Author: Hristo
Date: 15:41:48 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? Amen .. :)))) Hristo
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