Go player creates sensation in TV show

[Jingliu]

In short, this guy is an amateur 6d player famous for an unique talent that most pros can't do. He probably is the only person in China can play and finish blind go games, yes, play go with his eyes folded. Some pros may play about 100-150 moves but they get completely lost when the situation on board evolves more complicated.

Yesterday Bao Yun(his name) challenged something more exciting in a TV show. The staff constructed a large, real-sized hexagonal labyrinth, he must walk in it and find the correct path with HIS EYES FOLDED. It's something like a plot in the horror movie <Cube>. He spent 4 hours in the labyrinth and figured out the correct way. His performance impressed the general audience hugely and it was also a PR that how amazing go players can do.

This is how the labyrinth like and how he walking in it:






This is the full video of the show:
[flash=]http://you.video.sina.com.cn/api/sinawebApi/outplayrefer.php/video_id=249226031/s.swf[/flash]

[EdLee]

Yes, what Mr. Bao did is amazing. However,

how amazing go players can do.

This is a very standard mis-understanding of cause-effect, and correlation.

(a) Mr. Bao's sense of direction and/or memory is literally 1 in a million. (Currently, no one else has done exactly what he has done.
The current ratio is actually 1 over infinity. )

(b) He plays Go (used to be one of the top amateurs in China), and can play blind Go at near-pro level.

The above are facts.

But, if we conclude "he can do the crazy maze because of his Go",
then this is a standard mistake.

See Cargo cult science .

Another ridiculous example:

• McDonald's introduces a new coffee flavor today.
• Yesterday, it rained.
• Therefore, yesterday's rain caused the new McFlavor.

Back to Mr. Bao. Another hypothesis:

• He was born with this amazing gift.
• As a result, he can play blind Go at near-pro level. (Of course, first he had to reach top amateur level at normal Go! )
• As a result, he can do the crazy maze.
• Question: what else can he do with his gift ?

Now, it's entirely possible he can do the maze because of his Go. But to prove this, we need more experiments and evidence.

( Factoid: I actually was in the same room as Mr. Bao at a Beijing Go club, back in 2006. But at that time, I did not know who he was yet. )

[Jingliu]

Hi Edlee, thanks for the correction of a potential logic flaw. I just want to indicate that Bao's performance is a good PR for go. In fact do the hexagonal maze may not as difficult as finishing a blind go game at a near-professional level, but it's easier to understand and accept by general audience. There is an inflow of fresh faces interested in go after Bao's sensational performance in the show.

[EdLee]

Hi Jing, I agree 100% with you that this is nice PR for Go.

I just wanted to point out a very common misconception about cause-and-effect and correlations.

the hexagonal maze may not as difficult as finishing a blind go game at a near-professional level,

The maze is very difficult: even if I have a copy of the map with me, and I can see with my eyes open, I'm not sure I can do it. ^(*)

There's more juicy bits about the maze. I think they left some objects in a few of the hex chambers -- 4, maybe -- and when Mr. Bao was back in the studio in front if the live audience, he had to identify, from memory of course, which were the 4 chambers. He got them all correctly. It's crazy.

____________
^(*) Of course, we can devise a plan if we can see and have a map on a piece of paper with us. We assume all the hex rooms, doors, door knobs, hinges, and the floor, etc. look identical and there are absolutely no visible cues. The TV people must lower us into a room, and they must tell us ahead of time which room it is, and which "direction" we are facing, at the start. Then, as long as we can keep the orientation of the map paper fixed pointing to the same "direction", we can travel through the maze. But, any 1 mistake, and it's finished. Doable, but it requires patience and great focus (as in Go ).

[Mike Novack]

Are there any reports on how the obvious "controls" perform in this maze? For example, people who have been blind from birth? I'm sure most of us have met some blind people who seemed amazingly quick at "learning" their surroundings and able to retain this and so maneuver alng routes and through places they have learned.

[EdLee]

Mike, excellent point. It'd be great if they could do one or more control experiments, as you mentioned, with people who are blind from birth, and/or military special-ops who are trained to perform difficult tasks in very difficult situations, blindfold.

[RobertJasiek]

How is a labyrinth any more difficult for a blind than for a seeing person? Fast walking out of a labyrinth with initially unknown paths is like constructing a tree of paths in the graph of paths including circles, then (mentally) marking each path of the tree at most twice. This should be done much faster than in 4 hours.

[Jingliu]

This is the map. White lines represent the correct path, and red lines represent distractor, other doors(no lines marked)cannot be opened. In the beginning, Bao is directly placed into the center hex by a crane and starts from there. He must figure out one of the two exits first(left or right), when he finds one exit, he must return to the center hex by himself and continues to figure out the other one. Further, there are four token items scattered in the distractor hexes, Bao must also collect them all to finish the challenge.

We don't know whether Bao memorised the map before the challenge, even so, execute it precisely in 4 hours(a long time) without seeing still needs an amazing level of memorisation, orientation and concentration.

[Jingliu]

How is a labyrinth any more difficult for a blind than for a seeing person?

I think a person's physical movement and sense of direction are both greatly hampered when he can't see anything. And there is a big difference between a labyrinth on paper and a real one that you must actually walking in it.

[tentano]

It seems like those doors are why it takes so long. Opening and closing all those doors takes ages ...

[Bantari]

How is a labyrinth any more difficult for a blind than for a seeing person? Fast walking out of a labyrinth with initially unknown paths is like constructing a tree of paths in the graph of paths including circles, then (mentally) marking each path of the tree at most twice. This should be done much faster than in 4 hours.

I was actually thinking exactly the same thing.
Looking at the maze, you see 2 feet in front of your face in each direction, and in each direction you see the same thing. It does not seem to be a huge improvement to see that instead of seeing nothing at all.

[SpongeBob]

The distractors are local though and not interconnected. It does seem possible to figure them out and then continue on the right path.

[mitsun]

Looking at the map, it appears there are two solutions. If you were required to trace out both paths from the same start, the total number of doors which need to be opened is something like 80-90. After getting out of the initial circle, the simple algorithm "always go through the righmost door" would get you through the maze with around 50% more door openings that the minimal solution, with no memory requirements.

[ez4u]

How is a labyrinth any more difficult for a blind than for a seeing person?

I think a person's physical movement and sense of direction are both greatly hampered when he can't see anything. And there is a big difference between a labyrinth on paper and a real one that you must actually walking in it.

I think there are some assumptions here that may/should not apply to this situation. Since Mr. Bao is assured that there are no chairs and trash cans to trip over inside the maze and that each cell in the maze has the same physical size and so on, his physical movements should be much less hampered than in the course of his daily life. A sighted person would have an advantage in terms of sense of direction only if the maze were constructed such that there were visual clues remaining that would aid the sighted person. For example if the equipment stuck to the ceiling of a television study were readily viewable and allowed the sighted person to orient themselves. If instead the maze had ceilings on the cells that ensured that all visual clues were eliminated, then a sighted person would be at a disadvantage compared to Mr. Bao since they would lack his practice at navigating a world without such clues. Furthermore it would be quite remarkable if they managed to build the maze inside a television study without leaving any audio clues. I assume that Mr. Bao is much more used to using available sounds (air conditioning, crowd noises, etc.) to orient himself than the typical sighted person.