Nice discussion guys. I need to try some variation of stats-only when I get the chance.
I have been working on a few boardgame designs on the side for a while now, and one of the many books I have read is Jesse Schell's
The Art of Game Design. In chapter two The Designer Creates an Experience, Jesse relates his thoughts (and wisdom in my opinion) as follows:
All this talk of experience brings out an idea that is very strange indeed. The only reality that we can know is the reality of the experience. And we know that what we experience is "not really reality". We filter reality through our senses, and through our minds, and the consciousness we actually experience is a kind of illusion - NOT really reality at all. But this illusion is all that can ever be real for us, because it IS us.- p. 21
As a boy growing up, I recall being puzzled by the fact that others weren't as awe-struck as myself regarding my latest interest(s). I think we all eventually work our way towards a personal understanding of this phenomenon, but I felt this captured it in a way that kind of wakes you up. Each of us has a record of our life experience in our head. We filter every thing we experience through it and it is completely unique to ourselves.
Kind of makes you wonder that we find as much common ground as we do in life.