Life In 19x19

If it's indeed the case that Western teachers are better at explaining their thinking than their Asian Professional counterparts, and the corollary, that Western students demand such reasoning and Asian students are better at doing what they're told, it's also worth asking if we in the West are stuck on the wrong track, i.e., our tendency to get bogged down explaining and understanding is getting in the way of simply doing things right, or whether we're simply on a train that hasn't yet reached it's destination.

I think aside from cultural difference, it's very important to consider the fact that most westerners learn go for the first time as adults, while most asian players learn as children.

Children learn very fast by example. Their brain is developping and they can assign whole areas to new topics. Adults are more stuck in their way and need roundabout ways to use their already structured brain for new things. For example if you put a toddler in a new country, and he learns a new language, then what happens in the brain is entirely different of what happens if you put an adult in a new country and make him learn the language. And in the same conditions of learning the result will be different.

Adults learning a new topic need to make connections whith existing reasoning structures that they have. No matter how hard they work they will never get the same result from tsumego and replaying games than children. To keep with the language comparison, a child will learn the use of words just by listening and talking, without having a single idea what syntax and grammar is supposed to be. But adults will need those supporting structures to make more sense of what they learn. If you leave adult migrants alone and let them try to join conversations, they will learn somehow, but very bad, while kids will be fluents in a matter of months.

A german will be able to tell me that I employed a word in the wrong context or my sentence sounds weird but he may be entirely unable to provide an explanation why this is so. In many cases I may know more german grammar than many of my german friends, actually. But they still talk german better than me because it's their mother tongue. And no matter how hard I work, I will always have an accent. I expect it will be the same with go. In my game too, I will always have "an accent".

Amelia wrote:I think aside from cultural difference, it's very important to consider the fact that most westerners learn go for the first time as adults, while most asian players learn as children.

Children learn very fast by example. Their brain is developping and they can assign whole areas to new topics. Adults are more stuck in their way and need roundabout ways to use their already structured brain for new things. For example if you put a toddler in a new country, and he learns a new language, then what happens in the brain is entirely different of what happens if you put an adult in a new country and make him learn the language. And in the same conditions of learning the result will be different.

Adults learning a new topic need to make connections whith existing reasoning structures that they have. No matter how hard they work they will never get the same result from tsumego and replaying games than children. To keep with the language comparison, a child will learn the use of words just by listening and talking, without having a single idea what syntax and grammar is supposed to be. But adults will need those supporting structures to make more sense of what they learn. If you leave adult migrants alone and let them try to join conversations, they will learn somehow, but very bad, while kids will be fluents in a matter of months.

A german will be able to tell me that I employed a word in the wrong context or my sentence sounds weird but he may be entirely unable to provide an explanation why this is so. In many cases I may know more german grammar than many of my german friends, actually. But they still talk german better than me because it's their mother tongue. And no matter how hard I work, I will always have an accent. I expect it will be the same with go. In my game too, I will always have "an accent".

This post is something of an epiphany for me. I began learning Go at 23 years old and, as any adult can attest, learning it as an adult is more difficult than learning it as a child - and especially in a country (US of A) where most people have not even heard of Go, much less have seen a Go board and stones. Growing up close to an international airport, I learned a lot about aircraft from when I was a young child, so I have internalized many aviation-related bits of information - enough to allow me to have a discussion with almost anyone working in aviation-related jobs.

In my experiences in learning foreign languages, I find that devoting lots of time and effort to learning the grammar and other information - especially cultural - needed to speak the language, combined with constant practice of their application, helps me eventually to know enough to communicate in my target language. This is easier when one is in contact with persons who learned it as children; in the 10 years that I have been studying Japanese, contact with native speakers of this language has allowed me to develop enough understanding of it to conduct even mildly complex conversations therein. I'm not yet at the level where I can, for example, converse with a scholar, but I have progressed beyond elementary school level in Japanese. And I would be able to come close to complete fluency if I had opportunities to communicate in Japanese on a daily basis, but since I do not live in Japan nor live in any close proximity to a community of Japanese expatriates, my Japanese skills are often allowed to lapse.

On the other hand, I live in an American city with a large population of Spanish speakers and I even learned Spanish as a child, so I am able to speak Spanish on a daily basis with little difficulty.

I think the greatest difference aren't the teaching methods/teachers, but the students, when I watch lectures on youtube from asian professionals at a western congress people are just asking sooooo much, it is so annoying imo, so so annoying.

I mean it is like they aren't even trying to think/read themselves but just asking for askings sake, like they somehow learned if they don't understand something they just have to ask, before even trying to think for themselves. Propably I am alone with that, but I for hell know that if I would go to a congress I wouldn't ask such nonsense questions I for sure know I can answer them myself, when I try the variations out at home. And imo the asian teachers aren't accustomed to such helpless behaviour, especially from grown ups.

"Wouldn't it be possible/better/ if X places his stone at Y?" "What happens if XY does XYZ?" etc. rofl

Or maybe I am just too young, no idea.

Oceandrop wrote:[...]people are just asking sooooo much, it is so annoying imo, so so annoying.

I mean it is like they aren't even trying to think/read themselves but just asking for askings sake, like they somehow learned if they don't understand something they just have to ask, before even trying to think for themselves.

I agree with this observation.

I think there is a huge emphasis on asking questions early rather than reflecting on the problem and striving for a solution without help ("there is no such thing as a stupid question", etc).

I also see this in practically every forum ever made (people will ask the same question that has been asked by countless others, without first having tried to solve it on their own, eg, by using that very forum's search function to see if the question had been asked before).

On slightly another issue:
Do we know or have we proven that Go theory in the sense we understand it even exists at high(er) levels?

Bantari wrote:On slightly another issue:
Do we know or have we proven that Go theory in the sense we understand it even exists at high(er) levels?

What is Go Theory?

Bantari wrote:Do we know or have we proven that Go theory in the sense we understand it even exists at high(er) levels?

Go theory exists independently of a carrier (teacher). Do you ask whether teachers with higher levels of a) 'playing strengths' or b) 'understanding of go theory' use such go theory that lower levels use or understand?

oren wrote:What is Go Theory?

It is an ambiguous phrase, which can have in particular one of these meanings:
- the world go population's combined knowledge
- the whole of all formally described theory
- specific subsets of either (then, different players can have different understandings of specific go theory)

Oceandrop wrote:I think the greatest difference aren't the teaching methods/teachers, but the students, when I watch lectures on youtube from asian professionals at a western congress people are just asking sooooo much, it is so annoying imo, so so annoying.

I mean it is like they aren't even trying to think/read themselves but just asking for askings sake, like they somehow learned if they don't understand something they just have to ask, before even trying to think for themselves. Propably I am alone with that, but I for hell know that if I would go to a congress I wouldn't ask such nonsense questions I for sure know I can answer them myself, when I try the variations out at home. And imo the asian teachers aren't accustomed to such helpless behaviour, especially from grown ups.

"Wouldn't it be possible/better/ if X places his stone at Y?" "What happens if XY does XYZ?" etc. rofl

Or maybe I am just too young, no idea.

A couple of points:

First, learning styles differ, not just from culture to culture, but from person to person. An outside observer does not know what it takes for another person to understand something.

Second, while it is important in go to think for oneself -- nobody is going to play your moves or you --, doing so during a lecture from a pro whom you may not see again for months or years, or ever, may not be the best use of time. Children are fantastic learners. They also ask a hell of a lot of questions. You characterize the behavior of those who ask "nonsense" questions as childlike. Precisely!

Third, there are no stupid questions, especially at a lecture with an audience including a lot of kyu players. (Edit: Not to mention the broad youtube audience! ) Working something out at home will not help other audience members, while asking even a stupid question is likely to do so. There is a Japanese saying: To ask is a moment's embarrassment; not to ask is a lifetime's shame.

It is an ambiguous phrase, which can have in particular one of these meanings:
- the world go population's combined knowledge
- the whole of all formally described theory
- specific subsets of either (then, different players can have different understandings of specific go theory)

On its own there is nothing wrong with this, but in the context of real life 'go theory' most often is just a translation of the Japanese kiri, and so is usually intended to mean whatever they use it to mean. Their usual definition is simply "basic principles of go" or "fundamentals of go". Either phrase is likewise a bit woolly, but the important thing to note, for a westerner already exposed to chess, is that it does not include encyclopaedic knowledge of the openings. Nor is it ever (in my experience) used for anything to do with go rules.

If you end up excelling in the Japanese kind of go theory, you will not make a good tournament arbiter nor will you necessarily know the latest trends in the 4-4 joseki. Instead you will have good suji (tactical nous) and be able to make the right strategic decisions in positions you have never seen before. Indeed, the usual way to say you are good or bad at go theory in Japanese is to use the adjectives akarui or kurai, which basically mean bright and dark. In other words you acquire, or lack, insight.

Fundamentals and shape are very often brought up in professional go. A word I would consider equivalent to theory I rarely see discussed.

I don't know what I would consider 'theory' to be and just discuss fundamentals. Theory implies something is attempted to be proven, and I don't think strong players are trying to prove a theory when they play (or teach). They are trying to become better players.

RobertJasiek wrote:

Bantari wrote:Do we know or have we proven that Go theory in the sense we understand it even exists at high(er) levels?

Go theory exists independently of a carrier (teacher). Do you ask whether teachers with higher levels of a) 'playing strengths' or b) 'understanding of go theory' use such go theory that lower levels use or understand?

No, I meant something different. Let me try to explain, however best I can.

Theory is a collection of more or less general statements, each of which can be applied to more than one position or pattern. If we want to have a hierarchical approach, we can say that many of these statements are based on simpler statements and derived from them by a set of laws or whatever, logic based on the actual rules of play, which are the bottom tier. This might be an oversimplification, but in practice this is, I think, what it boils down to. A collection of 'proverbs', so make it even simpler.

Now, since by the above 'definition' the statements apply generally and to more than one position - the more deeply into any given position you look the less exact the rules will/might become. If we finally split the whole game tree into a series of discrete position, with sufficient attention to detail would we have to conclude that each position would have to be treated separately, and any kind of approximation or generalization runs the risk of losing something which is particular to this position? In other words - with sufficiently deep reading and granularity in position evaluation, will the general 'statements' we call theory be useful?

You are the expert here, much more so than me, so I am not sure if this makes much sense, let me try to construct an example.
Lets start with a general statements, something like "play away from strength." It seems to be a solid advice and a general strategic principle which is good to know and to follow. But, at higher level, can you afford to simply apply it, or do you have to read it all out anyways and then apply it or not - but not because of this principle and your knowledge thereof, but because you have read out that in this particular position it is good or bad. So, if you have to read it all out anyways, as much as you can, is there a sense in knowing the principle anyways, and is there a sense in striving in refining it even deeper if you still will have to just read it out? Do you even bother to learn it, and if not (waste of time?) can you explain your moves based on such principles?

I think it might be easier to find examples in chess, where more western literature exists and players tend to learn/teach with much more of a scientific/western approach than it is generally apparent in Go. In chess, like in Go, strategy is composed of a set of 'statements' which are generally accepted as a good 'common sense' approach to playing the game. You can make an enumerated list of those 'statements' any way you like... but I am pretty sure that I know pretty much all of these statements, regardless of the fact that I am not a strong player by any flight of imagination. In other words, I do not believe that the top-class world players know much more of this 'theory' than I do - and yet they all can beat me easily, not even a contest.

Which brings me to the question: is there a point where theory stops and something else begins? Not sure what, experience, intuition, patter database, reading ability, whatever... all of that together? Not necessarily because no 'theory' can be derived at those higher levels (and in chess they tried, very hard they tried, for many decades or even longer) - but because this kind of conscious and theory-based thinking is not very efficient? You simply have to consider each position separately - or you are running the risk of losing a tiny bit because of the necessary generalization within any 'theory', and at that level losing even a tiny bit will probably mean losing the game itself, which is unacceptable.

So, basically, at higher levels players cannot afford any little bit of generalization, which 'theory' by definition, must be.

I guess this is what I mean, if it makes any sense to you. At lower levels, theory is a good thing, and we certainly do not care all that much if we lose a point here and there because of the generalization - because this generalized 'rules' allow us to avoid larger errors at the same time, so the balance is in our favor. At higher levels, they do not make the mistakes which could be corrected by generalized 'theory' and the loss of even a fraction of a point due to any generalization is not acceptable.

@tekesta:

At high levels, you must always read and analyze. Not doing this is like walking through a minefield blind.

tekesta, see also Shaddy's reply.

Theory per se is not only a distillation of the most central bits of knowledge accumulated over the centuries, because also new theory is added to the knowledge pool.

Which are the "few prior observations" that let you "understand the[?] theory at all"?

Marcel Grünauer wrote:[..]

But maybe even in that case the adult's mental baggage that comes with time would be a hindrance.

Certainly this.

When I was four years old, my family moved to Kerala, Southern India, and I immediately began to learn two foreign languages (Malayalam and English) just because I was confronted with them … no conscious thoughts about grammar and whatever AT ALL.

All other attempts of learning another language (Latin and Russian at school), and delving deeper into German, my mother tongue, involved meta-thinking: conscious thought about the language, and often also about language in general.