Like I said, I agree with you. Although, in that regard, while we might venture that all pros have great reading ability, I'm not sure if we have data on how they got there.

I would suspect that just about all pros have spent a lot of time doing go problems and enhancing their reading ability. But I suppose it's theoretically possible that a pro achieved their reading ability by an indirect means.

However, while this possibility exists (though I think it is unlikely), I still agree with you that focusing specifically on reading everything seems to be a universally great way to improve.

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be immersed

Both of you are missing my point. I will try to clarify.



I share this assumption. I still do not think that there will be a methodology or technique that will be the most rational, given the premise, for every given individual.



Yes and no.

The confusion here is coming from the fact that many players, include both of you, are associating "reading" with "visualizing."

I disagree that it holds for everyone that the best way to improve by doing tsumego is to sit on one's hands and visualize the "reading." I think there are a number of people (CSamurai may or may not be an example) who will not learn best this way. Some people will best learn to read by approaching tsumego proactively e.g. playing out the actual variations on a board or a screen. Not because they are learning a different skill, they are still learning "reading." The way they learn is simply different.

You should understand this Kirby. You have said that you always have to see for yourself when learning. Some people may learn better when they do for themselves.

To summarize: Doing tsumego to learn reading is universally important. But how people do tsumego in order to best learn reading may differ. The best way to decide this is to see which results in actual progress.

Let's back up. The part that you quoted is right here:


Your current claim is this:


So you seem to agree that to "learn reading" is a rational way to improve.

The only other part that there is to nagano's statement, which you quoted is the part about reading all the way.

So you seem to suggest that some people can learn reading by doing something other than reading "all the way".

This is what I was referring to in this part of my post:



So I think that it may be possible for some people to improve their reading ability by clicking through sequences or memorizing shapes, but I kind of doubt that it will be more effective than visualization.

Yes, I haven't proven this, but if I had to wager money, I'd bet that the guy that's studied by practicing visualization will beat out the guy that hasn't.

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be immersed

I guess I disagree with this. I think that this is the best way for anybody. I could be wrong about it, but if I have to choose one way or the other, I'd have to go with visualization.

I think of visualization as exercise. It strains my mind when I try to do a hard problem. I think of clicking through a sequence as kind of fun, but it doesn't make me think at all.

Just from personal experience, I'm inclined to think that the exercise that strains my mind is more effective.



I guess that, to me, if somebody is not actually reading the entire sequence out, they are not really "doing" much. I think of visualization as doing. I think of just clicking through a sequence as "guessing".

I'm sure that there may be a positive side effect to seeing a bunch of shapes, but it is hard for me to believe that it is as effective as visualization.

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be immersed

I do not disagree with Nagano regarding that. I understood his used of "reading all the way" to be narrower than it should, based on the context. In disagreeing what what Chew Terr presented as the gist of CSamurai's post, there were two possibilties:

A) Reading all the way really means reading all the way. Every. Single. Possibility. I disagree that this is necessary, it seems silly to think that it would be, and I don't think anyone reads out every branch of the tsumego they do.

B) Reading all the way means visualizing (what people take to mean "reading" commonly) before checking the answer or playing anything out.

Maybe I misunderstood. I dismissed A because I don't think it would have been a charitable reading at all. Plus, B was context relevant. CSamurai never said that he just started skipping over variations based on his ability to spot vital points, he said:



Where "first" and "second" ideas do not seem to be the only ones which he plays out:



By any indication CSamurai is being relatively thoroughgoing with his approach. He simply is not visualizing it all the way. The patterns he's learned merely drive what moves he checks first, which unless I am horribly mistaken, is how even those who sit on their hands and visualize it all proceed.

In any case, you still seem to disagree with me.



Why? Is it that difficult to imagine that different people learn by different associative methods? Mental representations are not uniform. Some people do arithmetic visually, others do it through an internal verbal representation, some count on their fingers. Some dream in black and white. Some people can play music by ear, others have to learn by kinesthetic practice.



Why? I realize you lack evidence, but what's the important difference between the two modes of computation (one relying on visual representations, the other on kinesthetic*)

*- The representation for the second type might still be visual, they may just be better able to process visual representations by associating images with actions in the learning process.

-----------------------------

You posted again before I could respond:

Your personal experience is not a good ground for generalizing about other people in this context.

That's about all I can say, except to try to open your mind enough to imagine that what you experience through visualization, someone else approximately experiences when they play something out. It shouldn't be too hard, try to think of a skill you've learned where you didn't primarily approach it by visualizing the activity.

It strikes me as odd, considering how you defended MW in another thread by cautioning others about making assumptions regarding where someone else is coming from, that you are being somewhat dismissive here.

Monadology:

Yes, it is possible that my personal experience does not reflect that of others. But I am just reluctant to believe that the mind works that way. Nobody's really sure, of course. There are a lot of diet plans, for example, to get people to lose weight. I might think that some of them are bogus, even though some people say that they work for them.

The reason I think that just clicking through variations is not as effective is because the only way I see it working is if it were to work for the precise shape that you are clicking through.

I do think that you will start to get a "feel" for how tsumego works by doing it this way. But I think that you still get this feel by visualization.

I also think that just clicking through variations can lead to more negative effects than good ones. That's because, by definition, you are training yourself by not really thinking much. If you train yourself not to think ahead, it seems to me that it will be more difficult to think ahead in an actual game.

---

If you want to contrast this with the situation with MW, I am not condemning anybody for "studying by clicking", if they choose to do so. They are perfectly free to do that.

I just do not see how it is effective compared to actually thinking ahead (and in the same way, I do not necessarily share the same views as MW on every topic).

---

You can play go without thinking, and you may get some benefit from experience. But go is a thinking game, and I think it's important to train your thinking.

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be immersed

When nobody is really sure, the best bet is to let results speak for themselves. Advocating a hard-line methodology before the fact is just going to make it more difficult to get anywhere determining what's really effective.



I'm not sure what you mean here. Why wouldn't it work for any shape? And it's not "just" clicking through variations, as if it's a mindless activity. I can lazily start visualizing tsumego solutions just as easily.



Maybe not everyone can get this from visualization.



Once again, it's not mindless. Mindless clicking is a straw man case.

Do you know a dan player that has not practiced reading via visualization?



How? Are you sure that you are actually visualizing the solutions? Maybe the problems are not difficult enough.




Think about the difference between visualization and just clicking. With visualization, you put the shape in your mind, and imagine it. With clicking, you are not putting a shape in your mind - you are just observing.

Putting shapes in your head requires actively considering hypothetical possibilities.

Clicking doesn't require this. It is just watching what happens.

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be immersed

It is not very difficult for a regime to be constructed around a methodology that passively eliminates and discourages those who are not adept at that methodology. This further makes it appear as if the methodology itself is the only possibility.

Not that you know any dan players who have not practiced reading by playing things out on the board. You know, in all those actual games they're playing. This case is not sufficient for isolating the variable.



Difficulty has nothing to do with it. I just start picturing stones being put down. Mindlessly. Just like someone could click mindlessly.

Then there's the way it actually should be done. Which is THINKING about which stones you visualize or put down. The THINKING is not the same as the REPRESENTATION.



People can also consider hypothetical possibilities without "putting shapes in your head". Also putting shapes in your head does not actively require considering hypothetical possibilities. It just requires me to put shapes in my head. I don't have to give it any thought at all.

Clicking is only "watching what happens" when you're watching someone else click. But the idea is that you click. Which means it's both "clicking" and "watching what happens", but ideally, it's "thinking" "clicking" and "watching what happens"

Just like visualizing. With visualization you still learn by watching what happens (in addition to the other necessary factors like thinking about it).

When you click mindlessly, you can see stones on the board. You can see a position.

If you do it in your head, you are required to keep this image in your head - this takes brain power.

I do not understand how you can visualize the problem without thinking.

Storing the "representation", which you reference, in your head takes mental work, because that storage is happening in your head. If you put the stones on the board, it does not take mental work to store the image of the stones in your head. You just look at it.




I do not see how storing the image in your head does not take brain power.



Right here. The "thinking" part that you mention! That happens in your head. That's the important part of this process.

Visualization keeps the whole thing in your head. If you click WITHOUT first visualizing, you have missed the "thinking" step. This is the part that I think is problematic.

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be immersed

Kirby is probably guilty of generalizing from one example.

But I think he's a lot closer to the truth. Doing it in your head (even if you mentally throw stones down at random) at a minimum practices the vital skill of holding a mental representation of the board in your head. Clicking on a screen does not do that.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

So he goes "I prefer to work go problems on my computer by clicking rather than using a book," and igo "it's all in your head".

Maybe it can, again, be compared to physical exercise. When I go to the gym, I typically run on the treadmill. I get pretty tired when I run at a fast pace for 30 minutes. Even aside from my feeling, I can tell how much I've worked out from my sweat!

Some people use the exercise bikes there - which is fine. But when I use the exercise bike, I have to use it for a really, really long time to get the same amount of sweat. It doesn't feel hard at all compared to running.

Using the exercise bike is certainly useful, but I find running a lot harder. And typically, running helps me to lose weight a bit quicker.

The exercise bike still has benefit - and maybe it can be easier to stick to a routine of using it every day. But if I can run every day, I think I'll lose weight faster.

Playing moves out on the board is kind of like the exercise bike. It still requires some effort to exercise properly, but you it's a bit easier than its counterpart (running/visualization).

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be immersed

Yes, but the only brain power it requires is the brain power used for visualization. Which is a necessary step if you're going to be using the visualization to read (compute). But in itself being able to hold the picture in your head will not help very much. I can practice learning to visualize intricate cubist paintings, but that won't help me terribly much trying to paint.

What's important is that you're constructing a mental representation of the state of the game which you then manipulate. What I'm contesting is that the mental representation must be purely visual in order to compute with it, in the same way that people can compute arithmetically using a variety of mental representations.




It takes brain power but it does not require me to think.

Let me put it this way: I could memorize the image of every joseki ever, all as a complete newbie to Go without any comprehension whatsoever of what they accomplish, what their appropriate use is, without thinking about variations or why they are played in that order. It will certainly require brain power! But it will not require thinking!




No. Visualization ≠ thinking. Being in your head ≠ thinking. You can think WITHOUT visualizing BEFORE clicking.



I think the perceptual datum of the board present at any game you are playing can function just as well as any visual mental representation. Unless you have since gone blind. Not that mental representation must always be visual.

It probably is true that playing it out is more susceptible to a lazy approach. But that just means we need to discourage the lazy approach, not the method.

I disagree. If you have no picture in your head, how do you know where to play when you are actually in a game? If you have no picture in your head, how can you really say that you are reading?



The "mental representation" that you're referring to is exactly what I'm referring to when I talk about visualization. The mental representation that you have in your head does not have to fit a particular picture.




Yes, of course. To make a move, you need more than just the image of the board. You also need to think about what future positions you want to get to after that. But in order to do this, you need a representation of something.

That is the point. Visualization practices storing this representation. Playing out on a board does not.

In both cases, you need to decide choices on where to play next.



Visualization is a part of thinking. You say that you can think WITHOUT visualizing. What are you thinking about, then? If it involves a board position (or some representation of game state), you'd better have that board position in your head. :-p

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be immersed

=/= = =

Perhaps you meant != or <> ?

I meant "does not equal". "=/=" is the notation I have seen used on the internet for that, but I don't really mind editing it to something people are familiar with.



It's supposed to approximate this.

Ah, you meant ≠. I've never seen anyone use "=/=" before.

No biggie, I'm just being a donkey.

How does a blind-from-birth person navigate with no "picture" in his head? I confess that it involves a "picture" in the sense that it involves representation but it is not a "picture" in the sense that it is visual.



The best way to show you what I am thinking about is to take a piece and place it on the board. I am thinking the playing out of a variation. I am thinking the actual kinesthetic doing. In the same way that you don't have to draw your visual representation, I do not need to play out my kinesthetic representation.

Right. This is the "picture" that I'm talking about. It doesn't have to look a particular way. When you're visualizing a tsumego problem, you could have the pieces look like marshmallows or something even more weird.

But the point is, you have some representation of game state that you want to do something with.

If you click the board without keeping this representation of game state in your head, then you cannot evaluate any future possibilities of game state, because you are not tracking any such representation.



Interesting...

So you mean that the representation of the game state that you have is stored kinesthetically? If you have a representation of the game state, I guess that would be fine, but I'm not sure how you would distinguish between different game states in your mind, simply by touch or movement.

If I play a move at T13, how does it feel different than playing one at A10?

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be immersed