Playing with Reality

Author Kelly Clancy
Narrator Patty Nieman
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 18 June 2024
Run Time 11 hours and 40 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Artificial intelligence, Computing and Information Technology, Game theory, History of ideas, Neurosciences, Philosophy of science, Popular science, Role-playing, war games and fantasy sports, Science: general issues, Society and Social Sciences.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A sweeping intellectual history of games and their importance to human progress.

We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They're also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality?

WIN OR LOSE explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation-yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy.

Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, WIN OR LOSE makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature.

©2024 Kelly Clancy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

With the blazing mind of a scientist and the keen eye of a poet, Clancy emerges as one of the most important new writers of her generation

David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford, NYT bestselling author INCOGNITO and LIVEWIRED

A book to get the neurons firing. As a passionate game player I loved reading a neuroscientistu2019s perspective on the role games have played in humanityu2019s attempts to navigate the game of life. A dopamine hit on every page

Marcus du Sautoy

PLAYING WITH REALITY is the critical history of games I've been waiting for. Fast-paced and enjoyable, you'll never look at a pair of dice u2014 or your smartphone u2014 the same again

Malcolm Harris

A gripping narrative that reveals why games matter and just how powerful they can be. It should be required reading for anyone who develops games and everyone who plays them

Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, Inc.

Playing With Reality is as surprising, and as delightful, as the many games it analyzes. From ancient games of chance to the latest advances in AI, Kelly Clancy has written the definitive account of how weu2014as individuals and as a societyu2014learn through play

Steven Johnson, author of EVERYTHING BAD IS GOOD FOR YOU and WONDERLAND

A wide-ranging examination of how games have shaped the world... Clancy weaves a cautionary tale about what happens when human fascination with games translates into a belief in the power of simplified world models that are often untethered from reality... a rewarding read that raises important questions about who defines the rules of the game-inspired systems that dominate modern life - and whether we should automatically accept those rules

New Scientist

Life is full of games but if we don't know we're playing, there's every chance games are playing us. Whether they are the games hidden in politics, war, business u2013 or in everyday work and play u2013 Clancy will have you asking who set the rules u2014 and who stands to benefit. Playing with Reality is as addictive and engrossing as the games Clancy lucidly describes

Ananyo Bhattacharya, author of THE MAN FROM THE FUTURE: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann

Clancy weaves a clear-eyed account of games from ancient historyu2014they predate written language, she tells usu2014to the modern world of computers and the Internetu2026 Clancy carefully puts these historical moments and developments in context. This approach is particularly pleasurable when it takes the form of deep dives into specific gamesu2026 contextualizes and clarifies the upshot of losing perspective

Scientific American

A history of how games and game theory have changed the worldu2026 by turns philosophical and polemical, this is a provocative and fascinating book

Economist

A sweeping investigationu2026 The history fascinates, and Clancyu2019s sophisticated analysis highlights the dangers of overgeneralizing from games to reality... Readers wonu2019t want to put this down

Publisher's Weekly

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