Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Fractal Edges of the Formal System: A Case for Art


Earlier, I defined the pseudo-physical space of a game as 'the entire body of theorems that can be generated via button inputs in the formal system of the code'; but that needs elaborated on substantially so I'd like to spend some time talking about formal systems and theorems in and of gaming. The console is a computer that reads a program then outputs to the television, and each cartridge's motherboard is a formal system that generates theorems. However, "theorem" in video games can be defined in a few ways depending on one's perspective. Video games are organized upward from raw code in a meta-symbolic fashion, ultimately meaning, as I pointed out, that what we call the game exists nowhere except your mind. The programming doesn't know what the actors and situations in the game 'are' or what they 'are doing'. It just knows what to do, and that is the crux of it. Theorems of gaming exhibit a Russian-doll-like nature, and it's best to move from the outside in.


It must first be established that there is a functional difference between what sorts of states the programming can generate in the electrical circuit of the motherboard, and what sorts of states the motherboard is capable of being in with at all, given its physical characteristics and the way the computer interacts with it. I call the set of these the electrical-sate theorems - the set of all possible states of the motherboard given its physical composition and construction. This defines the glitch space to its very edges and includes anything that can be created using voltage through the cartridge in a nonstandard device, with or without visual output. As I'm sure you realize, referring to the flow of electricity through devices like this as distinct 'states' and 'theorems' is more metaphor and rhetoric than it is true information about hardware function and electrical engineering. Being made entirely out of electricity, these theorems are whizzing around at an alarming speed, and are subject to all that quantum mechanical fun-stuff that would be better explained by an actual physicist. All that is required right now is that we establish a solid language that we can populate with vocabulary useful in our attempts to describe the -meta, and these particular metaphors serve here to illustrate the notion that the programming is written on top of a more basic and essentially more capable physical medium. Consequently, our foundational language benefits when we relegate theorems to their appropriate level of origin. The flow of electricity through the cartridge serves to activate the programming, which follows its own rules. Without this component, the entire system exists in the mu state; neither on nor  off. 


As the game's programming follows its written procedures, it generates states which are much more concrete, so to speak. Programming can be thought of as a huge math problem that's always shifting around, with each frame (itself made up of many thousands of clock cycles), providing a distinct 'equivalency', and we can call these 'programming theorems'. Be careful to differentiate this from the logic, and derivative rules of the programming, as are not themselves theorems, merely the channels which enable the creation of theorems; as the ditch which contains water is not itself the river. And the visual frame is only representative of the actual theorem. A programming theorem in some sense also contains all the information of the mechanics, which are functional in the logic but meaningful only to us; (similar to the way the number 9 contains information about the number 3.) And although input is the means by which players interact with programming theorems, these inputs go on the supply-side of the equivalency along with game mechanics, collision detection, RNG, and other forms of procedural-type logic.


Player input has, of course, been given special priorities and powers as a variable; the only thing out of the multitude of factors going into each theorem that the player has real control over. Gameplay behavior may be able to influence further programming elements, and thus exert more overall control on the creation of theorems, but this exertion comes from a meta place and isn't actually present in the code. That is to say, the game never truly has any idea that you are tricking it. All it knows is rules and how to call for variables to plug in, hell, it doesn't even really know that you have control over any of them; the game does not know that it is being played by anyone at all.

Snip away all those sets of these programming theorems which don't necessitate or imply button input and you wind up with the game's pseudo-physical space; the entire body of theorems that can be generated via button input in the formal system of the code. However "in" the system is not entirely accurate. Indeed, for most operations of normal play, even very tricky ones, the player remains in lockstep with the generation of natural programming theorems. However, it is more correct overall to say that that pesudo-physical space also describes theorems created using the code; ie the glitch space. Not only defined by human ability, some forms of TAS and AI also operate in this domain. In fact, the goal of TAS could be chiefly summarized as explorations to map the farthest boundaries of a game's physical space, and some AIs may be pushing slightly farther still.


The rules for generating theorems are designed to be a multiple-solution puzzle. Beginning with some basic theorems the game has ready, players use their control over the button input variables to cause the generation of new theorems. None of these theorems have intrinsic worth, but some might be said to be not-valuable if they cause the elimination of player input as a variable altogether - a game over or something similar. Otherwise, it is we the humans who have given a particular meta-framework to these proceedings. We have have so designed each particular formal system to add up to programming theorems which imply narrative and mechanical structure to our intelligence. This is where the game both stops and starts existing, where it drastically changes form in the blink of a moment, as ice sublimating. This is the place where your imagination takes over. 

When exploring and using glitches, you are stepping into or through the electrical-state theorems. That is, you are using your powerfully weighted input variable control to create equations that force the programming to call for some type of impossible "number", breaking its own rules by breaking the very structure of them. These electrical-state theorems are a possible configuration of the electricity running through the motherboard, which is necessarily accessible through the programming theorems but not within the set of them. Crashing Super Mario World with a cloud glitch provides an excellent demonstration of this. Remember that this 'exit' from the programming is achieved ONLY through button inputs. It's another theorem created, and it's as close as you can probably get to witnessing firsthand the imagination of a computer.

The difference between a glitch and an oversight is that glitches generate electrical-state theorems out of disparate elements of the code, and oversights merely skip between disparate programming theorems without leaving the scope of them. My own infinite shell trick exploits not a glitch but an oversight. Oversights are loopholes and glitches are wormholes. We step out of the realm of what is supposed to happen into the realm of what can happen in order to achieve this or that. Sometimes it just happens.


But about this notion of programming theorems having no intrinsic worth; well, they don't unless we turn on our meta-framework. What this means is that we accept the game as a real space, and shift our focus to the in-game details. You know, play the game. When we do this we're suspending our knowledge of the game being drawn as a single evolving state, and discussing in detail the subroutines that put stresses on button inputs. As humans, we are woefully slow. Even a very quick tap to a button can seem like eternity to a computer. From the console's point of view, the game we're playing is happening painfully slowly. Thus we realize that programming theorems are moving by much to fast for us to exist inside just one. Sometimes this is possible when the game freezes or has limited elements, but generally we are moving through strings of theorems at sixty or more per second. What makes sense then, is to isolate bits of programming which have special relevance to our 'real' game and create one more smaller class of theorems for them - game theorems. Score and level number are the two most obvious examples, but there are many others. You can turn whatever you want into a game theorem by adjusting your perspective of the meta-game. That is to say sure, you could play the game as intended, but your rules are just as relevant and real and generative as theirs because all systems of meta-games are merely superimposed over the player input / theorem generation loop. The picture now becomes complete; the game of button input is to direct the programming theorems into producing a desired game theorem.


In short, and I must make this incredibly clear, in a loud, bold declaration - game theorems are things which players CREATE! This is so essential. Playing video games is a generative art which does result in real things. Admittedly fluid and vapor-like things (as music can be shown to be real air molecules vibrating, etc), but they are real nonetheless. You have caused the electrical-state theorems to be arranged in a distinct and specific way - you are sculpting with electricity Accessing these theorems requires thousands of individual button inputs executed with proper enough timing, as a large model building can be built from individual toothpicks; as a rock carved with thousands of well-articulated chisel strikes. Each strike is important, and adds up to a greater whole which no longer contains them. The demands imposed on button pressing skill force the creation of a sufficiently complex, cohesive, and adaptable system of techniques. This is why I say video gameplay is art.  You are taking a medium and arranging it using skill to produce a tangible result. It's just that in this case, electricity is the medium. So fragile and thin, you have it for a moment...as long as you'd like before the power goes out, electrons held in suspension, placed there by your will and your energy alone.

It's a neat feeling.

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