Why Go Theory Books

[RobertJasiek]

A theory is a collection of statements of facts along with concepts that permit concise statements of those facts. A theory also allows statements that have exceptions.

Is that the same 'go theory' the OP was talking about?

It comes close to kinds of go theory I prefer, but there are also weaker forms of go theory.

[Boidhre]

It's similar with language, start talking a four year old through the grammar of a language will get you nowhere, exposing them to the language constantly and repeating correct sentences to them will do the trick though.

You don't even have to correct them. As a kid I said, "instreting", something that my parent thought was cute. They also liked, "clapsed".

(The latter for "collapsed", not "clasped". )

I don't mean correct them, I mean just speak correctly around them. Correcting them is usually an utter waste of time.

I say "I love you" to my daughter (3), she says "I like you too Dada" to me, in Irish romantic love, love of your country etc is grá, but the construction to say you love a sibling, child, friend or whatever is the same as "I really like/love ice cream," "Is brea liom tu, a Dhada" or whatever, whereas a lesser form of "I like ice cream" would be "Is maith liom uachtar reoite." One just figures out by context what a person means. She gets mixed up with the phrases since she's 3 and she doesn't really bother with merely liking things she either really likes it or doesn't have an opinion. Correcting her is pointless, responding to her correctly "I love you too Siún" does eventually do the trick though.

[Boidhre]

Whether it is "go theory" surely depends on how one defines what is "go theory":) It is not scientific go theory, but it is applicable-principles-based go theory.

I have some trouble with this (I'm not saying you're wrong, but this may be why people misinterpret you in this respect). When someone says theory to me I really don't think of applicable principles. Applicable principles are a how-to/pedagogic thing, quite often distilled from either experience or theory, but not in themselves theory since they instruct rather than explain or prove. Theory, for me, would be proving why in most or all cases premature boundary plays are sub-optimal play, better would be to prove the majority of cases and then the classes of possible exceptions to the maxim. Advising someone not to play premature boundary plays is advice rather than theory. Neither is more or less valuable than the other, merely different things.

[RobertJasiek]

For a mathematician, theory is what is or can be defined or proven formally. For a physicist, theory is what does model or is expected to model reality, as it is or shall be observed. For an inventor of go principles (etc.), theory is those principles modelling reality in a sufficient (e.g., specified as "at least 95%") fraction of cases, as they are or shall be observed. For an informally talking or teaching player (when he does not rely on aforementioned principles), theory is any piece of knowledge believed to be relevant, but often without evidence or specified threshold of applicability, except that specialised evidence (such as the reading of related variations) for particular examples might be available.

Applicable principles are a how-to/pedagogic thing, quite often distilled from either experience or theory, but not in themselves theory since they instruct rather than explain or prove.

Probably, this is so for many traditional principles / proverbs. It is different for most of the principles written down by me, because I rely them on careful study (such as empirical study), implications / refinements from earlier principles or in some cases mathematical methods. IMO, it is also different for a few other authors or researchers, who do not just copy tradition, but do their own careful studies or least careful checking of empirical evidence collected in their own memories.

[snorri]

I have a naive definition of what a go theory book is. If more space is spent on words than diagrams, it is theory.

In other words, if I have to read a lot of text to get anything out of a book---theory.

[Bantari]

For a mathematician, theory is what is or can be defined or proven formally.

Hmm... I always thought a theory is something which is not proven yet, sometimes not even very certain. Like in: its just a theory for now, we have to wait for more data to prove or disprove it.

In general, I would say 'theory' can describe a few different concepts:

• Something not yet proven, an assumption.
• The opposite of 'practice'.
• A collection of generalized statements or principles attempting to explain something - this is what we talk about here more or less, I assume, but its just a theory for now.

[Boidhre]

For a mathematician, theory is what is or can be defined or proven formally.

Hmm... I always thought a theory is something which is not proven yet, sometimes not even very certain. Like in: its just a theory for now, we have to wait for more data to prove or disprove it.

In general, I would say 'theory' can describe a few different concepts:

• Something not yet proven, an assumption.
• The opposite of 'practice'.
• A collection of generalized statements or principles attempting to explain something - this is what we talk about here more or less, I assume, but its just a theory for now.

I believe Robert may be thinking of a theorem here perhaps?


Your first concept is more strictly a conjecture rather than a theory in the sense of your third one (I think theory in the formal sense is normally used in a more narrow fashion like your third statement). The second, I dunno. The third is what I'd consider a theory to be but not necessarily what I'd use to define the word in the sense of "go theory." Bleh, this is semantic. :/

[RobertJasiek]

I have a naive definition of what a go theory book is. If more space is spent on words than diagrams, it is theory.

It is not like go theory books are. They also contain lots of diagrams and comments on diagrams, because, you know, the market for pure text theory books is too small and everybody wants to see also application of the theory.

[EdLee]

I always thought a theory is something which is not proven yet, sometimes not even very certain.

That's one meaning of the word in a non-scientific context.

In science, it is different -- What is a scientific theory?

For example, Feynman compared the precision of quantum mechanics to predicting a distance
as great as the width of North America to an accuracy of one human hair's breadth --
Accuracy of QED -- in this case, it is extremely certain.

Related:
QED
Precision tests of QED
Mis-used science words

[Boidhre]

I always thought a theory is something which is not proven yet, sometimes not even very certain.

That's one meaning of the word in a non-scientific context.

In science, it is different -- What is a scientific theory?

For example, Feynman compared the precision of quantum mechanics to predicting a distance
as great as the width of North America to an accuracy of one human hair's breadth --
Accuracy of QED -- in this case, it is extremely certain.

Related:
QED
Precision tests of QED
Mis-used science words

I believe that the General Theory of Relativity is even more accurate. As in, when they come up with better equipment the error is still within the error bars for the device, and again when they create better measuring devices. It's been like this for quite a while.

[EdLee]

I believe that the General Theory of Relativity is even more accurate.

Nice.

[oren]

I view Go Theory books as any books that aren't problem books, commented games, or history. It keeps description simple.

[RobertJasiek]

There can also be problem books with some explanations of theory.

[Kirby]

Problem books (or problems in books) ==> Lend to constructing one's own ideas and the ability to think for oneself.
"Theory books" (eg. explanations) ==> Lend to learning from another person and their strategies or views on the game.

Go is complicated, so it's important to know how to think for yourself.
Go is complicated, so it can be beneficial to learn ideas from other people - you can't learn everything on your own in a single lifetime.

Learn from yourself, learn from others - it's all good stuff.

[RobertJasiek]

Kirby, you are right that one needs to construct one's own ideas and learn ideas from other persons. However, there is no identity with problem versus theory books, because one can construct also one's own ideas of theory. (Whether they are bad or good, or how much time that consumes, then are other questions.)