I recall reading that the peak meat-gathering age for a hunter in hunter-gatherer societies is about 42, as that's the age at which increasing experience finally starts to lose out to deteriorating physique. That should give me at least loads of time. How relevant any of this is to tsumego I don't know, but it seems clear you don't have to commit suicide at 26 and assume life after that is worthless. Which is good, since I have only months left!

The way this connects is, hopefully, to shed some doubts that hard work (Tsumego in this case) will be ineffective because one approaches thirty and, alas, will soon have a brain as hard as concrete.

Monadology, I'm not sure that's a just treatment of Kant's development. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-development/#8; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/

It's fair to say that if Kant had ceased publishing in 1770, we would probably not remember him. But he was a major German philosopher of the time already, and was grappling with the problem that he aimed to answer in the first Critique. He also had begun to develop ideas that were major sources of the Critique's lasting importance: i.e. the conception of sensibility and the understanding.

And of course while many of Kant's major insights were developed after 1770, his expertise was already great. That's a distinction that maps poorly to Go, but it would almost be as if an ordinary professional made the leap to being a titleholder.

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Occupy Babel!

I won't deny that a lot of the foundation was probably percolating prior to his encounter with Hume. It would certainly be absurd to suggest that Kant had no real engagement with philosophy despite what the use of the famous phrase "dogmatic slumber" might suggest. That's why even in my initial post I remarked at what age Kant had begun his study.

What I am pointing out is that the introduction of new ideas occurred at a late age with a rather explosive effect regarding the production of new ideas. This is directly contrary to what was implied broadly about the plasticity of the human mind by the example Hare gave. I'm pretty sure recent research into neurogenesis also puts doubt into the notion that learning is significantly hampered during middle age, but I don't have any citations on that.

EDIT: Go is different enough from philosophy that aging may indeed be a good deal more detrimental, but it seems far more likely to me that a number of other factors such as already formed lifestyle habits, work, family, and simple lack of proclivity are more limiting in the development of an amateur than age inasmuch as they limit the dedication that can be bestowed upon the game.

On the contrary, the very young do not have the majority of these concerns and have the capacity to pick up the game much more quickly than an adult. It's more a surplus of plasticity, time and energy in the young than any kind of deficiency of learning ability in the old that I would suspect.

I think it's worth pointing out that philosophy is not competitive in the same way Go is and so "greatness" is measured in very different ways.

Also, Go is a confined system where life experience (and even language) isn't really necessary. Go is more like math and music. Philosophy is more like writing literature.

I think basic observation clearly enough suggests that some pursuits favor mature minds and others are soaked up better by developing brains.

All of which I indicated a few times throughout this thread. Though I would disagree that philosophy is generally closer to literature than to math or music. And music? Isn't it close to literature in many ways? What about atonal music? I don't think the coordinates of the map you're suggesting are nearly as clear as they seem.



I don't think basic observation is sufficient to make those sorts of generalizations, though it may provide evidence in one direction or the other. Basic observation can be notoriously misleading.

However, as I indicated I do think it is likely that development in Go is helped more by the youthful capacity to learn very quickly than something like Philosophy. I just wanted to caution against the corollary that seemed to be drawn that development in Go somehow becomes difficult to impossible after youth because:



Which I feel is simply not true, and holds no more sway if 25 becomes 35, 45 or even 55.

1) I only meant in the sense that there are child prodigies for one group and not the other. And the fact that they are more confined systems with internal rules, whereas philosophy, well.... depends on who your talking about.

2) basic observation could also read life experience.

And I'm not proposing coordinates for a map or any 2-dimensional visual. that's how you get into comparing and quantifying things you have no business comparing and quantifying.

All of this to just express my uneasiness with the logic -> People get better at discipline A when they're older so they must be able to get better at discipline B too.

We can cluster and then generalize (like i did) but it's really not much better.

For what it's worth I think young people's confidence goes a long way whereas with older people self doubt seems to accompany any new endeavor. Is it more of a factor than developmental issues in the brain? who cares. all we can control is how we think about it and the extent to which we can change our ability from our mindset. (if you can't tell i'm more of a Wittgenstein/Rorty sympathist when it comes to philosophy)

And that too can be very misleading.



But you were comparing things (though not quantifying)! Namely: Go, math, music, philosophy and literature. This is a very confusing point to make. Maybe you could clarify what it was you were actually trying to do.



It's definitely not a solid line of argument, I agree. However, the counterexample does refute pretty strongly the notion that the mind is simply not open to new ideas or new ways of thinking during or past middle age.

That doesn't mean that "the mind is open to new ideas and learning independently of age" should be taken as a new generalization, but I think that the counterexample should lead to skepticism about claims that the mind ISN'T open to new ideas/learning unless convincing reason is given otherwise OR unless convincing reasons are given for why the counterexample is merely an exception.

I think a singular exception is less likely in this context. I do not think philosophy is sufficiently removed enough that there can be an accounting for its status as a counterexample, even though it does differ in many ways from Go, physics or math. Further, the only evidence that has been given that old minds are NOT open to new ideas/learning is largely anecdotal. On the other hand the evidence given that young minds are very quick to develop and learn is much sturdier. Hence why I haven't rejected that it is almost always beneficial to start young, even though I do reject that it is particularly detrimental to start old.



I gathered that from your comparison of philosophy to literature. Wasn't it Wittgenstein who remarked that a philosopher is a kind of poet?

Philosophy would be a lot more relevant to this discussion had there been philosophy competitions where one had to come up with a hundred brilliant ideas in an hour.

You've clearly never participated in a verbal debate.

Plus, the time constraint is artificial. Go is no more or less Go if the game takes place over five days or thirty minutes.

Finally, no one is arguing that anyone can pick up Go at any age and get to the level necessary to compete against the promising young professionals in the Korean Go scene in an hour-long game. That's simply straw-manning.

But really, we could pick hundreds of differences between anything and anything else. It's trivial to point out that things are different.

Unless you can suggest a good reason as to why this particular difference means that old minds can't become strong at Go through hard work (and by "strong at Go" I do not mean "can compete at the highest professional level"), and I can't immediately see one, I'm not sure this difference makes a difference.

So you admit that young people can get stronger at Go than old people? Or can you suggest some other explanation?


So what do you mean by strong at Go? Obviously older people can get strong at Go for some definition of strong. The whole point was that they can't get as strong as young people - which you seem to agree with. Note that there's no reasonable definition of "strength", for a competitive game, except as compared to others.

The "some definition of strong" would be high level amateur dan, based on the "8d in 3 years" premise from the link at the beginning of this thread, which was the premise that sparked a discussion about limitations.

There are lots of young people that probably will not ever exceed amateur dan level. There are plenty of adults that I think could also make it to similar levels. I think this is a reasonable definition of "strong" and it is also comparative.

In terms of potential, outside of the particular case of youths who are trained and selected specifically for Go potential and strength (in other words, those trained to be Go professionals), I really don't think there is a relevantly large difference in the general population for the upper limit of strength whether one starts young or old.

EDIT: Before anyone suggests it, I am not basing this entirely on the track record of significant ideas in philosophy. That was brought up mainly as a counterexample to a specific post made by Hare that compared Go to academic physics and made a claim about the mind's receptiveness to new ideas past the age of 25, though I do think it suggest something about the continued flexibility of the mind into old age.

Maybe the admin should split this thread so that we get one about how to get stronger at go and one about how age is a factor to philosophical production.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I started doing the 1000 weiqi problems. I started at wbaduk 2d(I think it is similar to tygem 2d). Now, I am over with 150 problems. So far, 4 mistakes. I am also 3d wbaduk now. I started the last week. I decided to do it this way: solve each section. Than, I look at my results. If my percantage is over 95%, I do not do that section again(my first section percentage was 95.5% so I will not repeat it again). After I finish the book, I will repeat the sections with percantage of 95% or lower, and repeat the process untill I can solve every section with over 95%. I will buy Lee Chango books this weekend so I will have enough study material. Also I play games on wbaduk every day(at least 30 minutes per player 30 seconds byoyomi). I always spend more tahn 30 minute son first 100 moves. I try to play every day, and than continue depending on my mood(tsumego, more games or pro reviews). I find this very useful. After these problems I fell improvment in my reading confidence and speed(also I think I can read deeper but I cannot know that, can I?

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what does 7d and 8d on Tygem convert to KGS rank? I am stuck on KGS 2 dan for 4 years now. Partly I have college study and illness, but hey I want power in my Go.

Sometimes we got stronger but we didint feel it. I heard from someone i got much stronger these days. I think to full progress we need people who can suport us and giving advices.

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sorry for my english - im Marsian

7d-8d Tygem is roughly KGS 5d-6d or so. When I was active on Tygem I fluctuated between 5d-6d while I was KGS 3d-4d. Fredrik who occasionally stops by here was 8d Tygem when he was active and KGS 6d. Artem fluctuates between 8d-9d on Tygem and he is KGS 7d-8d. I know about a dozen or so more examples and that's my observation. Factors include which server (Korea-1, China-1, etc. etc.) you play on, how many games you've played under the rank, who you play, time zone, etc.

Interesting, doing all that tsumego works and only 5-6 dan KGS. KGS is the strongest of all

Yeah, somehow it now sounds a lot less impressing ^^ People went 8D on KGS in five years, starting with 30k.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

give names please

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sorry for my english - im Marsian