From Fiction to Reality and Back: Ontology of Ludic Simulations

The relation between games and simulations can be profitably investigated by combining ontological tools and recent neurological findings. Neurology shows that simulations are connected to fiction or to reality by a suspension of disbelief or alternatively a suspension of belief, and ontological categories of Mimesis (simulation of an event or an object) and Catharsis (simulation of the experience of an event or object) lead to a classification of ludic simulations, which allow to discover some of their hidden properties. This paper raises some new issues for the field, like Embodied Simulation, Simulations of Depth and of Surface, the Ontological and the Epistemological Barrier, the Simulation Story, and the K-Rule. Finally, some wittgensteinian tools (semantic, syntactic, infra-semantic, and super-syntactic) are used in order to suggest how to transform a simulation into a ludic simulation. From Fiction to Reality and Back: Ontology of Ludic Simulations