Re: computer-go: Complexity & SW

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 13:26:27 -0700 (PDT)
   From: Michael D Richard <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
   MIME-Version: 1.0
   Sender: owner-computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Precedence: bulk
   Reply-To: computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
   Content-Length: 1098

   Hi,
	   Mr. Brown's mailbox is full, and he is unable to respond
   to my request that he post from a subscribed address.  

   ---------- Forwarded message ----------
   To: owner-computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Subject: BOUNCE computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:    Non-member submission
       from ["Richard Brown" <rbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]   

   Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 08:17:54 -0500
   From: "Richard Brown" <rbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


   Ever neat!  Nice demo of how differently humans and computers relate
   to the same problem.

   Don Dailey wrote:

   > Now this game is fairly simple to describe, but it's probably a little
   > awkward  to play, constantly  having to  keep  up with the nubmers you
   > have chosen and  always trying to figure out  if any combination of  3
   > adds up to 15.

   If I get to go first, I pick "5".

   If you go first and don't pick "5", I pick "5".

   Now I only have two numbers to worry about.


You still  have to worry about  the opponents moves,  he can still win
without having to move through the center (and so can you!)

Setting  up traps and  such  without the   visual representation of  a
regular tic-tac-toe diagram becomes a labor intensive task.  Still, if
you played this version of the game and practiced,  I think your brain
would develop the needed patterns sooner or later  and this might even
be  a useful psychology   experiment.  I think if   I was required  to
master this version of the game,  however, I would simply memorize the
magic square table, and play the regular version  of tic-tac-toe in my
mind, converting between the 2 representations.

I think their is a lot of "magic" in the way  we represent problems in
our  brains AND on a computer.   I have often  wondered if Go or Chess
was  poorly represented  on  a  computer by  our  natural tendency  to
impose our own cognitive view upon the computer.   

A trivial example of this is the concept  of a 2 dimensional Go board.
In a computer, memory is layed  out like a  single dimension list, and
any 2 dimensional representation we thrust upon it is done by trickery
and deciet (via the compiler), to accomodate  our own brains.  I use a
single one dimensional array in my Chess and Go programs to accomodate
the   computer and  get  a performance  boost,   but  the most natural
representation for us humans is to set the board up as a 2 dimensional
array.  I cite   this  as  a  minor example,   modern processors   and
compilers  are not so bad at  simulating n-dimensional data structures
but it does illustrate a point.

So perhaps  we are confined by our  own perceptions, not being able to
see a much better  way to do things (from  the computers point of view
or even our own?)


Don