OC, I know that even good theories can receive opposition; I have made the remark in the hope for receiving some opposition:) New theories become known because a) some realise their quality immediately and praise the usefulness or b) opposition generates the chance to defend the theory and the related discussion creates awareness of the theory's quality. Since I am very confident to defend the theory (or any of my contributions to go theory...), attempts of opposition are welcome!:)
Actually I am rather shocked by the relative ignorance so far because it seems to mean that most players cannot appreciate even the basic aspects of the theory:
1) The difference of influence and thickness is explained at all. This is a great achievement! When I learned these concepts, I had to find out the difference by myself because teachers and literature did not explain properly. During that learning process, the two concepts overlapped.
2) Influence and thickness are explained clearly as being composed of connectivity, life and territory, generated by stones and affecting intersections and their stones. As a kyu player, influence and thickness were nebulous concepts to me, for which I had only a very rough understanding (walls had something to do with thickness and light ray influence was something related to moyo spheres). I had to discover a better understanding by myself because teachers and literature did not explain.
Already my informal descriptions of influence and thickness
http://senseis.xmp.net/?Influencehttp://senseis.xmp.net/?Thicknesssave a learner of these concepts years of effort for just understanding what they are about.
When will the first player thank me for saving him great amounts of learning time concerning the two concepts? All I have gotten so far is passive tolerance of the explanations on the sensei's webpages. Do people even notice the great importance of a clear explanation (of what influence and thickness are) previously missing in all (at least English) literature including that by professionals?
Once you can appreciate the basics, understanding the next (degree and value) level of my theory makes more sense.