palapiku wrote:
So what do you mean by strong at Go? Obviously older people can get strong at Go for some definition of strong. The whole point was that they can't get as strong as young people
The "some definition of strong" would be high level amateur dan, based on the "8d in 3 years" premise from the link at the beginning of this thread, which was the premise that sparked a discussion about limitations.
There are lots of young people that probably will not ever exceed amateur dan level. There are plenty of adults that I think could also make it to similar levels. I think this is a reasonable definition of "strong" and it is also comparative.
In terms of potential, outside of the particular case of youths who are trained and selected specifically for Go potential and strength (in other words, those trained to be Go professionals), I really don't think there is a relevantly large difference in the general population for the upper limit of strength whether one starts young or old.
EDIT: Before anyone suggests it, I am not basing this entirely on the track record of significant ideas in philosophy. That was brought up mainly as a counterexample to a specific post made by Hare that compared Go to academic physics and made a claim about the mind's receptiveness to new ideas past the age of 25, though I do think it suggest something about the continued flexibility of the mind into old age.