From: asek@acad2.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Subject: Re: Strategic computations, expensive games
Date: 5 Sep 92 16:30:21 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska


Of course, "go programming theory" is much easier to discuss than
"go programming practice."  Paradoxically?  GO-GOD #1 vs. GO-GOD #2
is a trivial problem for the GO-GODs.

The "best move" may be the "winning move" but there may be six or seven
"winning moves" from a given position.  So would you say that they are
all "best moves"?   Seems to me that "best move" implies just one move.

With six or seven winning moves, any of them are "good moves".

It's a restriction on the Game of GO to say that the objective is to win.
There have been discussions on the pedagogical aspects, teaching, promoting,
etc., which are all important to the Game of GO.  If the game is not popular
then the tradition dies, or the players of today (being numbered less)
have less opportunity to be challenged by the attentions of a field at large.
I don't believe that it's ultimately useful to characterize GO as simply
a theoretical problem devoid of any relationship or connection to the
organization of society, politics, culture and art, etc.  On the other
hand, one can argue that GO deserves an independent status in order to
preserve its "purity" (whatever that is).

To say that the purpose of a game is to win is like saying that the purpose
of life is to overpopulate the planet or the purpose of politics is to
acquire power and influence over others (be or worship a King/Queen).  
It's like saying that the purpose of art is to be stuffed into museums or
the purpose of biomedicine is to cure all disease and rid the world of risk.
Perhaps the purpose of religion is to send everybody to heaven or the purpose
of war is to annihilate the enemy?    In practice, we don't see these purposes
carried forward with impunity to their absolute conviction.

A really successful GO program has to do more than win; it must entertain.
It must be pretty, as software it must sell computer hardware.  I'm not
suggesting that we build a "hypnotism device", because we already have too
many of those.  I don't think we need more cults in our culture or more
messes in our messages.  It should have some bells and whistles and maybe
help keep the kids out of trouble -- maybe divert them from committing crimes.

Children are not going to stay with an instructional program that rips them
to pieces; they need a guide which will just stay one step ahead and sometimes
lose, for the sake of encouragement.  It should be a loss that is not obvious
as a deliberate loss; children are perceptive and will detect when something
is just being handed to them on the silver platter.  That also loses interest.

In practice a device is going to be under the clock, just as the players.
There are certain sequences which will lead into difficult positions that
require more time to analyze.  So, if one is technically "behind" in a 
certain position, one strategy is to complicate the position so that the
opponent has to use more and more time to achieve the theoretical win.
The time restriction then runs up against the other problem that the win
is not clearly detected within the time specified by a tournament clock.
Due to the clock (which is part of the game), a position that is technically
"behind" can later become a position which is technically "ahead" if the
opponent cannot find the particular forcing sequence within the budgeted
time for analytic search.   I claim, also, that this feature of practicality,
rather than the theoretical conclusions, makes for a more interesting game.

In other posts it has been proposed that "game complexity" be measured by
the number or quantity of send/receive messages required to describe the
given game to someone in the dark.  This definition is also not rigorous
because of coding principles.  The amount of information stored into one
character or byte is not measured simply by code-size; one also needs to
consider the coding-analyzer and compression-scheme.   Furthermore, the
alphabet itself may be a relic of the positions to be described in the game.
I may use Chinese characters to describe a GO-position but may require
Arabic for a Chess-position.  Neither one of these systems convert very well
to ascii.  Suppose that handwriting is also to be taken into account, as
a special curly cue or brush-stroke which you and I have previously agreed
upon as conveying some special detail.  The person in the dark may have
unlimited decoding resources at his disposal, so everything short of 
transmitting the actual game position itself is available as shorthand.
In this case, one just sends a fax.  But the fax describing the game could
have just been a picture of the position itself.  So the "complexity
comparisons" are just comparisons among faxes.


:=)    'aesop'     asek@acad2.alaska.edu       "    "  -- anon

 
Newsgroups: rec.games.go