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Subject: How much radical a new way of thought has to be to be a paradigm?

Author: Joe Besogn

Date: 06:33:56 11/07/00

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On November 06, 2000 at 10:41:01, Fernando Villegas wrote:

>On November 06, 2000 at 09:58:56, Joe Besogn wrote:
>
>>You are, imo, running round in circles due to the usual reasons of vested
>>interests, but also because you argue without even a basic understanding of the
>>terminology.
>>
>>Try: http://cgi.student.nada.kth.se/cgi-bin/d95-aeh/get/kuhneng
>>
>>for a concise description of Kuhn's ideas in the "History of Scientific
>>Revolutions".
>>
>>Then, perhaps, there might be some interest in reading what you have to say on
>>the subject amongst the more enlightened.
>>
>>The descriptions in the article, imo, almost exactly mirror actions and progress
>>within computer chess. That's imo.
>>
>>Although you are unlikely to reach agreement on new/old paradigms, existence of,
>>or whatever, at least you'll have some new agreement on what words mean. That
>>helps.
>>
>>Also useful for you will be the realisation that a paradigm is not a 'chess
>>playing computer program', but a 'system of thought'. The fact that it is
>>possible to take a conventional chess program and apply new ideas to it, does
>>not mean that a paradigm shift has not taken place. The revolutionary shift is
>>in 'ways of thinking' or in 'world view' - rather more difficult than changing
>>code. The paradigm shift, therefore, is in you, in your own head. Some make this
>>shift faster than others, one revolutionary starts it off, some see it soon,
>>some see it later, some never see it at all. The ones that don't see it, deny it
>>exists. The ones that do see it, say "you need to think different". The ones who
>>see it late claim "it's evolutionary, I could do that".
>>
>>Why do I always try to help them ?!
>
>Hi.
>You are right that sharper definitions of words helps, but not so much and not
>always is neccesary, anyway. There is room, in a casual debate as those
>performed here, to some fuzzy logic. I think every one here -or almost- knows
>how radical a "paradigm" is, but nevertheless we all understand that, when
>Thorsten uses it here, he is just referring  to a more modest thing: a new way
>to understand how to program certain functions of a chess program. In that sense
>the word is useful and it would be a kind of pedantry to argue againts him on
>the base of the exact definition of what a paradigm is. Besides, to define words
>tends only to open another field of debate instead of solving it.



>How much
>radical a new way of thought has to be to be a paradigm?

Powerful question. It has to be a new way of thought. In itself the new way of
thought does not need to be so earth-shattering. Often it is a
why-didn't-I-think-of-that or how-obvious or whatever. Einstein only questioned
the idea that velocity vectors could be added together without limit. His
theories flew from the simple-to-us-now idea that there was an upper limit on
the speed of light and on information transfer.

You use the word "radical". Isn't this the key? You imply the paradigm shift is
political, and personal - which it is. Paradigms arise because humans do
science. Science itself is an idea-theory-test-creation builder. Without
personalities, empires, vested interest, humans - science could develop 'freely'
- where every idea comes on its merits, where the how and why gets questioned,
where no idea gains status attached to a book or a figurehead, where all ideas
are equal, where teaching and student material is not restricted to any one
dominant; except this is out of the question - we're humans. Humans make
paradigms. How hard they fight for the old or the new, how much they invested,
their personality, their politics, their assumptions, the things they didn't
think of, how long they spent on it - these quantise your "radical".

If I had to pick one technical assumption of the old paradigm which is turned on
its head by the new - I'ld pick the concept of quiescence. The old paradigm says
search to quiescence, then evaluate the 'simple' quiet position, don't stop the
search in the unclear. The new paradigm says drive into the unclear and evaluate
with knowledge. Unclear is a good place for the new paradigm, it's a killer for
the old.

Radical? It was said to be impossible. AFAIK the argument lasted (lasts) five
years now, since 1995. First is was impossible as per Botwinnik. Not just
impossible, he was smeared as a fraud. Later it was said, ok it's possible, but
it doesn't work on a win/lose results basis - this was the anti-CSTal argument.
Now it is said, maybe it's possible, but it's nothing new - the anti-Tiger
argument. Or it still isn't possible - you lose in the endgame - another
anti-Tiger argument. It could have been evolutionary, if different assumptions
held. But they didn't. So it became political and personal. And radical. The
chief proponents of the old paradigm tried to 'own' computer chess. They'ld been
there, done that, could have done that, did that and proved it didn't work, worn
the tee-shirt, read the book, bought the record. They knew it all. And stuck to
it. For years.

Hence the shift is radical, revolutionary, even. Because of the participants.

What happens to the technology, chess programs, is (will) also be revolutionary.
They will play chess, not checkers. They will have knowledge to take on GMs.
They won't appear to play 3000 tactical and 1700 positional. Ratings won't be
important, and won't be seen to be important. Nobody will buy them because
they'll be too powerful. And a host of things unforeseen.







 Exception made of some
>clear cases -copernican vs tolomean astronomical vision- the issue ios tricky
>anyway.
>Regards
>Fernando




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