John Fairbairn wrote:The definition of seki in Japanese rules is "Stones that are alive but possess dame."
There are problems with translation here. More literally the Japanese reference is just "stones which have dame are 'called seki groups'". Dame are earlier described as "empty points other than moku [countable points].
If you then proceed in one western legalistic tradition, where the text takes priority, you derive certain meanings from this, but add nothing (or try not to add anything). It is pure, It is elegant. You then draw inferences - but these are often startlingly different from those drawn by Japanese people.
If you approach the same text from a usual Japanese tradition where the text is just a guide and real life, expert authority or previous practice take priority, you end up drawing different inferences. Literalness is not enough.
A western person is liable to start by defining, say, four rules A, B, C and D, and drawing a logical chain that results in a game X. This game X may be a game no-one has seen before, or a game no-one likes, but if the rules A, B, C and D cannot be gainsaid, that's the way it has to be: game X or nothing (in go terms, superko or nothing).
The Japanese person is more likely to start with game Y that he knows millions of people play and love. Asked to write down rules that describe it, he will make the rules fit the final result. He may start with A, B, C and D, but when he realises they don't quite work, he will change the rules to A, B, C and E, or A*, B*, C, D, and if none of these works, he will give up and go and have a game of go. It would not normally occur to him to change game Y to X.
However, you often also get an in-between position where a Japanese person may be convinced that A, B, C and D do actually describe the game he sees, and yet a westerner tells him otherwise.
Dame is one of those in-between problems. A westerner sees dame as whatever the definition on paper is and applies it universally. A Japanese "knows" and superimposes several things onto the text. First he knows that dame ordinarly implies something useless or worthless (which, e.g. may preclude immediate understanding of a "dame fight"). As a go player he will also be previously familiar with three distinct meanings of dame, which are of long standing, which he understands thoroughly and which he superimposes on any rules texts he reads. The two main meanings he will know are dame in the sense of the worthless intersections in no-man's land between opposing territories and the separate meaning of the shared points inside a seki. He will also know a third meaning, which refers to the liberties that are filled in a capturing race. Some Japanese are aware of the different western approach, and even if they don't feel in tune with it, can sense some of the problems. For this reason, there has been a late 20th-century trend to use katsuro for the capturing race kind of liberty, but it is far from universal. (A few writers will even use the English word "liberty").
In short, when a Japanese sees "stones that are alive but possess dame" he does not necessarily see what a westerner sees.
The different Japanese approach is sometimes carelessly described as doing things back to front. Take the case of a Japanese describing go. As stated, he is apt to start with the game as it exists. The 1949 Japanese rules, therefore, which were fairly well embedded in the traditional way of doing things, start off by describing the difference between pros and amateurs, the dan rankings, the Meijin, the equipment (including precise sizes and the location of handicap points and the order of placing handicap stones), how handicaps are changed, usual komi, nigiri and much else in great detail, all before it tells you how to play. To repeat, these rules describe the game as it exists, and the writer of the 1949 rules would have believed, no doubt, that he was presenting them in a well tried and trusted format of "big picture first, gradually zooming in on the smaller details" to an audience who would probably recognise the big picture but not the details. This is sensible enough, and not a perverse Japanese tradition. It is a technique used extravagantly in old Chinese painting and poetry, but it's not even a specially Oriental tradition. You will see the same technique at the start of many Hollywood movies. There is really no good reason to describe it as back to front.
What is special about Japan's use of the technique, however, is that they often use it in legal or rules texts where we tend to believe it is inappropriate. We often prefer to define the tiny details first, and build up from there. But the Japanese are perfectly capable of realising there are different ways of doing things, and it may be said that the 1989 rules were their attempt to ape the western style of "elegance". But the result was a pig's breakfast. They probably lacked the experience but, most of all, their hearts just weren't in it. Deep down they are still much happier with 1949 style rules (and this is still the way, for example, things like personnel rules in domestic companies are drafted).
Deep down, it seems, most of us even in the west are much happier with 1949 styles rules, probably because most of us have learnt the game the "Japanese" way: rough-and-ready instructions from a friend or book first, bumping into the detailed rules later, if ever, only when an anomaly such as triple ko occurs. But even if you are not one of these happy bunnies, and you do prefer to ponder rules from the get-go (so to speak), it is wise to be extra careful before quoting Japanese statements about rules.
The Japanese 1989 rules redefined the game of go. I do not exactly know why, but I doubt that Western criticism was high on the list.
Here is my translation of the relevant parts of Article 8:
Empty points surrounded by live stones of only one side are called "eye points". Empty points other than eye points are called "dame". Live stones that have dame are called "seki stones".
The naive Japanese player might assume that "dame" here has its familiar meaning of neutral point between territories. He might then be surprised to find that the marked points in the next diagram are dame.
Of course, he is used to not counting those points as territory, but calling them dame is something new. Why are they dame? he may ask.
They are dame because the marked stones are not alive. Not alive? That idea is certainly new. Why are they not alive? Mmm, that's not so easy to explain. See Articles 7 and 9.
Well, if they are not alive, do we pick them up as prisoners after the game? No, we don't. See Article 10.
By now the naive Japanese player has probably thrown his hands up. The Japanese 1989 rules are quite clever, and they describe a game that has the same result as the traditional game nearly all of the time. The three points without capturing position is scored differently, but when does it come up. And the new seki rule has produced at least one anomalous position in pro play, although the players did not recognize it. And there are ambiguities with life and death that will not go away, although a related crisis may not happen for a long time.
I think that most Japanese players do not play by the 1989 rules, and never will.
removes Black's threat. 
removes the ko.
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