John Fairbairn wrote:
Quote:
It implies that dead stones mattered.
We are getting into areas where my brain hurts. The simplest analgesic seems to be to ask: why?
Or more precisely, can you explain why to a bear of little brain who starts with the following assumptions.
1. The various mentions of bent four in texts (as opposed to problems) are all embedded in contexts to do with terminology. There is no direct mention of rules.
That does not mean that Bent Four is irrelevant to the rules. I won't strain your brain further by mentioning Grice's maxims, which are not logical, but common sensical, and not particularly restricted by culture. While they may be violated, they are an aid to interpretation.
John Fairbairn wrote:
2. However, it could be argued that "dead by rule" is implied. That would be one inference is you make the translation "bent four in the corner is dead at the end of the game." But there is another possible inference - see below.
Well, as we know, the Bent Four shape itself does not appear in play if what is called Bent Four in the corner is (Edit: considered to be) dead. And it is not the stones that make the shape that are dead, but the stones that would capture those stones if they made the shape. OC, none of this is in the text, but as go players we know what is meant by Bent Four which is dead.
John Fairbairn wrote:
3. But you could equally argue that the sense intended is that "bent four will remain dead at the end of the game" and so it is a waste of time playing it out. It is not a rule, but just a straightforward observation of what happens in practice if you do try to play it out.
Right. And that implies that the players did not play it out. That's quite different from the impression you get from stone scoring, which suggests that the game was played out, until only the eye points necessary for life were left. (OC, nothing prevented players from stopping play earlier and determining the score as if the board were all played out. No sense being boring.)
John Fairbairn wrote:
Esoteric, modern arguments about what happens if there a double ko elsewhere and so on hardly seem likely to apply. They may not have even been seen or imagined. After all, if the context is all about interesting positions such as Flower Six or the fact that liberties matter with Rectangular Six in the corner, you would expect some mention of equally interesting things live double kos and weird sekis.
Now that you mention that fact, I think you are right about that.
John Fairbairn wrote:
I therefore would argue that the approach then was not rule based but common-sense based. The imposition of the modern mathematical rules mindset on ancient go is almost certain to be an anachronism.
No expletive deleted!
I found it interesting in the 1990s, after learning combinatorial game theory (CGT), that the simplest go rules in terms of CGT, apart from straight no pass go, are territory rules with a group tax. I was completely gobsmacked to find out later that one form of ancient go was, in fact, played under territory rules with a group tax!
How about that!
Not that the ancients channeled Professor Berlekamp from the future, but that amazing fact shows two things. First, that territory scoring is not logically flawed, as a number of people believe. It may be derived from impeccable logic. And second, that it is not necessary for territory scoring with a group tax to have evolved from stone scoring, perhaps originally as a method of simplifying the calculation of the score, as in the AGA rules.
I have gone even further to show that the concept of territory itself, where dead stones are included, can emerge from no pass go itself. Not that that's where the idea came from. It's a footnote, but it's my footnote.
John Fairbairn wrote:
Now, starting from this basis, one alternative scenario I can imagine (which is highly speculative but I think safer than imposing modern mindsets) is that under stone scoring a group required two eyes to live, but when they looked at bent four at the end of the game they were a bit baffled. They could see that it was "not alive". So they treated it as a seki. It was "not alive" = "dead" in that restricted sense. The character used, 亡, can mean defunct, to perish, but is not the same as 死. It can (in ancient texts) have connotations of "let's just forget about it, put it one side, etc." Stone counting can then continue without removing any stones from the board. (It's odd, incidentally, that sekis get so little mention in old texts.)
Then why mention it at all? Especially since the term, Bent Four, has lasted through the ages. And it is odd that 亡 would mean what today we call alive. Surely the ancients knew that there was a ko lurking in Bent Four. And if they were using stone scoring they could eliminate ko threats with no penalty. Why not play it out under those conditions?
"Well, you know. there is this interesting shape called Bent Four in (next to?) the corner that actually doesn't appear as such on the board, but we still call it that. And by the way, it's defunct. Not that we know what to do with it." (I kid the ancients.)
No, I think that the ancients understood Bent Four and, like the modern Japanese, regarded it as dead.
John Fairbairn wrote:
For those who wish to follow this discussion but feel hampered by not being familiar with the original texts, I will try to make some of the issues clearer by looking first at the Dunhuang text.
角旁曲四局竟乃亡: 角 is corner; 旁 is side, but in ancient Chinese also had the meaning of askew or crooked; 曲 is bent, so there is a bit of tautology there; 四 is four; 局 is game; 竟 is end (the Dunhuuang actually uses a non-Unicode variant); 乃 can mean so, thereupon, thereby, thus, but is possibly being used for 仍 still, to remain; 亡 I have already mentioned. So we end up with a text that tells us something like "bent four in the corner is/remains not alive". And that's it in toto. No mention of rules, counting, seki, passes or the price of fish.
Many thanks, John.
I was wondering if 旁 might mean
beside? After all, it is not the stones that are actually in the corner that are dead, but the stones next to those stones.
As for the Bent Four stones remaining dead, why would anyone think that they were dead in the first place? Surely the text is meant to indicate that they are dead. That is, that they can be removed at the end of the game without capturing them. Since when do we have evidence from problems or games that Bent Four is dead, the 1300s or something? Not exactly a modern mindset.
John Fairbairn wrote:
Later writers, as was the wont of ancient Chinese gentlemen, in their version of our {quote} {unquote} copied this phrase and tweaked it. In the space of nearly a millennium language had changed. But, more importantly, it seems the rules of go had also changed.
By the time of the Thirteen Chapter Classic this text had subtly altered to 角盘曲四局终乃亡 (but the terminological context remained the same). We now have 盘 'coiled around' instead of 旁, but the meaning is essentially the same: crooked around the corner'. 终 is used (understandably enough) for the weird form of the character 竟, but the meaning of 'end of the game' remains the same.
Coiled around makes a lot of sense when you consider that it is the stones that are coiled around the corner on either side that are dead, not the stones that are actually in the corner.
John Fairbairn wrote:
Later still, as in Zhu Changfang's book, the sentence has another subtle change: 角盘曲四局终乃亡死. So Zhu apparently felt the need to add 死. If 亡 meant 'dead' as opposed to 'not alive' that would be pure tautology. My suggestion is that we should consider the possibility that he added 死 (dead as in the Dead Parrot sketch - expired, kaput etc) because the rules of go had changed and he wanted to emphasise that the phrase (because of the rule change) actually meant the stones were dead and there was no seki.
Interesting point.
I am reminded of the Tok Pisin phrase, kilim daid.
John Fairbairn wrote:
I stress again, this is all speculation. We are not just building a house with clay and no straw. We are closer to having just one handful of clay. Other interpretations are possible. But I do feel very uneasy if those other interpretations are just imposing modern mindsets, especially if they invent straw such as pass rules out of thin air.
IMO, the modern mindset that says that territory go is illogical should be done away with, made defunct, uprooted, {Edit: laid to rest).
John Fairbairn wrote:
Sometimes it is better to say, "We just don't know."
But it's fun to speculate, isn't it?