ABSTRACT
The idea of aligning effective abilities with affordances via avatars in conversations with worlds is essential to success in life, not in terms of money, but in terms of living a satisfying worthwhile human life. There is a theory in genetics today with the provocative name "experience producing drive theory". This chapter argues that discourse analysis can be a unified theory of conversations with other people and other sorts of worlds, conversations based on proactively aligning one's effective abilities with affordances for accomplishing goals. In that sense, discourse analysis is a theory of human life and development in the social, cultural, physical, biological, and institutional worlds with which we carry on conversations. Well-designed games are good at working within players' zones of proximal development. This is what the mother was doing for her child and what we do for each other in our best conversations, discussions, and dialogues.
