Most writers will use these rhetorical devices as salt and pepper, but Carse seemingly builds the foundation of the book on them. I tired of them quickly and they ultimately undermined the message he was trying to convey.
Parent, when you mentioned the possibility of it being nonsense, I would guess it's due to antimetabole. It has a sneaky way of feeling profound yet empty at the same time.
But his book is more about play, novelty, authenticity, open-endedness, paradox and "life in general".
It emphases always keeping in mind the nesting of competition and cooperation and that one should always leave open the possibility to tweak the rules to keep the game in play (reminds me of fallibilsm).
I think he was influenced by Nicolas of Cusa's On Learned Ignorance hence the title oh another Carse book, The Religious Case Against Belief:
> "Therefore, every inquiry proceeds by means of a comparative relation, whether an easy or a difficult one. Hence, the infinite, qua infinite, is unknown; for it escapes all comparative relation." — Nicholas of Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance)
Also Carse's book has footnotes but no bibliography!
I actually read it through the lens of AGI but that was not his intention. Because of that it pairs well with Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman's Myth of the Objective.