What I learned from the game 2048

Log in / Sign Up

List of Forums + New Post Recipe Box Usergroups Following My Posts Bookmarks

Private Messages Advanced Search Rules New User Guide FAQ Advertise Contact Us

Forum -> Interesting Discussions

1 2 Next

View latest: 24h 48h 72h

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Nov 22 2017, 5:05 am

I've been having a hard week. "Emotionally challenging" as they say LOL

! I have been numbing the negative feelings by playing the computer game 2048. Are you familiar with it? There is a board of 16 squares. At each move, the number 2 or 4 appears in a square. If you can swipe two of the same number to next to each other, they add together. The 2s become 4, the 4s become 8, and so on. The aim of the game is to combine the numbers to eventually get the number 2048. If you are not familiar with the game, you could google of you wanted to understand the rest of this post.

My yetzer hara has gotten to me this week, and I have spent hours playing the game. But I realised that I had actually learned a few things about life from the game. I thought that if I wrote then out, it might go part of the way to doing the mitzvah of serving Hashem even through the yetzer hara . So here goes.

1. When you have a problem, it can seem overwhelming. When I first started playing the game, I didn't understand how the pieces moved, I had no strategy. It seemed impossible. I couldn't get past 512.

2. It pays to do research. I searched the internet. I discovered it is very important to keep the largest tile in the bottom right corner.

3. You need to practice to get a feel for what is the right way to do something. After playing the game many times I realized that I had to build up the numbers in a pattern a bit like a snakes and ladders board.

4. If you look at the whole problem it will be too hard to solve. I realized that when I focused on the whole board, I became bamboozled and couldn't solve it. What was necessary was to focus on smaller goals, aim for a 64 in the second bottom left square, for example.

5. When you solve the small problems, the big problems seem to mostly solve themselves.

6. Sometimes you have to break an established pattern. You don't solve it by going exactly in order. Sometimes you have to crisscross the board somewhat.

7. Sometimes you need to ask for help, even when you are becoming an expert. I had made the tile 16,284, and was very close to doubling it, but couldn't quite get there- until my 11yo dc helped me.

8. You can correct mistakes, and do.teshuvah. I am playing a version which allows you to do "undo".

9. Sometimes you have to live with the consequences of your errors. In this version you can only undo 20 moves.

10. With persistence, you can attain great heights that you never thought possible. In the beginning, I couldn't make 512. At the moment I have made 32,768, and am still playing the game. Aiming to double it again.

seeker

Wed, Nov 22 2017, 10:49 am

That's really something!

But I'm still stuck on your score... OMG... I thought I got pretty good at it in my addictive phase and I still never got anywhere near that. I don't even remember if I got to 2048.

ggdm

Wed, Nov 22 2017, 1:17 pm

I got bored after reaching 2048 (yes, I'm easily bored). But using "undo" is cheating! I challenge you to go as high without it Very Happy

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Nov 22 2017, 11:35 pm

So first of all doing undo on a game with an undo function is not cheating Very Happy

!! In fact I would say that playing the game without an undo function is reasonably pointless as you can make one mistake and the whole thing is ruined. Life is not like that. It is essential to be able to get a really high score.

More things I've learned.

11. When it looks like you are finished because it's too hard, retrace your steps, be persistent, and ask for help. You are about to take things to a whole new level. (or you are about to double your highest number and free up lots of squares.)

12. You only have a limited lifespan to achieve your mission on this world. At some point the game will end because you run out of squares to maneuver.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Nov 22 2017, 11:42 pm

I was trying to post a screenshot of the board at the moment (we are still playing),but I cant get it to work.

But it looks like this (x is a blank square)

4. x. x. x.
8. 4. 2. x.
512. 16. 8. x.
1024. 8192. 16384. 32768.

imasoftov

Thu, Nov 23 2017, 1:26 am

There's a story about Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Shtefenesht who once saw his students playing checkers on Chanukah. He asked them to tell him the rules of the game, but none of them answered, so he said he would tell them:

1. one may not make two moves at once
2. one may only move forwards, not backwards
3. when one has reached the last row, one may move in any direction

Not (yet) having reached the last row, I'm not sure what the last one means. But I wonder what it was supposed to mean the the chassidim, maybe "if the rebbe does something you don't understand, you're not ready to do it yourself, so don't"?

I've also seen a five-rule version.

amother

Turquoise

Sun, Nov 26 2017, 1:34 am

Imasoftov you reminded me of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Sicha on what to learn from a game of chess. See here-

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe.....s.htm

For anyone still interested, the board now looks like this

4. x. x. x.
16. 4. 2. x.
256. 17. 8. x.
1024. 4096. 8192. 65536.

Over Shabbat when I had time to stop and think I was able to work that we are just over a quarter of the way through the game if we were to take it to it's completion. It is POSSIBLE to double the highest one more time only, but it requires being fed a 4and not a 2 at the crucial point right before the final doubling. Then you are half way through the game, as you can get to one space only away from doubling it again.

imasoftov

Sun, Nov 26 2017, 3:35 am

And then there's ibn Ezra's poem about chess

cbsp

Sun, Nov 26 2017, 5:54 am

imasoftov wrote:

And then there's ibn Ezra's poem about chess

Wow, thanks so much for this reference!

amother

Turquoise

Mon, Nov 27 2017, 2:18 am

Imasoftov how do you find all this stuff?

The board currently looks like this-

x. x. x. x.
x. 2. 4. 2.
x. 4. 16. 4.
4. 64. 32768. 65536.

I think this means we are about 3 eighths of the way through the game.

And my dh seriously suggested I get a prescription for anti anxiety meds.

Lol.

This game is cheaper and with less side effects.

As usual I let ds 11 get me over the last tricky bit to make the 32768.

Should be plain sailing for a while now.

Which brings me to lesson number:

13.Once you get the hang of something, a task that was at one point very challenging can actually become boring. But-

14. You need to keep pushing on in steady small increments in order to progress in boring tasks.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Nov 29 2017, 9:29 pm

We have been defeated. The board in the end looked like this-

4. 32. 8. 2.
8. 64. 128. 256.
4096. 2048. 1024. 512.
8192. 16384. 32768. 65536.

Hoping that this is not a mashal for my entire existence. Tried really hard. Persevered through challenges. But ultimately - failed.

imasinger

Thu, Nov 30 2017, 3:37 am

Reread your Number 11, OP.

The nimshal I take from a game is that while Hashem is infinite, our challenges are finite. And sometimes, there is a solution that we're not seeing, but it's there.

Last edited by imasinger on Thu, Nov 30 2017, 5:08 am; edited 1 time in total

RebekahsMom

Thu, Nov 30 2017, 4:41 am

imasoftov wrote:

The rules for checkers are you can move diagonally one square at the time. You can only take in opponents checker by jumping over into a free spot, and you are actually allowed to jump more than once, forward only, if you can get more than one tracker. Once you reach the opposite side of the board, you are allowed to then travel one square in any direction, typically known as queening (you would say “queen me”) because in chess the queen is capable of moving in any direction.

amother

Bronze

Thu, Nov 30 2017, 6:00 am

amother wrote:

Wow, with those numbers, you can't consider it a defeat!! Remember the pirkei avos: "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." I think you've done amazing!! Since your original post, I've looked up the game 2048 and the highest I got was 2048 & I was really excited to even get that, so you've definitely won & won big!! A bracha to you - may your life get easier and better and may you accomplish your life's mission!

amother

Turquoise

Thu, Nov 30 2017, 7:58 am

imasinger wrote:

Reread your Number 11, OP.

The nimshal I take from a game is that while Hashem is infinite, our challenges are finite. And sometimes, there is a solution that we're not seeing, but it's there.

There are no.more undos left. We cannot proceed further. We were ONE undo away from getting to the next stage.

Although I think your first sentence is very important.

amother

Turquoise

Thu, Nov 30 2017, 8:01 am

amother wrote:

Thank you bronze for the bracha.

Maybe one last lesson is - you actually don't know your mission. Maybe you have in fact achieved it.

imasoftov

Sat, Dec 02 2017, 8:56 am

RebekahsMom wrote:

What I did not understand in the story was not about playing the game, but what message the Shtefeneshter was trying to convey to his chassidim with this rule.

amother

Turquoise

Mon, Mar 12 2018, 2:28 am

This is op. Hello!!!

Well anyway life was getting scary and overwhelming again.... So I started playing from scratch. And we've cracked a whole new level. We are officially just over halfway through the game (it is impossible to double the 131072).

It was exciting to get to

16. 8. 4. 4.
32. 64. 128. 256.
4096. 2048. 1024. 521.
8292. 16384. 32768. 65536.

And now the board looks like this

X. X. X. X.
X. X. X. 2.
X. 2. 16. 8.
X. 8. 2048. 131072.

Too embarrassed to tell anyone IRL

amother

Turquoise

Mon, Mar 19 2018, 3:51 am

Latest thing I have learned is that I have a seriously addictive personality. Actually I think I already knew this.

Here is the current state of play after DC11 got us over the latest hurdle (16384)

2. X. X. X.
4. 2. X. X.
32. 8. 4. X.
16384. 32768. 65536. 131072.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Mar 21 2018, 4:16 am

I KNOW that no one is the slightest bit interested, but we are nearly finished. I'm recording this for my own benefit.

Currently the board looks like this
X. X. X. X.
8. 8. 16. 4.
8192. 4096. 2048. 4.
16384. 32764. 65536. 131072.

We cannot make another 2048 as there is not quite enough room on the board (we will be one slide away from it). I'll let you know when that happens.

Page 1 of 2

1 2 Next