Professional advice?

[Boidhre]

The most interesting discussion I have read so far! Please don't stop!
Being really bad at go but good at drawing I might say that at drawing / sketching an alert state of not analysing is the right state of mind. There might be a connection with go because go is also a very visual thing. The right hemisphere of the brain (that's the one which does not analyse but just "sees" and absorbes) should be heavly involved.

Don't restrict yourself to thinking it of as just a visual thing. Remember how languages work. We don't analyse we just know when we're truly fluent in a language. We absorb passively, we don't focus on new words and go "I must remember that," we just see it again and remember. Go is fascinating since it seems to mimic many "natural" tasks for the mind (language, mathematical intuition and so on).

[Martin1974]

Boidhere, as a beginner I have not the least clue what go is all about, but surely I guessed as much that it's not only visual. In fact that's preciesly why I tend to think that go is NOT the right hobby for me. I allways was hopeless in mathematics and languages and my measured IQ is in fact sub average. I'm here just for a curious glance into another world.

[Bill Spight]

Boidhere, as a beginner I have not the least clue what go is all about, but surely I guessed as much that it's not only visual. In fact that's preciesly why I tend to think that go is NOT the right hobby for me. I allways was hopeless in mathematics and languages and my measured IQ is in fact sub average. I'm here just for a curious glance into another world.

Martin, please do not be too swayed by speculation. In the West, go players tend to be good at mathematics, but that may be a historical accident. I do not think that that is so in the East, which has many more players. As for IQ, I expect that the story will be similar to chess, so that there would be a weak relationship. I once took an IQ test where one of the tasks was to use blocks to recreate patterns. I did very well on that task, and I suspect that that may have something to do with my ability at go. I once knew a PhD in chemistry who was a terrible bridge player, though an avid one. I do think that learning go is a lot like learning a first language. That's not saying much, since learning a first language is the gold standard of learning, and the prime prototype. Learning a second language is another question. The main problem most people encounter is not learning vocabulary, but learning grammar. But there really is not much that you could call grammar at go. The difference between sente and gote is sort of like grammar, I suppose. Learning patterns is like learning vocabulary. In fact, go has an extensive terminology of patterns. In your case, anybody who can come up with, "Life is a metaphor for go," shows both creativity and a mastery of language.

[Bonobo]

[..] my measured IQ is in fact sub average. [..]

Please forget about all this IQ bullshit immediately.

ALL the instruments designed to “measure” “intelligence” (yes, quotation marks around both) are … inadequate for assessing what really is. They can only measure how fast an individual can solve so-and-so stupid tasks under stress, and both the tasks as well as the evaluation are designed by humans who are limited in their thinking just as well as you and me. The people who design so-called “IQ Tests” are NOT Nobel Prize winners, nor are those who evaluate them. All they can think of is … verbal “intelligence”, mathematical “intelligence”, technical “intelligence”, logical “intelligence”. So-called social intelligence or emotional intelligence are usually way outside of their areas of imagination.

We must not let ourselves be judged—and limited!—by technocrat assholes. (Please forgive me this use of language, but I tend to get angry when it get to this topic )

I have worked with young people who actually believed they were dumb, i.e. they had been told they were dumb all their lives, everybody around them believed they were dumb (and I can only guess how many of the people who judged thusly were dumb themselves). Some of them had visited “special schools”, and with bad results. And what I found was that most of them seemed “more intelligent” as soon as the person communicating with them assumed them to be smarter than people before had assumed. What a satisfaction for me, what a joy, to find that I could push some of them towards new borders, new schools, new goals. One of the greatest experiences in my life was when one of them later came across the yard of the adult education institution where I taught, hand stretched out, face grinning, and telling me, “I just graduated from high school, thanks for expecting more from me than others did.”

“In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind there are no limits.”
—John C. Lilly, M.D, in “Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments”

“If I call an idiot “idiot”, and the idiot is two metres tall and one-and-a-half metre broad and stands at arm’s length from me, who’s really the idiot? All I achieve by this is to hurt the other person and perhaps provoke idiotic behaviour.”
—Thomas Rohde (that’s me)




<edit>

Actually, my wording “push some of them towards new borders [..]” is wrong, I never pushed, I never HAD to push, it was rather that I tried to remind them that the only real obstacles are in our own minds. So I perhaps just scratched a bit on the dam that blocked the flow, so that the flow could move on.

</edit>

[Splatted]

[..] my measured IQ is in fact sub average. [..]

Please forget about all this IQ bullshit immediately.

ALL the instruments designed to “measure” “intelligence” (yes, quotation marks around both) are … inadequate for assessing what really is. They can only measure how fast an individual can solve so-and-so stupid tasks under stress, and both the tasks as well as the evaluation are designed by humans who are limited in their thinking just as well as you and me. The people who design so-called “IQ Tests” are NOT Nobel Prize winners, nor are those who evaluate them. All they can think of is … verbal “intelligence”, mathematical “intelligence”, technical “intelligence”, logical “intelligence”. So-called social intelligence or emotional intelligence are usually way outside of their areas of imagination.

I completely agree agree with everything Bonobo has said (and wish I could give it more than one like), and just want to add that these tests aren't even good for assessing the types of intelligence they aim to test. All of the tasks they set require learned skills to complete, so all they can really tell you is what a person has learned. If people led the exact same lives it might be reasonable to assume that learned more = more intelligent, but there are so many other factors that it's just nonsensical to view what someone has learned as an accurate measure of what they're capable of learning.

[Boidhre]

Boidhere, as a beginner I have not the least clue what go is all about, but surely I guessed as much that it's not only visual. In fact that's preciesly why I tend to think that go is NOT the right hobby for me. I allways was hopeless in mathematics and languages and my measured IQ is in fact sub average. I'm here just for a curious glance into another world.

Unless you're planning on turning pro where every tiny edge (be it IQ if it indeed has an influence or mathematical ability if it does too) is needed, you really don't have to care. The only reason (in my opinion) to play as an amateur is because you enjoy it. Once that's true it doesn't really matter if you're progressing super quickly or not unless you're the kind of person who can't abide not progressing super quickly, and if you are there's probably an important life lesson in learning to deal with not doing so anyway

[Martin1974]

100% agreed, Boidhre! Who know's, maybe I'll stick to this game. Charlie Brown also never gave up playing baseball and learnd ALOT about life!

[daal]

I do think this is completely the wrong approach because you seem to be looking for an immediate or visible result.

Being really bad at go but good at drawing I might say that at drawing / sketching an alert state of not analysing is the right state of mind. There might be a connection with go because go is also a very visual thing. The right hemisphere of the brain (that's the one which does not analyse but just "sees" and absorbes) should be heavly involved.

You are right that when drawing, the No-Mind concept is highly applicable, but it is not where we begin. We start with a full mind. It is filled with daily concerns but also and in particular, with our wealth of experience of having seen, thought about, made and judged art. The right state for making art is not just about emptying our minds, it's also paradoxically about having something to cast away.

I personally am better at drawing than at go. Mostly this is because I have parents who are artists, and they exposed me to their way of looking at things. Also, I have done a lot of drawing. I have also played a lot of go, but I don't see the board through a go players eyes. When I look at a go board, I see the wrong things.

A good friend of mine is even worse. She is an artist too, and when she looks at the board, she sees all sorts of interesting patterns and developments - but they have nothing to do with go. I've been playing for 5 years, and although my observations do have something to do with go because I have played a lot and read quite a few books, they are still inaccurate and underdeveloped.

I'm sure you have also met people who draw poorly. They emphasize unimportant details, have no sense of composition, use effects randomly etc. Probably they are not able to empty their artistic minds, because they don't have enough in them yet. So they keep drawing if they like to, and they try to gather experience.

One way is to take drawing classes. Have you ever taken one? Sometimes a teacher will have you focus on one aspect, like the light-dark contrast or negative space. The teacher isn't so concerned about what you produce on that day because it will be artistically lopsided. She wants to add these concepts to your pool of experience so that later when you are working with an empty mind, they will jump onto your pencil at the appropriate moment.

I haven't taken any go classes, but I imagine it's a good way of improving. The reason I haven't is that I am less interested in improving than at seeing what I can do on my own. This exercise as outlined in the first post stems from this desire. I am not expecting to have any quick results, but rather I am looking for a good way to add to my pool of experience. I think that the is more akin to playing games oneself and adding to one's unconcious repetoire than to learning what to do in specific situations. I am still convinced that it could be a valuable way for a player without innate go instinct to rid themselves of their useless and inhibiting preconceptions (omg, that stone is going to DIE! )

[Martin1974]

Hugely interesting comment, Daal. My story of life is abit similar. Therefor I'm very curious if I'll make similar experiences. At present my time as a go player compared to my time as an “artist“ is way to short.

[cyndane]

One way is to take drawing classes. Have you ever taken one? Sometimes a teacher will have you focus on one aspect, like the light-dark contrast or negative space. The teacher isn't so concerned about what you produce on that day because it will be artistically lopsided. She wants to add these concepts to your pool of experience so that later when you are working with an empty mind, they will jump onto your pencil at the appropriate moment.

I haven't taken any go classes, but I imagine it's a good way of improving. The reason I haven't is that I am less interested in improving than at seeing what I can do on my own. This exercise as outlined in the first post stems from this desire. I am not expecting to have any quick results, but rather I am looking for a good way to add to my pool of experience. I think that the is more akin to playing games oneself and adding to one's unconcious repetoire than to learning what to do in specific situations. I am still convinced that it could be a valuable way for a player without innate go instinct to rid themselves of their useless and inhibiting preconceptions (omg, that stone is going to DIE! )

This is a great way to improve at anything. Putting students into a mental box where they can only use a limited set of their tools, or getting them to emphasize something particular aspect can lead to great strides in understanding.

[jts]

I'm sure you have also met people who draw poorly. They emphasize unimportant details, have no sense of composition, use effects randomly etc. Probably they are not able to empty their artistic minds, because they don't have enough in them yet. So they keep drawing if they like to, and they try to gather experience.

This may be of interest.

One way is to take drawing classes. Have you ever taken one? Sometimes a teacher will have you focus on one aspect, like the light-dark contrast or negative space. The teacher isn't so concerned about what you produce on that day because it will be artistically lopsided. She wants to add these concepts to your pool of experience so that later when you are working with an empty mind, they will jump onto your pencil at the appropriate moment.

It's funny you mention this. My ideas about how to teach and learn Go are heavily shaped by the experience of learning how to draw. If you're trying to learn how to do something, it helps to turn your games into exercises and play around with that element of the game until you're familiar with it.

[robertg]

I'm not sure what you mean with "No Mind". Do you mean to say that one should not think about why a specific move was played, but instead replay it without thinking and concentrate on the visual aspect to train ones intuition? Is it bad to unconsciously guess the next move each time?
But you said it's obviously different from the "No Mind" of playing blitz games. So I somehow understand it wrongly, because it seems very similar to me. When you play blitz games without thinking too much you just play the area that looks good, by your intuition.
What is the difference between the two states of mind, in particular how do I achieve the correct state of mind?
I only found some zen instructions when googling "No Mind"; I don't have to meditate before replaying pro games, or do I?

[John Fairbairn]

I'm not sure what you mean with "No Mind".

I'm too busy to explain this, but it has nothing to do with meditation. Assuming you drive, you will have experienced a version of it yourself. You drive up the motorway and suddenly realise you have covered 100 miles but have absolutely no recollection of anything during that period. Yet you reached your current point safely and so your mind must have been working in a state of alertness unencumbered by conscious thinking. If, on the other hand, you had set out on your journey worried about your bank balance and had continued gnawing away at this problem as you drove, the chances of a prang, or at least frightening another motorist through erratic behaviour, would have been considerable.

There is a difference in studying go games because there you have to set your mental switch to 'absorb' rather than 'radiate' - but for that you already know Google is your friend (though giving your conscious brain a workout, too, and deriving the answer for yourself is no bad thing).

[daal]

Since starting about 6 weeks ago, I've gone over an average of 10 games/week. I started by focusing on games of Shusaku, Go Seigen and Yi Se-tol (I wanted a player from each of the big three go countries and a bit of era mix), but lately I've been looking more at Cho Chikun because in my games I've been adopting a territorial style and I thought Cho might be a good one to look to for "advice." I'm still convinced that this is an excellent way for someone of my strength to view professional games, and whether it is helping my go or not, I am finding this way of approaching the games to be both enjoyable and inspiring. I've been seeing some great go and I've been spending enough time with the games to appreciate and admire the moves to the extent that a 5k can. I realize I won't get any converts until I reach at least 1d, but over this 6 week period I've stopped playing afraid and have won 2/3 of my games. Looks like I might need a new rank.

[ez4u]

I'm not sure what you mean with "No Mind".

I'm too busy to explain this, but it has nothing to do with meditation. Assuming you drive, you will have experienced a version of it yourself. You drive up the motorway and suddenly realise you have covered 100 miles but have absolutely no recollection of anything during that period...

In my case I inevitably get 100 miles down the road but have absolutely no idea whether I locked the front door when I left. No Mind? Been there, done that!