The late Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist and a lucid
science communicator, popularized the idea that if the tape of biological
evolution were rewound and replayed, we might end up with very different
organisms compared to those that we have today. Simon Conway Morris, also a
paleontologist, who made a detail study of the Burgess Shale that was made
famous by Gould’s book Wonderful Life,
thinks that the differences may not be so significant. Conway Morris expounds on
convergent evolution in his book Life’s
Solution. He thinks that rewinding the tape would lead to many convergent
structures that we might observe today, although not necessarily identical.
But what if you could rewind the tape? Go back in time and
start over? Might things have turned out differently if different “choices”
were made? This is excellent fodder for the world of games and simulations.
Wargames started to flourish in the 1950s thanks to Charles S. Roberts, his
landmark game Tactics, and the formation
of the Avalon Hill game company. As a teenager I saved up cash to buy Avalon
Hill games. They were expensive from my point of view as a kid so they became
prized possessions. I still have my first three games: Diplomacy, Civilization,
and Kingmaker. Now they are all classics. Wargaming was a niche hobby for many
years, but has a broader audience now with the release of Axis & Allies.
Wargames and simulations are of particular interest to those
interested in history and the military. Some simulations featured near future
scenarios where one might look ahead to see how nuclear war might be triggered.
Many of the most famous and best-loved wargames however deal with the past.
While the past in itself is interesting, the game allows players to explore “what
if” scenarios. To take an example of the famous battle of Waterloo, what if the
Prussians under Blucher showed up earlier or later? How important was it to
take and hold Hougomont (central farmhouse)? What might have changed if
Wellington and Napoleon had employed different tactics at different times?
The exploration of such scenarios through multiple plays of
a game might expose the players to more optimal strategies, perhaps better than
those employed by the famous generals in their one-shot at historical victory.
This is where things get interesting. Once you know the rules and therefore
constraints of the game, and you’ve had the opportunity to see where different
choices may lead, you can “go back in time” and make different choices to
achieve a different end. In the case of a boardgame, perhaps winning rather
than losing, or gaining more “victory” points for a better final score.
Could there be a game or simulation that traces how life may
have started and evolved? It turns out I am a consultant chemist and a playtester
of such a game. Because the game has not yet been released, and is still being
tweaked, I won’t reveal many details in this post. Suffice to say that the
designer is quite experienced in coming up with interesting and complex games
that have a niche audience, particularly those with a scientific bent. I’m a
fan of his games, even though I don’t play them very often. The rules are
complex, and the games have a steep learning curve. Some have even “accused”
them of being more like simulations where the game plays you rather than the
other way around. The games, however, are thematically rich and very immersive.
In brief, players start out trying to generate autocatalytic
sets of molecules that could evolve into bacteria-like creatures. These in turn
acquire mutations and evolve abilities to survive and adapt in a potentially
harsh environment. If they are able to thrive, they evolve into simple
eukaryotic multicellular creatures. The more complex evolved organisms you have
at the end of the game yield more victory points. The game spans the Hadean,
Archean and Proterozoic eras leading up to what happens before the Cambrian (of
Burgess Shale fame). Life is tough. Starting life is tough. Maintaining it is
no walk-in-the-park either. Random bad stuff happens and the changing
environment means that if you don’t adapt, you don’t survive and you certainly
won’t thrive.
I’ve only had three runs at the game so I’m still in the
rules-learning stage. The first aborted early thanks to a runaway greenhouse
but the other two lasted the full length. Once I no longer make rule errors, I
should be able to explore the full capacity of what the game has to offer.
Hopefully I will be more useful as a consultant chemist from the game-player’s
perspective. Before that point I mainly answered questions about origin-of-life
chemistry and the feasibility of certain scenarios or types of chemistry. I
also made wording suggestions for conceptual scientific elements of the game. I
did little in the way of helping to formulate the rules of the game. The
designer is very experienced and has gone through this process multiple times.
As someone who enjoys games, it is interesting for me to peek behind the
curtain and see what the design process is like. I’ve enjoyed being a
fly-on-the-wall, and making occasional (hopefully constructive) comments.
What was particularly interesting that motivated today’s
post was the juxtaposing my experience playtesting the game last week and also
watching the season finale of the time-travel TV series Continuum – the show is discussed in my most recent blog post.
Certain individuals and factions who control time-travel devices go back in
time so they can alter the future, sometimes to benefit themselves, but
sometimes to benefit humanity more broadly. This seems like replaying the tape,
but in addition being an active participant to try and ensure a “better”
outcome, whatever that means. Life has a steep learning curve, and being at the
edge of an error catastrophe, suggests that large-scale changes in the
environment could well wipe out many forms of life. We humans have co-opted our
environment in a way and with a speed that no other organism has done before.
One might even think it amazing that we even reached this point without a guiding
hand, be it the all-powerful Deity, the “blind” hand of evolution,
time-travel/time-transcendence, or some combination of all the above.
As I’m playing the complex boardgame and learning the rules,
I’m getting better at the game. I’m learning how to get more out of
autocatalytic cycles, or at least better at hedging my bets, now that I know
the rules and I’ve tried different strategies. (The random hand of chance via a
dice-roll can still do you in.) I’m getting better at timing the evolution into
a simple organism and how to protect it against the vagaries of a changing
environment. Each game turn begins with an environmental event of significance.
Organisms that are not properly adapted do poorly. If they don’t die, they
merely subsist and eke out their living. While I cannot predict the order of
events from the card deck, nor that all of them will show up consistently, I
now have a bit more experience of the type and magnitude of things that show
up. Thus I have improved my odds of creating, surviving and thriving at the
game of life. But this is thanks to the experience of having some foreknowledge
of what might happen, and my making different choices for my organisms!
Life is tough. Creating, Sustaining, Thriving. None of these
are easy for early life. In this sense, the game does a pretty good job of
simulating what we know from the science. This brings me to a question I posed
in my previous post. Is the fact that we are here suggest that there is a telos or direction guiding the process –
one that knows the future and the past? The game gets more fun when you’ve
figured out what you can do to succeed given the rule constraints. This does,
however, require multiple plays. The first time I played a game by this
designer, I almost threw in the towel. The rules were complex and I made very
little progress (i.e. scores were very low). But the game was immersive and
tickled my imagination in a way that was similar to the wargames and
simulations of old. I persevered, and started to enjoy the process, and got
much better at it.
I’m looking forward to getting in more plays of this
origin-of-life game. Because it intersects with my area of interest, it might
even give me some alternative ways to think about the problem. Could a game
spark a research pathway? Maybe. But even if it doesn’t, there’s a certain
satisfaction in playing a game where you create life and make choices to help
it thrive. There’s a reason why the computer games Civilization and SimCity
(both probably now considered classics) gained a huge following. They are
sometimes called “God-view” games. Perhaps there’s a deity-like yearning in humanity.
When, where, why and how does it begin? Is there a Who? Meanwhile, replaying
the tape is fun!
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