What is play?

Stub • 1,158 Words • Philosophy • 08/24/2025

⚠️ This post contains a rougher cut of my thoughts on the topic and may be updated in the future. Please forgive any mistakes or lack of polish!

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• Teasing, Play, and Flirtation

I don’t plan to create a new definition of play because many have already tried that, and I still feel like I don’t have a total grasp of all necessary concepts. But I do think that play is very important, and I want to know how I can isolate it and introduce more of it into my life as a daily practice.

I have two front runners for what is at the center of play which I will explore in this article, but I have not really picked a side.

What are the potential attributes of play?

• is play fundamentally unserious?
  • “Engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”
    • https://www.encourageplay.com/blog/16-different-types-of-play
    • This means that watching a movie is playing. (Unless you build out the concept of engage to be active)
• does it have to result in fun?
  • fun isn’t or shouldn’t be the only necessary and sufficient condition because you can have fun doing your math homework
  • doing math problems for the sake of themselves would be play
• must it be non-goal directed?
  • what you’re playing might have a goal, but what is your goal with play?
    • games have a clear goal
    • improv and acting have a goal to continue the scene or to express an artistic concept through the medium
  • autotelic versus instrumental (Suits)
• is play active or can be it be passive?
  • imagination is still active even if you aren’t moving your body
  • watching as an active audience member at an improv show versus watching a movie in your house seems like one could be more like play than the other
• is play intentional and voluntary?
  • do we have to understand/know that we are playing?
    • this would mean that children aren’t really playing (which doesn’t seem like an indefensible position, but does seem to greatly diverge from folk concept of play)
• can we play by ourselves?
  • yes of course there are many single player games for instance
• can one person be playing while another isn’t?
  • does everyone have to be having fun?
    • is the bully playing when hurting someone and deriving pleasure from it?
    • it isn’t voluntary from the victim’s perspective so perhaps this is more the disqualification

Humor-Centric Notion of Play

The idea of humor also gets at the non-seriousness and joy of laughter that seems to be very closely related to play.

I believe in the Incongruity Theory of Humor which believes that humor or what makes you laugh at something is when something is contrary to your expectations (in a pleasing way).

• Improv/acting
  • play acting house is a very early form of play for children — this is a socially conditioned / sanctioned form of play
  • it is more an art form, but there is a lot of interpersonal interaction and humor involved, so could lead to play
• Teasing and making jokes
  • Teasing is incongruous because you are saying one thing but you are meaning another (kind of like innuendo)
  • Teasing, Play, and Flirtation
• Art, puns, and poetry
  • Novel usage of language or visual media also plays around with our expectations
  • A lot of rap music is heavily referential and/or punny in its usage of language
    • Rap’s Funniest, Most Quotable New Artists Are Coming From Michigan

Game-Centric Notion of Play

I think we primarily think of play through games in society. What is a game? Bernard Suits said “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”

When we are playing a game, are we always engaging in play?

• No I don’t think so
  • Ex: What if you are playing cards just to pass the time before going to the airport?
• Are sports games? Are sports play?
  • There is overlap, but are they the same?
  • not all sports are games, some are performance
    • some are judged competitions like figure skating so is no different than a county fair pie contest
    • sports rely on an institution of sorts: you can figure skate on your own for fun, but that is very different than choosing to compete
    • some sports may have evolved from primitive to sophisticated play (Suits)
    • sports are about skill, in ways skill is more tangential to play
  • games and sport are competition but also play? can they be both at the same time?
    • does competition crowd out possibility for play?
    • professional football players are playing the game of football, but since they are getting paid so much, i do not think they are really engaged in play, they are at work (and someone can enjoy their work, but that does not make it play)
    • competition doesn’t matter, but the fact that they are engaging in the game for reasons (primarily) outside of the love of the game

Can we play at non-games?

• Flirting as play, but maybe we could phrase flirting as a Suitsian game
• Physical play like play fighting, sex, or exercise?
  • Calisthenics versus weightlifting as play? or just physical activity
  • Dancing / gymnastics

Does play change as we age?

I think that you are never too old to play a game or tag or something but I think that simpler games can appeal more to people who have not been exposed to other games. As you get exposed to more things that you may like more/speak to you more, other games could begin to become more boring to you.

I think that games may need to get more complex as we age because we gain more cognitive faculties that allow us to add additional rules that can add to the fun.

• Liking “heavy” boardgames

Humor also becomes more advanced with age because we know more things and with a better world model comes more expectations that can be played with.

• How Does Our Sense of Humor Change With Age? A Statistical Analysis
• Why Our Sense of Humor Changes as We Become “Grown-Ups”

We need free time to play or to make time/space for play which can easily be de-prioritized in a capitalist hellscape where you’re just trying to survive.

• Play is heavily associated with childhood so sometimes it can be seen as juvenile but this association only really happens because childhood is the time where you have the most time for play and less preconcieved notions about being more free and authentic.

Further Reading

The Elements of Play Toward a Philosophy and a Definition of Play: Not super convincing, but I would still recommend it as a good introductory read because it explores a bit of the landscape of the theory of play.

The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits: A great exploration of what a game is

Tricky Triad by Bernard Suits: A interesting and funny paper trying to detangle play, sport, and games

Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse

Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga

Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr. and Christopher Vaughan