OK, but even for that, where is the proof? Or let's not say proof but where is even the slightest indication that "anyone" can do it? That's exactly what I don't believe.



Of course with right training everyone would improve, but my point is that this improvement does have its limits. One cannot simply say "if you are stuck at a level, it must be a plateau but not your limit" without proving it. Well, proving such a thing is anyway hard (if possible at all) but I mean if one says something like that, there must be at least an indication or a reason why he thinks this is applicable to anyone. I don't see it in the article, but as said maybe I missed it.

_________________
If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I think its a mistake to take statements like "there are no limits, only plateaus..." so literally (especially quotes coming from a martial arts master). It feels more proverb-ish than meant to be taken as a scientific fact. I think those sorts of statements speak to a required mindset if you want to improve or really excel. In that context, I think there is value to understanding how the elite become elite. And what is more likely, you're at your absolute limit of what you can achieve, or you've just plateaued?

Is it possible to for you to learn a single new thing, no matter how small, about go?

Will you ever answer that with a "no"?

If you answer "yes" and "no" respectively--as I think most will--then congratulations, you never need stop improving.

However, since progress is (very likely) measured on a roughly exponential scale, and the speed at which you acquire new go knowledge is likely to be linear (a 2d doesn't magically learn twice as fast as a 1d!), at some point your rank is still likely to stall for a veryyyy long time.

There, see? Everybody is right

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

What about the study cited in which a sample of people were shown 10,000 images and remembered a surprisingly large number of them? This seems to imply that at least our capacity for memory is probably quite a bit higher than we often assume even for most people. I don't think that means that anyone can break world records or become the absolute best, but it's an indicator that probably a lot of the time we're hitting plateaus when we think we're hitting limits.

Either way, though, you're definitely not going to improve if you assume you've hit a limit rather than plateau. The article does provide good reasoning that a lack of progress isn't necessarily sufficient evidence that a limit has been hit.

"Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but "effortful study," which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time. It is interesting to note that time spent playing chess, even in tournaments, appears to contribute less than such study to a player's progress; the main training value of such games is to point up weaknesses for future study.

Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance--for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam--most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement. In contrast, experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind's box open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and augment its contents and thereby approach the standard set by leaders in their fields. "

"Thus, motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise."

"Simon coined a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field."

"The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born."
http://www.duke.edu/~meb26/The%20Expert%20Mind.html

Read the full article, I think it's pretty interesting and it also seems relevant to the current discussion.

I think a lot of this discussion appears to be drawing parallels that are only true if Go was a memory game. If the game was to memorise 100 pro games I'd believe anyone could learn to do it very well. I don't think for a minute that the brain is that easy to train to do any complex task there is.

Do I think most people, in the ideal learning condition, could be the next Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein? No, I'm sorry, I really don't believe this to be the case. To be truly excellent you need lots of innate talent, lots of encouragement, lots of support (including financially), lots of time to devote to it, and a personality / psychology that perseveres no matter what the setback.

You can train some things, and money can buy others. But to be truly exceptional you need all of them, and most people just haven't drawn that lucky straw.

Maybe the importance of reading is overemphasized. According to the cited studies memorizing pro games could be an efficient way to improve. Maybe internalizing shapes by memorizing games is as important as (or maybe even more important) than reading.

Nevertheless, this discussion still does not say much about the plateau/limit issue.

_________________
If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Yeah the article doesn't say to much. I get these points:

Point 1: Most people don't push the limits of their skills. In go, think of the countless online players one encounters who have thousands of games under their belts but are still DDK. It's fair to say that most of them have accepted a plateau.

Point 2: Memorizing cards is really easy compared to go This guy, Joshua, trains for what? A few minutes a day for a year? Then he's U.S. champion at memorizing cards? Pfft. This is not about whether anyone can be 5-dan or even 1-dan. We're talking about a very specialized skill that very few people ever bother to try to improve.

Point 3: The top memorizers have ordinary brains and are, in fact, ordinary in most ways except that they dedicate themselves seriously to training these specific memory skills.

One comment I did find interesting:

More than anything, what differentiates top memorizers from the second tier is that they approach memorization like a science. They develop hypotheses about their limitations; they conduct experiments and track data. “It’s like you’re developing a piece of technology or working on a scientific theory,” the three-time world champ Andi Bell once told me. "You have to analyze what you’re doing."

I think as Go players we can learn from that. I think that most go books and teaching focuses on what is going on the board. We don't think much about what's going on in our heads. For the memorizers, their tasks are so simple that there are very few external techniques available for them, so they have to focus on what's internal. In go, we can be distracted by all the external things we can learn; new josekis, new tesujis, new opening ideas, etc. and lose track of the fact that there are still these core skills that have to be conditioned a lot like an athlete in order to improve. Maybe the biggest advantage these mnemonists have is that they do treat it like a sport.

Monadology: if I read the article right, that study concerned ordinary people, without special training or preparation. So it's really just a surprising fact about memory--nothing to do with pushing limits.

Snorri: The article did note that the US record is very slow compared to the rest of the world.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

The point is that a lot of people assume they can't remember nearly as much as they actually can, which probably leads them to project limits that aren't actually there. More broadly it indicates that our folk-psychological approaches to our mental capacities "Oh, I just have a horrible memory", "Oh, I'm just no good at math" probably have a lot less to do with the actual limitations our rather sizable homo-sapiens brains have than they do with what we bother or care about applying them to do. That actually does relate to pushing limits inasmuch as the general idea is that limits are the product of an inherent incapacity to perform certain mental tasks. If those limits are generally set much lower than the brain's actual ability, I think it provides pretty good evidence that most of our assumptions about how far we can take our ability to memorize are inaccurate.

I feel that one thing that has caused me to plateau with my go skill in the past is - to argue about plateaus. Ok, I usually argue about improvement.

I am of the camp that believes that you can improve indefinitely, to any level.

But at the same time, all of the time that I've spent arguing about this is time that was not productive toward achieving any meaningful goal.

_________________
be immersed

Memory athletes develop a skill that may be less complex than go, but that's no reason to compare a professional go player to Einstein or Hawking. Didn't some study show that many go professionals have I.Q's that are lower than average?

Without going into an I.Q discussion, the point about the article that can easily be adopted to go is not about memory per se, but rather about the fact that different approaches to a discipline lead to different results.

While your last paragraph is undoubtedly true, it is worth noting that probably very few amateurs actually study like a professional go player does, and those who do probably don't stay in the kyu ranks for long.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

I clearly picked misleading examples, I apologise. I picked people who happened to have decided on a mental pursuit, but it was not at all supposed to imply IQ, merely the comparitive success and achievement of those who have both the natural affinity for their work (whether in the form of IQ or an intuitive understanding of physics etc) who dedicate their entire lives to almost nothing other than their core subject. I could just as easily have picked Michael Schumacher, Roger Federer, or Michael Phelps.

I accept amateur 5 dan is not the same dizzying heights here - I'm picking the Lee Sedols of the world to make the case, but the point still stands: someone with the natural talent has a higher potential that someone without. To assume that "everyone" can hit an arbitrary height of 5 dan is to assume an awful lot about the natural upper bar people can reach, and without a great deal of justification to support it. Sure, everyone can get better by working harder, and by devoting more time to it, but how much better is not an answerable question.

This forum, I suspect, is populated with a lot of "intelligent" people with expertise in logical or spatial awareness fields (such as computer science or engineering) - I suspect there is automatically a correlation here with a natural affinity for picking up skill at Go, and I suspect the average forum member would have a higher "bar" than a randomly selected Joe Bloggs off the street. There are quite a few people on here that have hit the dan ranks without having to put in a great deal of work, and I suspect there are at least as many who have put in a lot more work so far but haven't reached it and who may never get there regardless of how much time, effort, and study they put in.

Believing that this is fine too is, IMHO, more important than any requirement to get past an OK plateau.

Apparently we are of different opinions in that respect.

Somebody is stuck at a certain level. This can mean two things:
1-he has reached his mental limits
2-he is training the wrong way (if at all )

You optimistically chose the second options.

But my opinon is the following: One can never know which one is true for each individual case. At least not merely based on the fact that some other people with normal mental capability could endlessley improve. Some people can do it all alone, some others can not even with professional training. May be a bit pessimistic, but it's that simple in my opinion.



I don't see this discussion as a waste of time. Thinking about these things gives an insight of ones own mindset.

I can come up with the following mindsets:
1-I am trying to improve at all cost.
2-I am not trying to improve but I know my limits are much higher. Maybe I will improve if I go on playing.
3-I am happy at my level (OK plateau). I just want to play and enjoy.
4-I believe I am at my mental limits but I still want to play and enjoy.
5-I believe I am at my mental limits but would want to improve. Therefore I don't enjoy playing any more because is constantly reminds me of the fact that my limts are lower than many people.

I think it is useful to be conscious about ones own mindset. After all, go is just a game it is not your life. If you struggle for improving at all cost, you may be investing your time in a dead business. Those who say "endless improvement is possible" just push you towards a more ambitious but less enjoyable mindset.

If you still choose to struggle for improving it's of course fine, but with the help of such discussions, you at least make your decision consciously.

I think the time spent for this discussion is not more wasted than the time spent for memorizing one joseki variation.

_________________
If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I am going off-topic here, but why is this the case? It's pretty simple: they're surrounded by and reinforce their ideas with fellow kyus.

I do not hesitate to believe that anyone lacking a mental disability is capable of reaching dan ranks without reasonable practice and a peer group consisting entirely of dan level players.

I know of a couple of people who have been studying (albeit as a hobby) for a couple of years, including taking regular professional lessons and weekly tsumego + games, and are delighted to have finally struck mid-SDK. Whatever their failings to hit dan level can be attributed to, it isn't "weak peer groups".

Of course on can never know where the bar lies nor can one measure one's talent. I do however know that my studying bears little resemblance to that of a professional, and as long as I think "6k is pretty darn good for someone of my innate ability and personal constraints," it's doubtful that I will get much stronger.

As to those who put in alot of work and may never get "there" (wherever that is), are their study habits optimal?

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Nothing optimistic about it.

One cannot know if 1 is true. Unless you are an insei or the equivalent, 2 is most certainly true.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Come on, that's the whole discussion. How can you say 2 is most certainly true without any proof? What I am saying is that you cannot know! With which piece of information are you saying "No, I do know"?

_________________
If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Well, it's no secret how most professionals train. Professionals of any sport spend a mind-numbing amount of time perfecting their basic skills under the watchful eye of a highly competent coach who has devised an individual training regimen for that athlete so that that athlete can compete on a professional level. This often includes mental training to develop the necessary psychological fortitude or attitude. Sometimes it involves foregoing personal relationships. No one in their right mind undergoes this type of training without expecting to earn a living from it. Do you believe that there are amateurs who follow such rigorous discipline who think that they have already reached their mental limits?

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.