Mazes

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=== Maze vs. Labyrinth ===

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(sidebar still?)

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SIDEBAR

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A great deal of critical ink has already been spilled about the distinction between mazes and labyrinths --- without resolution. In this discussion, "maze" and "labyrinth" are not used to distinguish two different types of structure or image. Many Western languages do not have two words that correspond to these, so it is difficult to see how the distinction is essential to our Western consciousness of the maze. Nevertheless, there is one important distinction to be made: between the unicursal maze (offering a single path along which walkers proceed, never making a choice about where to turn) and the multicursal maze (which invites wrong turns, has dead ends, and may even have multiple paths to the exit or center). A maze’s reason for being, its designer’s intent or purpose, drives the designer’s choice of unicursal or multicursal design. Of course, the experience of using these two types of mazes is also quite distinct.

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The terms "maze" and "labyrinth" are generally synonyms in colloquial English, and indeed, many Western languages only have one word to designate the concept of a path-structure. Despite this common usage, over the past century many scholars and historians have argued for (or against) a careful distinction between these two terms. In this proposed distinction, "labyrinth" refers to only to single-path (unicursal) structures, while "maze" refers only to branching-path (multicursal) structures.

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This discussion does most often employ the term "maze," since that word is popular in computing culture and is also the word repeatedly used to refer to the program's output.

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In this discussion, the terms "maze" and "labyrinth" are not used to distinguish two different categories of structure or image. In our view, such a distinction does not accurately reflect the history of Western consciousness of the maze as a single conceptual category, in particular our recent popular imaginary in which the environments of Theseus and Pac-Man are related structures. For this reason, we favor the use of "maze" as a general term.

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Nevertheless, it is important to clearly distinguish between unicursal and multicursal path-structures, as these often arise in different cultural contexts, have different uses, and produce different experiences while being used. We term these two types the "unicursal maze" (offering a single path along which walkers proceed, never making a choice about where to turn) and the "multicursal maze" (which invites wrong turns, has dead ends, and may even have multiple paths to the exit or center).

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From Maze

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@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 === Maze vs. Labyrinth ===
-(sidebar still?)
+SIDEBAR
-A great deal of critical ink has already been spilled about the distinction between mazes and labyrinths --- without resolution. In this discussion, "maze" and "labyrinth" are not used to distinguish two different types of structure or image. Many Western languages do not have two words that correspond to these, so it is difficult to see how the distinction is essential to our Western consciousness of the maze. Nevertheless, there is one important distinction to be made: between the unicursal maze (offering a single path along which walkers proceed, never making a choice about where to turn) and the multicursal maze (which invites wrong turns, has dead ends, and may even have multiple paths to the exit or center). A maze’s reason for being, its designer’s intent or purpose, drives the designer’s choice of unicursal or multicursal design. Of course, the experience of using these two types of mazes is also quite distinct.
+The terms "maze" and "labyrinth" are generally synonyms in colloquial English, and indeed, many Western languages only have one word to designate the concept of a path-structure. Despite this common usage, over the past century many scholars and historians have argued for (or against) a careful distinction between these two terms. In this proposed distinction, "labyrinth" refers to only to single-path (unicursal) structures, while "maze" refers only to branching-path (multicursal) structures.
-This discussion does most often employ the term "maze," since that word is popular in computing culture and is also the word repeatedly used to refer to the program's output.
+In this discussion, the terms "maze" and "labyrinth" are not used to distinguish two different categories of structure or image. In our view, such a distinction does not accurately reflect the history of Western consciousness of the maze as a single conceptual category, in particular our recent popular imaginary in which the environments of Theseus and Pac-Man are related structures. For this reason, we favor the use of "maze" as a general term.
-_________________________________________
+Nevertheless, it is important to clearly distinguish between unicursal and multicursal path-structures, as these often arise in different cultural contexts, have different uses, and produce  different experiences while being used. We term these two types the "unicursal maze" (offering a single path along which walkers proceed, never making a choice about where to turn) and the "multicursal maze" (which invites wrong turns, has dead ends, and may even have multiple paths to the exit or center).
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