vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) (03/18/88)
[ Do the sci.lang people really want us to go away? We're having so much fun here. . .] In article <152@yendor.UUCP> gmg@yendor.UUCP (Gary Godfrey) writes: >In the past, I've asked several good chess players about how their >thoughts "work" when playing the game. Initially they (the three of >them) all said something to the effect of "the move becomes obvious." >Then, after I pressed them for a while, I manage to get that they will >have thoughts like, "what about *this*" where "*this*" can be n number >of moves in the future. I'm a serious Go player, and at least at my level (mid- to low-level ranked ametuer, 5 kyu) my thinking is explicitly visual. I literally maintain a picture of a small part of the board (with great detail, or a more fuzzy picturre of the whole board) in my mind, and literally put little black and white stones down, and "see" the board in the new configuration. Now when I say "I" do this, it's really just below the level of consciousness. Consciously, I think "well, if I make that decision <stone flops down> then what happens <whole bunch of stones flop down>. No, that's not what I want, let's try it *that* way <bactrack; start over with an initial stone flop>" Literally. I'm seeing all this. There was a stage when I was just getting decent, when I went to bed at night and literally had hypno-gogic (sp? pre-dream state) visions of stones dancing around in semi-real patterns (there are certain shapes in the game that are recurrent). That stopped, eventuallly. I feel that what happened was that I was going through a process of learning to control this new form of representation, of rules, not the literal rules of the game, but the figurative rules of how the stones "behave. O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Professional Cybernetician | Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, New York, but my opinions | vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .
crown@dukempd.UUCP (Rick Crownover) (03/18/88)
In article <960@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes: > There was a stage when I was just getting decent, when I went to bed at > night and literally had hypno-gogic (sp? pre-dream state) visions of > stones dancing around in semi-real patterns (there are certain shapes in > the game that are recurrent). That stopped, eventuallly. I feel that > what happened was that I was going through a process of learning to > control this new form of representation, of rules, not the literal rules > of the game, but the figurative rules of how the stones "behave. > Your description of a 'dreaming stage' is interesting. I am also a Go player at about the same level; and I too experienced a period of go stones rearranging as I fell asleep. This period coincided/preceeded a notable jump in my game strength and also coincided with a definite enhancement of my ability to replay games from memory. As a physicist I have encountered similar experiences of material "gelling." after struggling with a new topic. Seems to me like an induced 'aha' to use pop psych terminology. Solvinga scientific riddle sometimes feels similar depending on how the solution was obtained (eg, by brute force grunt work or inspired insight). It is sad that these states don't last longer. The go 'visions' only lasted a few weeks; maybe it will happen again when some new aspect of the game is incorporated? :-) Aloha, Rick -- Rick Crownover 1-919-684-8279 Duke University Dept. of Physics crown@dukempd.uucp Durham, N.C. 27706 mcnc!duke!dukempd!crown
ns@CAT.CMU.EDU (Nicholas Spies) (03/19/88)
With respect to thinking while playing go: does anyone reading this play blindfold go? I have played blindfold chess (and won!) and know some people who can replay a go game from memory, but have not heard of blindfold go playing per se. While playing chess, I visualized the board but don't feel that this is the way to "really" do it. A guy I played who could play 2 blindfold chess games said he remembered the game not as a picture but as a set of operations, which one would imagine to be much more efficient. Does go require too much bandwidth to play a decent game of go? -- Nicholas Spies ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa Center for Design of Educational Computing Carnegie Mellon University
crown@dukempd.UUCP (Rick Crownover) (03/19/88)
> go require too much bandwidth to play a decent game of go?
I doubt that visualizing a game of go is beyond the masters. Players
I have talked with (only up to 3dan) describe a 'picture' approach. I'm sure
there must have been some great players without vision during history. Maybe
a history question in rec.games.go could turn something up? Rick
--
Rick Crownover 1-919-684-8279
Duke University Dept. of Physics crown@dukempd.uucp
Durham, N.C. 27706 mcnc!duke!dukempd!crown