John Fairbairn wrote:
My sense of the thinking of people on the "cultural" side of go (and chess) in response to the advent of AI is along the lines of "why should I bother taking an interest now?"
"Why should I bother taking an interest?"
This is a question I have asked myself a lot over the past few months - not just in go, but in many areas of my life. A sense of meaninglessness leads to apathy. Feeling apathetic reduces motivation. Accordingly, to be motivated to do something, finding meaning is important.
So how do you find meaning?
On one hand, it seems like meaning is something that may be hidden in the bushes - something to be discovered after having acquired sufficient life experience. But with recent events in my personal life, I was at a loss to know where in the bushes that meaning was to be found. I read Viktor Frankl's famous book on man's search for meaning. He had some theories on how meaning was acquired (achievements, experiences/relationships, through suffering). But what stood out to me was man's unique capability to assign meaning to things independently of some universal rule.
In other words, maybe meaning isn't hiding in the bushes somewhere. Maybe meaning is something that I can create arbitrarily within my experience of living.
But this doesn't answer the question directly for a given topic: "Why should I bother taking an interest?". For example, if we want to answer the question, "Why should I bother taking an interest in go?"... there isn't a universal answer, except that "One should take an interest in go if one has decided to assign meaning to go". Which begs the next question, "Why should one decide to assign meaning to go?". It becomes recursive:
"Why assign meaning?" --> "Because you've chosen to assign meaning" --> Why choose to assign meaning?" --> "Because you've chosen to choose to assign meaning?"
Until one steps back out of this loop and realizes:
"The process of assigning meaning and achieving enjoyment from that meaning is, in itself, good."
The alternative to assigning meaning to at least some aspects of life is to not assign meaning, which results in a meaningless life. And a meaningless life is not desirable - I think that's close to a universal sentiment...
Coming back to assigning meaning. If the act of assigning meaning to something and finding meaning through that assignment is good, then all that is necessary is to find a medium through which to perform this assignment. Go can be one such medium. But it is only a good medium if you can convince yourself that the meaning you assign to the activity is beneficial.
Here are some potential aspects of go that I believe might make the assignment of meaning beneficial and worthwhile:
- Enjoyment from playing the game. Maybe it's dopamine, or maybe it's something else. But I experience positive sensations when I believe I am winning a game. I experience positive feelings when I've killed a group. I experience positive feelings when, maybe I haven't won, but I feel that I have utilized my brain and played well. I feel positive feelings when I feel that I have stretched my ability. I also feel positive feelings from concentrating on something for a long time. That concentration is nice - it's maybe similar to the famous "flow state". I don't have to worry about my wife dying or global warming or my job or the politics on the other side of the world: I can focus just on the black and white stones and what can happen in that finite, yet infinite board.
- Enjoyment from progress. I have a positive sensation and a feeling of achievement when I realize that I have improved at something. Maybe this is similar to Frankl's point about finding meaning behind achievement. By being "less good" at something, and then becoming "more good" - it's easy to see the "good" in that activity. It feels less like the time you spent on earth has gone to waste - you at least showed improvement at something, which means that you are learning something in your limited time on earth.
- Benefit from study. Similar to playing a game, studying can produce a state of flow and concentration, which invokes positive feelings. Maybe studying in itself is less competitive in the moment than an actual game. So folks who are less competitive may enjoy this aspect of achieving concentration while not worrying about competition. Surely, there's something worthwhile about this.
- Benefit from community. Has AI destroyed the aspect of community? I don't really feel this, because the community itself is one thing that still separates the humans from the AI. While it's nice to concentrate within the boundaries of the go board, being connected to other people brings us in touch with a body of people larger than each one of us as individuals. This can deter feelings of insignificance and/or mortality that one might face when considering meaning in their individual finite life. The community will outlast the player. After I die, the community remains. That's not as good as having eternal life, but at least it's nice to know that part of your memory or whatever will live on.
- The "cultural" side of go. I will agree that some aspects of go "culture" feel different now. Maybe we can see flaws of Sakata or Shusaku more easily now. However, I don't think it necessarily has to be a reason to let go of all meaning behind the game. If a specific "culture" were the only meaningful aspect of go, meaning would be lost whenever a new generation of players rose to the top.
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On the flip side, there may be reasons one might choose not to assign meaning to go. Here are a few I can think of:
- Being absorbed in a game feels good. But maybe it comes at the opportunity cost of spending more time connecting with other people. Maybe it means less time spent outdoors or exercising.
- At the end of the day, you're just putting stones on a board. What makes it different from gomoku or othello? I'm not sure if this argument is as strong. While the physical aspect of putting stones on a board is true, the meaning acquired by being absorbed in the game is in the context of the rules of the game itself, so I don't think we can isolate the activity to just putting stones on a board.
- Losing isn't fun. For those who are competitive, maybe it can feel meaningless to study when you end up losing against others. I suppose, if you choose to assign meaning to go, the competitive nature of the game should not be the only reason for playing, lest you aim to be the best player in the world.
Overall, I believe that go is a perfectly valid *medium* for assigning meaning to an activity in this lifetime. The biggest reason not to choose to do this is in the event that you have another activity or thing in life, which gives you more meaning. In that case, the opportunity cost of playing go is high, given that you might get more bang for your buck assigning meaning to something else. We're here in life, able to divvy up meaning according to what we want. It's like being in a candy store with some cash that can be used only to buy candy at that store. We should certainly not miss the opportunity - we should buy whatever we can with the resources we have: let's not waste any money. But the choice of what distribution of candy to buy...? That's up to you. What selection do you think you'd regret the least?