Author: Rolf Tueschen
Date: 13:51:13 02/16/06
In a recent debate with RYBKA author Vasik Rajlich I could enjoy a short exchange about knowledge and Vasik's opinion that for example a chess GM has more and better knowledge than an amateur. Vas differentiated more knowledge from just more complex knowledge with a lot of unintereting stuff. I contradicted that concept with my view on a more knowledgeable GM who must NOT have more knowledge as such but a quality of relevant knowledge that allowed him to make an optimal judgement about any concrete situation of a particular game. Then I tried to take a look into the thought process of a machine. THe point is that even if we add the famous 30000 chunks, a human GM learns during his maturing process, it is almost impossible for a machine to refine the essential aspects of a concrete position. Because how can a machine decide what is important and unimportant if that depends on smallest details? Of course a machine actually has a certain helpful depth of mere calculation results. But also then it's neccessary to decide what is the best because a pure brute-force is impossible if you want to go so deep that a correct decision is possible for a move with a line and all its implications. I wrote with a smile that imagination is also knowledge in a human brain. Our brain isnt a machine. All depends of our perception. This plasticity of the brain makes us independent of determinism. Experience builds new neurons and their connections. This unconscious inner reality functions independent of outer reality and its cues. In the amygdala of our limbic system we create imaginations of fantasies about traces of our perception. And on this base we start our actions. This is a puzzling process. The unconscious isnt a memory localised in the amygdala or in another region. It's a system of memory traces which are NOT a mirror of outer reality, although our inner reality is a social reality too. Perhaps chessplaying readers could now understand a little bit better what they are doing in a game of chess. He knows now that his fantasies about an attack for a mate isnt daydreaming at all. It is the inevitable process in our brain. We create a fantasised reality and begin to analyse how we could reach the goal in a concrete position. On the other side a programmer of chess software should understand that his machine or program should have a goal. Only then a game gets some meaning. Until now we see machines who make step for step and suddenly they stand in front of a situation a chessmaster had prepared and where a former advantage turns into a practically lost position. A machine steps through a game of chess but a master creates a meaningful whole that a machine cant understand because a machine has no fantasies and has still no idea of this process of creation. But perhaps also a machine could come closer to that ideal if the programmer gives it a chance to connect the actual situation with a fantasised outcome on the board. That would also solve the old horizon dogma. With all due apologies for very premature thoughts...from a newbie. Rolf
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