Excellent.

If you are talking about a curve made out of dots do you weight them as well? Clearly not every area is equally important/easy to grasp.

Also some might be interchangable, but not in a 1:1 ratio.

Hi pak0, interesting question. I didn't think of weighing them.
As in, "some basics are more important than others,
so grasping them is worth more than others." Interesting!
I'm not sure. From this thread.

Also potentially interesting, to me at least, is a premise that "some go-dots, either individually or in combination, are a pre-requisite of other go-dots". Some of the finer aspects of fighting with thickness or sabaki are pretty much useless in the hands of a beginner. Of course, this is because they don't understand them, but importantly I think is the fact that they are probably incapable of understanding them because the building blocks upon which they start to make sense aren't currently in place.

A friend asks:Go-dots are the basics, fundamentals. They don't map to any physical elements of Go, or to any of the rules.
Some examples from chess:

• we can assign rough values to the pieces: pawn=1, bishop==knight==2, rook=5, queen=9, king=infinite; to help evaluate the position.
• in the opening, be careful if you move a particular piece more than once, because you may be losing tempo; instead, you could develop another, unmoved piece.
• in general, the order of development in the opening: first develop your minor pieces, then the rooks, and finally, the queen.
• if you pull your queen out too early, she may get in trouble because your opponent can attack her and profit from the attack.
• beware of a doubled pawn -- it could be a weakness.

The basics include things like basic skills or techniques, basic strategies. Often, there are exceptions to any of the basics. That's one reason they are so difficult to master,
because it takes a tremendous amount of work, time, and (painful) experience to learn when something works, and when it fails miserably.

What is the difference between a Go-dot, and a Go proverb?

_________________
Regards,

Peter

First off, I really like the analogy.



I wonder about this claim. My instincts are the opposite, that Jane was described as having a better study regimen, but if Tom decides to focus on improving seriously, he'll find it easier to. Going from, say, 10kyu joseki to 8kyu joseki seems easier than 1d to 2d. That is, Jane will have to increase all of her skills a dan level, while Tom merely has to double back and pick up some easier kyu lessons he missed.

Or in the analogy, Jane collected 80% of the go-dots each level and now needs to collect 80% of the difficult 2 dan go-dots. Tom ran ahead, so he already has some 2nd, 3rd and 4th dan dots. He needs more, but he can go back to the 5kyu level and pick them up with comparative ease.

Hi Peter,

Examples of Go-dots:

• Learn to see ataris. ( Understanding of ataris. )
  By the way, this is not digital, not either-or. It's a continuum.
  We have documented evidence that even a 9p pro can sometimes miss a self-atari.
• Understanding of liberties. Also a continuum, and related to the above.
• Understanding of throw-ins. Also a continuum, and related to the above.
• Understanding of vital points. For example, the vital point of the "rabbit five" shape.
  Also a continuum, and related to the above.

Examples of Go proverbs:

• Stay away from thickness. ( This is a huge trap, like most or all Go proverbs. )
• Don't peep where you can cut. ( Also a big trap. )
• There's death in the hane. ( Another trap. )

Sorry removed post.

Thanks.
( my emphases. )
This is an interesting portion of the discussion. I've seen cases --
not isolated cases, but numerous cases over the course of over 20 years --
where removing bad habits turned out to be much more difficult
than never having developed them to begin with.
The evidence I've seen came from Go as well as other fields.

It's a big assumption that it's "easy" to go back and pick up missed Go-dots,
or to undo "damage."

A related, though not identical situation, is discussed in the classic,
The Mythical Man Month. There, Mr. Brooks talks about software development,
and one of his observations or theses is it is much more costly
to correct mistakes late in the development cycle than much earlier on.
I understand this is different from Go learning.

The analogy is not "bullet"-proof (pun intended ).
We need to look at the specific cases. For example, if Tom has picked up so many bad habits that
it takes THREE years or more for a good teacher to remove them, then during that time,
he may remain "stuck" at his rating, while Jane can advance. It becomes too hypothetical --
now we need to look at real-world, statistical data for evidence.

Hi topazg, yes, very much so.

These inter-dependencies are not modeled in the simple
Go-Man analogy. They can be added, of course, but I'm not focusing
on the exact mechanics and nuances of the imaginary Pac-Man variant,
but on helping more people understand some of the most often
asked and discussed areas of Go, on servers and forums.

The irony -- maybe it's not the right word -- is that Go itself
is very visual, and I'm still trying hard to come up
with other, visual analogies to help understand
some aspects of Go, and of understanding itself.

So Polama, topazg, ( and others, of course )

Here are two more analogies I'm working on.
They are much less developed and much less "field tested" as Go-Man.
Mainly because they are much more recent developments.
Go-Man has been in my head for over a year now, I think,
maybe even longer. That's one problem of not writing down every single
new idea that came along, with its inception date.

I request the right to remove Posts if immediately after creation i am unhappy with them, both technically and morally.

You do, and you did

And Ed has the right to quote what you had written and respond in some form or another too. The fact you've expressed unhappiness with what you'd written shows that you don't necessarily endorse the content or tone as you had at the point of original posting, but you did still write it and leave it there for long enough to be heard and thought about by someone else.

I left it there for a few moments maybe then thought the better of it. I don't think it shows courtesy to then expose it, without comment so actually undoing my action.

The actual comment was my first thought. My second thought is "live and let live". I'll leave it here.

Go knowledge is much more elusive than a substance that you either have or don't have. This is because these "go dots" have only elementary significance when viewed independently. They achieve their power when they are understood in the context of other go dots. An analogy that works along these lines, for example atoms forming molecules forming substances, or sounds forming words forming sentences might better get to the heart of the matter.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Yes, exactly.

This is why continuum appears so frequently;
many things, related to understandings, are not digital, not "either-or".

Often, they are continuums. ( posts 5-7, 18, 23 )

Culture and Etiquette, 3.

From posts 16-18 of Who needs algebra? --

Part of the reasons for this thread is I'd like to have a better understanding of communication, and communication skills (post 1).

Questions:

• Given the flow of the conversation, was the statement/suggestion, "You need a course in basic economics, I fear" appropriate or called for ?
• Why or why not ?
• Often, it's notoriously difficult to glean the tone of voice from text alone, which can lead to (big) mis-communication.
  On one end of the spectrum, if someone is asking for a Go book recommendation, then one reply might be, "For your level, I suggest The Second Book of Go."
  On another end, we could imagine an un-solicited, "You ignorant fool! You don't know anything about basic economics.
  Why don't you first take Economics for Dummies, then come back and we can chat more, little buddy ?"
  How to gauge the needle ?
• Any relation to Ad hominem ?
• Any relation to bullying ?
• Same questions as above, for the statement/suggestion, "perhaps you should read and learn."

Similar to my suggested analogies for understanding go, there is more to communication than the sum of its parts. As with go, first comes a command of the basics - the equipment used in go and how we place the stones might correspond to words and their pronunciation. The rules of the game might correspond to grammar. Skills such as threatening and protecting weak groups might correspond to making statements and asking questions. Skills such as Life and Death or tesuji might correspond to expressing oneself succinctly or cleverly. Building on these skills, we see that threatening a group for example has ulterior motives - perhaps to make territory, and protecting weak groups likewise allows them to be more effective in the future. In communication, this might correspond to making a case, or presenting an argument. Later, we see that subtleties are involved, that some ways of protecting a group are better than others, and likewise that some ways of presenting an argument are better than others. Why is this so? This comes with a deeper understanding of the game and of communication. Some moves are better than others because they are more effective in ways that someone who is not able to take very many factors into consideration all at once might not be able to see. Some ways of communicating are better than others, because they are more effective for reasons having to do with being able to evaluate a wide variety of factors: the short term goals of the communication, the long term goals, sensibility for the tone of voice, to the reactions and standpoint of ones listeners and readers, recognition of the limits of some forms of communication.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.