Differences between Western and Asian Books

[HermanHiddema]

Do you have a source that Westerns ask 'why?' more than Asians when presented with a problem? I mentor young researchers and of course many are Asian. However, asking 'why?' seems to vary more on an individual level than cultural. I honestly didn't notice a marked difference. The only thing that stands out is my most bullheaded 'Why?' askers were always Asian, always going until we ended up at first principle physics.

For both Asian and Westerners, the ones who avoided asking 'why?' almost always did so because they didn't want to appear stupid.

Nothing specific. In a general context, I think it is not denied, nor particularly controversial, that there are differences between western and eastern approaches to teaching, and differences between those cultures in general. For some general research, I would recommend taking a look at e.g. http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

In a go specific context, lemmata has given the example of Yilun Yang here, and Bill Spight mentions the experience of Jiang Jujo in another thread. Of course, the western tendency to ask "why?" more often in this context might very well be related to the fact that westerners taking pro lessons are far more likely to be go enthusiast, rather than casual players, because of the difference in how widely the game is known and played.

[John Fairbairn]

'Why' has a special status in English. Children learn very early that it is the most efficient way to wind up grown-ups ("You have to eat your porridge." "Why?" "So you'll become big and strong." "Why?" "So you can become a famous go player." "Why?" and so on ad infinitum). Older students, especially males trying to impress the girls in class, then pick up the meme that asking the 'why' question makes you sound both rebellious and sage. By the time you are working for a living, asking 'why' is a good way to succeed in business but a poor way to get along with a boss if you have one. By the time you are old and grey the question becomes a plaintive one. In short, the word 'why' is a very big part of our lives.

This is quite different from, say, Japanese. A dictionary may tell you that 'naze' corresponds to 'why', but in practice you would often use softer or more explicit modes of asking. Such as dou shite, dou iu wake de, nan no tame ni, dou desu ka, etc. Circumlocutions with no 'why' word at all may be used (e.g. 'Why not let him do as he pleases? - Kare ni suki na you ni sasetara ii ja nai ka). None of these variants indicate lack of moral fibre.

In such circumstances, if a Japanese expert says, "I think you have to do this" and you ask in English "why", he is apt to be confused or even flustered. Do you mean 'for what reason is that best?' or 'how did you come to that conclusion?' or 'what's that got to do with the price of fish?' or 'I don't care what your answer is, I'm just showing you off by putting you on the spot". Not getting the answer you want may not be his fault. And look at how many young native English speakers muck up 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' Even when the teacher explains 'wherefore' means 'why', Shakespeare's sentence usually has to be explained even further (i.e. it's not that he's a Romeo but that he's a Montague - and you probably have to explain even that to half the class).

In short, building a case on 'why' won't take you very far.

[Alguien]

In such circumstances, if a Japanese expert says, "I think you have to do this" and you ask in English "why", he is apt to be confused or even flustered. Do you mean 'for what reason is that best?' or 'how did you come to that conclusion?' or 'what's that got to do with the price of fish?' or 'I don't care what your answer is, I'm just showing you off by putting you on the spot". Not getting the answer you want may not be his fault. And look at how many young native English speakers muck up 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' Even when the teacher explains 'wherefore' means 'why', Shakespeare's sentence usually has to be explained even further (i.e. it's not that he's a Romeo but that he's a Montague - and you probably have to explain even that to half the class).

In short, building a case on 'why' won't take you very far.

There is always a more precise way of asking 'Why'. However, there is also a more precise way of saying almost anything, so the decision of which level of precision is the correct balance between openness and precision is arbitrary and socio-cultural.

There is nothing wrong with going for the fastest and most open:
- 'why'
instead of the more precise, but quite slower to express:
- 'Probably due to my rank, although I can't be sure of the reasons by precisely the same lack of strength, I am not able to read more than two or three moves in a game of the complexity of the one we are dealing with; taking into account that in this case I use "complexity" to express my perceived difficulty of evaluating the separation of enclosed territories and dame areas, if such thing exist, of which I can't be sure. This lack of reading ability makes me wonder: "is the reason of your suggested move - that must most probably be correct, if we assume that your rank is based, among other skills, on your reading strength - a conclusion in a number of moves beyond my skill range? Or is it a collateral effect that, although present in a shorter number of moves, still I am not able to observe due to other deficiencies in my go skillset."


There is an additional advantage of 'why' that's especially useful when children use it. Any other way of forming the question will add criteria to the answer that the person answering might not want there and is forced to remove.
e.g:
Q-'why P7?' A-'Because it gives the best thickness to white in sente.'
compared to:
Q-'wouldn't P8 also kill?" A-'Killing is not the objective. P7 gives the best thickness to white in sente.'


'Why' is better than a more precise question that implies, in the process of becoming precise, assumptions that result false. Thus, 'why' is the humblest question. It says 'I don't understand your last assertion and I don't presume to know the origin of my ignorance.'

[EdLee]

Thus, 'why' is the humblest question.

Not necessarily. It depends a great deal on the context and the tone of voice.
In some cases, it can be a very arrogant and confrontational question.
In some other cases, it can be a very stupid question.
And yes, in some cases, it can be a very humble question.

[tchan001]

Student: Why do I lose?
Teacher: Because you haven't completed enough tsumego?
Student: Why do you think I haven't completed enough tsumego?
Teacher: Because you lose.

[HermanHiddema]

To a professional, in many situations, the question of "why?" is a nonsense question. They just gave you the correct answer. E.g:

What should I play here?
Move A is the correct move here.
Why?
Uhhh, because it is better than the other moves?

An analogy would be if someone asked you for directions, then after you've given them, they ask why:

How do I get to the theater?
Take the first left, drive on until you cross the rail road tracks, then go right.
Why?
Uhhh, because that's the shortest route to the theater?

[daal]

To a professional, in many situations, the question of "why?" is a nonsense question. They just gave you the correct answer. E.g:

What should I play here?
Move A is the correct move here.
Why?
Uhhh, because it is better than the other moves?

An analogy would be if someone asked you for directions, then after you've given them, they ask why:

How do I get to the theater?
Take the first left, drive on until you cross the rail road tracks, then go right.
Why?
Uhhh, because that's the shortest route to the theater?

The difference being that "shortest route" is defined solely by distance, whereas "better move" must take a larger number of factors into account, and it's not immaterial which of those are relevant.

[HermanHiddema]

The difference being that "shortest route" is defined solely by distance, whereas "better move" must take a larger number of factors into account, and it's not immaterial which of those are relevant.

The better move is simply the one that gives you more points at the end of the game. But the game tree is so huge that it is impossible to prove any move better than any other. Professional judgement of what is better is, for a large part, instinct and reading. There is often no simple theoretical reason why the move is better, it's better because their instincts tell them it is.

If you give directions, you similarly don't consider every possible route in your head. You've got an instinctive idea, based on your experience in navigating the area, of what the shortest route probably is.

[billywoods]

An analogy would be if someone asked you for directions

Don't forget that, sometimes, when we ask "why?", we're not asking for solutions to one particular problem, but instead rules of thumb or guidelines or nuggets of intuition that might guide us towards being able to solve future problems of similar sorts. We're asking things like "why, out of the 361 possible intersections on the go board, were your eyes drawn towards looking at this one first?". We're looking for a heuristic for finding answers, not just a single answer that we can confirm. Give a man a fish...

[zslane]

So the implication is that asking for heuristics or insights into a professional's instinctive and intuitive process is pointless. Said professional is not necessarily equipped to explain how he arrived at "the best move" or enumerate the factors that went into that decision. Asking for information that is not explicable may be regarded as disrespectful.

Whether this is cultural or not, the lesson seems to be: Be careful who you accept as a "teacher" because you may not get any insights beyond that which you gleen yourself from the basic data given to you ("this move is best"), and in fact, you may be regarded as not entitled to any (explanation or insight) given your inferior station as student.

Asking for deeper explanation is not an act of rebellion against authority. But in a culture where learning is meant to occur through osmosis, by merely being in the presence of masters delivering opaque "wisdom", it would likely seem that way and not be terribly welcome.

[lemmata]

We're asking things like "why, out of the 361 possible intersections on the go board, were your eyes drawn towards looking at this one first?".

I often prefer to ask strong players why other specific moves are bad when I don't really understand their explanation of why a particular move is good. For whatever reason, people seem to be better at explaining why bad moves are bad than they are at explaining why good moves are good.

[Bill Spight]

On the why question, I think that we are getting hung up on the semantics, and ignoring the social aspects. For one thing, I don't think that we can lump the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese together in terms of social norms. When I was living in Japan, Why? was often a challenge to provide justification. If a stronger player said, "You should have played here," without explanation, one might reply, "If I had played there, . . ." to get an explanation, which was usually a variation or two. Or one might simply say, "I don't understand." Such replies invite the teacher to explain, but do not challenge them.

[Bill Spight]

I do remember a why question about go. Takemiya was playing in a Sunday TV match and Ishida Yoshio was the main commentator. The lower level pro asked Ishida why Takemiya had not played a joseki move, and Ishida replied, "Maybe he forgot."

[Mef]

So the implication is that asking for heuristics or insights into a professional's instinctive and intuitive process is pointless. Said professional is not necessarily equipped to explain how he arrived at "the best move" or enumerate the factors that went into that decision. Asking for information that is not explicable may be regarded as disrespectful.

Whether this is cultural or not, the lesson seems to be: Be careful who you accept as a "teacher" because you may not get any insights beyond that which you gleen yourself from the basic data given to you ("this move is best"), and in fact, you may be regarded as not entitled to any (explanation or insight) given your inferior station as student.

Asking for deeper explanation is not an act of rebellion against authority. But in a culture where learning is meant to occur through osmosis, by merely being in the presence of masters delivering opaque "wisdom", it would likely seem that way and not be terribly welcome.

There was a thread a while back about the quality of teachers, and an example that go brought up was Kitani (who as I understand rarely played his pupils, and generally didn't do "instruction" at his school). The comparison was made (by John F. I believe) that many professional go teachers would perhaps be better classified as a go trainer. I think a teacher is generally framed as someone who will work to provide a lesson for a pupil (emphasis on the actions of the teacher) as opposed to a trainer who will develop a program of work the student must do to build their own skills (emphasis on the actions of the student). In that sense, if you are training knowing "why" may not necessarily be intrinsically helpful. If you have a personal trainer who says "Ok, you need to run 5 miles and then do 50 push-ups" to which you respond "why?" learning why is not going to get you any closer to your goal of being physically fit, it's the process of running the 5 miles and doing the 50 push-ups that will do that. In the same vein "work these problems, study these games" knowing why doesn't necessarily get you any closer to having put in effort of working the problems and studying the games.

[Ellyster]

So the implication is that asking for heuristics or insights into a professional's instinctive and intuitive process is pointless. Said professional is not necessarily equipped to explain how he arrived at "the best move" or enumerate the factors that went into that decision. Asking for information that is not explicable may be regarded as disrespectful.

Whether this is cultural or not, the lesson seems to be: Be careful who you accept as a "teacher" because you may not get any insights beyond that which you gleen yourself from the basic data given to you ("this move is best"), and in fact, you may be regarded as not entitled to any (explanation or insight) given your inferior station as student.

Asking for deeper explanation is not an act of rebellion against authority. But in a culture where learning is meant to occur through osmosis, by merely being in the presence of masters delivering opaque "wisdom", it would likely seem that way and not be terribly welcome.

I will change the "in a culture where learning is meant to occur through osmosis" for "in a culture where learning is meant to occur through observation and imitation"...

Usually in japanese culture the want you to discover the proper way rather than explaning it directly, due a sum of factors: complexsity of the process, better abstraction, multiple approach are valid, based in unexplicable intuitive knowledge... and of course, becouse it lead to less arguing/fighting between theacher and student (even in a good philosophical)... wich we westeners love but they have a terrific fobia to it.


Asking directely "Why?" regards a lot of matters to a japanese is one of the most frustrating activities that you can do... an it has a huge chance to getting a complete useless response, it is not rude, unless you asked stubbornly (what is stubbornly my depend the culture, the person, the way and tone of asking, etc..). Belive me, lot of the fighting with my japanese girlfriend are precisely becouse my western and scientific mind ask a lot of "Whys".

So a better approch is to ask them indirectly, by proposing examples plus your answers and explaining the reasoning that lead you to them. They will tell you "Yes" (Caution: Not necesarely correct, the only answer, or perfect) or "No" (More informative, becouse the usually give you the reason, and the correct answer).

It is a lot like playing to battleship, where the yeses are "Touched!" and the noes stands for "Water!", and you need to guess the idea (ships positions and lenghts) by your own means.


EDIT: Is like Bill Spight says, seems that it took me a long while to write my post