations of the game. You can expect a final, perfect, agreeable definition of something like "rhombus" or "quadratic equation" to emerge in just a few steps of the game. Try an everyday object, like "book" - and you are forever trapped debating whether a novel your auntie hand-wrote and only three people ever read, or a yearly almanac published by a journal, are "books" or "counter-examples." Most math terms are easy to define, and for many people, this is a major appeal of the subject. There is a certain comfort in defining "parabola", compared to defining "love" or "religion". After playing the game for a few rounds, people learn to anticipate how easy or difficult each definition will be. Still, the difficulty level of defining even something mundane, like "door" may surprise definition veterans. Do you expect "multiplication" to be easy or hard to define?
• Definition war is a team-building activity, because it promotes close intellectual and emotional encounters among players. It also allows to plainly see players' mind and character traits: a flair for the bizarre, competitiveness, stressing analysis or synthesis, skills at criticism, attentiveness to emotional states of others, and so on. And, of course, your team will need to develop great conflict resolution skills if they are to survive the definition wars.
• This game is a research and diagnostic tool, because it exploses knowledge and thought processes of participants. 

 

Tags: