Author: Mark Young
Date: 10:42:23 06/14/98
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On June 14, 1998 at 12:38:51, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >Hi all: >I cannot believe that after so many post from one side and another still >nobody seem prepared to accept how complex is this issue respect to the >apparent conflict between fast search and knowledgeable but slow search. >I have even seen a post where Mark said that the path to get the bottom >of the game is search, pure and simple. Yes, but, what kind of search? >Search is just a word, not a thing in itself. Is not the answer, but the >question. So we should go to the beginning and do some questions. Let me >recall some of them: >a) To be faster or stronger on anything else that can be quantitatively >measured is not equivalent to be in the right path. You can be faster >to follow the wrong path. You can dig deeper in the wrong place. You >even can discover something -as alchemists did- trying the wrong method >with the wrong assumption and the wrong ideas. Then is not good argument >to say because this and that has been got thought search THEN we must >continue with that no matter what. >b) Is not the same to be acquainted with the previous point than to have >a real an specific different and best method to replace the first. Is >not enough to say you are digging in the wrong place if don’t say where >that task should be done. If there is not real alternative, then to dig >deeper is the only one for now. So, is not enough to blame at the >“stupidity” of current search methods. >c) Nevertheless, although the advocates of “smart” search instead of >brute force have been incapable of doing much more, that does not mean >they are not aiming at the right directions even if they cannot do much >else than that. To stuck stubbornly in the faster approach and believe >IS the approach just because has given results until now is no smart or >scientific at all. Anything stubbornly and systematically done gives >some results, but they are increasingly less -law of diminishing >returns- and costly. In fact, all scientific and technological >development happens not when a method has failed, but on the contrary, >when it has reached his perfection. The ground is then ripe for a new, >superior principle. To be blind on that after so many historic lessons >is not a showing of intelligence. >d) This new principle surely will be something superior in kind and >level to the actual search, mainly based in the examination of how good >moves are with respect to parameters established in a table. That there >is another method is no fantasy: just take a look a at what experts or >above players do when playing chess. Surely they does not go move after >move looking his possibilities and then measuring how good they are or >not. They look at the position as such and understanding what is >happening -a game of chess is an historic process, not an static math >problem- they decide what should be done and only then they begin to >look for moves and only at the end of all this they perform calculations >to test the moves chosen on the ground of the previous understanding. >e) The previous point is not to say that tactical calculations are >inferior, meaningless, etc. A game is lost or won on the ground of >specific, tactical moves. That is the reason computers are so strong. >But even if you can win because of tactical shots without any concern >for “what is happening “ in the game, that does not prove the game IS >JUST tactical shots. We must differentiate between what chess is and how >players can play it. Millions of games are won of lost by patzers that >have no idea of nothing, and nevertheless a chess result is produced. >One of them won, the other lost. Does that means the winner had >understood the game? Equally, thousands of games are lost by humans >against computers, each day: does that means computer have a real grasp >of the game and so no further investigation about different method is >needed, just more of the same, more speed ? >f) The fact that the supposedly current smarts programs -as CSTAL- does >not show to be that smart and fall in many traps, tactical shots, etc, >does not prove anything, either. First steam locomotives were a lot >slower than horses. CSTAL is a kind of experiment . Maybe even is a >complete failure. But, again, that does not mean a thing. The debate is >not between CSTAL and the rest of the programs, but between search >methods based in the examination of many K-moves, one by one, of another >method that try to understand the position as strong human player do. I >would like to see a debate opened here on the ground of this last >specific point: how a program could simulate that kind of qualitative >understanding of position and his dynamic. Or is not possible? Bob? Don? >Amir? I don’t think anyone is saying that the slow and smart concept will not work. I am not saying that. I am just trying to explain how the other concept of fast and dumb also works well to achieve positional understanding. Since chess is nothing more then a huge tactical tree. The positional understanding is in the search. Since the so-called smart and slow programs only have a very low grade of positional understanding. It seems to be better to use a fast search today to gain positional understanding. This way the program is not guessing as much about a position. It sees what needs to be done. The argument is not about which concept is ultimately better. The argument is about trying to explain how a deep search can also give positional understanding. Some think that positional understanding and tactics are different things. So you need to bog down a search with artificial rules of thumb to make the program play good chess. This is not true. Since today’s computers can see deeply enough to see what then need to do positionally in some cases. There is no need to bog down the search with *so many rules of thumb.*
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