Unless one subscribes to Charles Harness’s noumenon (in his classic SF story, “The New Reality,” in which reality is created by belief), then whether something can be proved is an entirely separate question from whether it exists. Meteorites existed even when no one could prove them and science denied their existence. (You saw a flash and found a hot rock? That was just lightning striking a rock with lots of iron in it.) Certainly a person can be self-deluded about having an improved understanding, as about anything else, but understanding might exist whether or not it can be proven. Further, one might possess knowledge, but be poor in applying it for a variety of reasons, such as poor performance under time pressure. As gennan pointed out, there are various factor aside from understanding that might depress one’s rank. Perhaps the most important, not mentioned, is visual memory, which is essential for reading.
Visual memory is unevenly endowed by nature. A small number of children have eidetic memory, which they usually lose by adulthood. Of course, visual memory and consequently reading can be improved, just as pitch perception is unevenly endowed but can be improved in some people through a tremendous amount of practice. Additionally, visual memory often declines in old age. In view of these facts, one could have understanding beyond one’s rank due to poor visual memory resulting in weak reading (especially important in the stronger ranks).
If you want to learn how to count, may I suggest watching a (reasonably slow) game, and practising counting during it. Other people’s games are ideal, as you don’t have to worry about actually finding any moves to play
While that can certainly be the case, I think the other way around is also possible. As for getting good results, I think you can compensate for less understanding by being better at those other aspects of competitive play. I suppose that you can achieve that by “grinding”.
Maybe that is even common: First achieve rank X by grinding and then gradually improve your understanding by being in actual competition with players that have a better understanding than you, while they are lacking a bit in some competitive aspects (so they have the same rank as you).
True. But there is a certain culture of science that sometimes slows down the process—due, indeed, to people being human. See Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
I despise Kuhn and the idea that science only happens in “leaps”. It’s completely invalidated by modern science, where you can’t just discover radio waves or electrocute some water and call it a day.
The amount of effort and new discoveries and technologies that went into, say, the paper that proved the Higgs mechanism, required more than 10,000 publications of new research, discoveries, and technologies. Even the “prize” of the Higgs won’t really do much for the world for quite a long time I suspect.
A lot of the “holy grail” things like quantum gravity still won’t be a “revolution”, because Kuhn ignores the years of discoveries and buildup to it.
It’s unpopular to say it, but people are different. Most people do not have enough talent (intelligence, spatial awareness, whatever) to even get to 15k at Go.
The people who play on Go servers regularly obviously have the capability to understand enough of the game to enjoy it, but even among the people here. most will never be able to get to 1k.
Unless of course anoek changes the meanings of he rankings again
It’s all in the mind, if you were motivated, if you had a plan, if you even set goals to become dans, hell, even if you change servers(server ranks differ alot, you can be sdk on ogs and dan on asian servers lol)
I’m sure you rank up in no time
So the question is what went wrong?
The answer can only be answered by you and yourself only, you eventually set a limit barrier for yourself, you eventually gave up on improving, you eventually tired and fed up with real life or with the board game, you eventually want to demolish newbies only.
Life is hard when you knew there was an easier way.
You felt staying SDK is the easier road, studying is difficult, reading is difficult, improving is difficult, reviewing is difficult, outplaying your opponent is difficult, doing tsumegos daily is difficult, everything becomes difficult because you only wanted to stay in your comfort zone.
You’ll make excuses nonstop and daily, saying “but, i have better things to do than go”
All nonstop excuses made you weak and made you stay weak!
Stay motivated my friend!
And least but not least enjoy GO!
Hoorah!
I don’t recall that Kuhn claimed that it only happens in leaps. He was writing specifically about paradigmatic shifts (a perspective that has been applied to other fields as well), not about all discoveries or changes, IIRC. Of course I could be misremembering, as I haven’t read it in more than 40 years. Also I have no copy to check, as I traded mine away long ago because it is a horribly written book that I knew I would never read again. I do think that Kuhn’s perspective has less relevance for science today than it did when he wrote. Science now is much more multidisciplinary and incremental than it used to be. I never thought his ideas were so shocking or even original anyway, because all he did was to apply to the conduct of scientists a well-known truism: that old people tend to resist change (I plead guilty), and consequently institutions controlled by old people also tend to be resistant to change.
I found these musings in a 2008 post on Tamsin’s Sensei’s Library blog.
I suspect that many players worry about whether they can improve. I know I have done that. But what’s the point? Who knows how far they can go when they try? And who honestly thinks that they’re as good at what they’re doing as they could be? When I study Japanese, I don’t think ‘can I become fluent and literate’ - I simply keep on going. Whether I’ll achieve my goal or not I don’t know yet, but at least I’m a lot better at Japanese than I was 6 months ago.
Also, I think many people look for a ‘silver bullet’ or guaranteed way to get better. Many people, too, probably despair of improving because they’ve stayed the same for several years. But, probably the main reason for staying at a plateau is that you play all the time and don’t study anymore. The thing is that this is a bit like reaching a survival level of a language, and then relying on it forever to get by, instead of actively seeking to make further steps. Playing at the same level all the time is not going to teach you anything new - it’s just going around in circles.
But I’m starting to think that the only thing that really counts is to increase your knowledge, because knowledge is power, and to improve your practical skills. By knowledge I mean things like joseki, fuseki, shapes, tesuji, sabaki techniques and so on. By practical skills I mean everything from reading to learning to stay calm during a game. I’m certain that whatever you make a sincere effort to improve on will help you with your game.
(…) I think sheer repetition is probably useful for burning the absolutely vital, must-not-forget-at-all-costs stuff into your brain, but now I think it’s both inefficient and perilously unenjoyable as a technique for learning other things. From my experience with languages, I find it much more effective to study something and then try to use it, and to revise things from time to time, because, at least for me, it’s the act of revising that seems to get things to stick in my long-term memory. So, I think with go the best thing is to read books carefully, taking notes and making mnemonics as you go, and then to revise from time to time to make sure that as much as possible enters the long-term memory.
And this from 2009:
The more you learn, the harder it gets, but the only way to get further is to keep trying. I don`t think you learn A, master it, then learn B, master it, then learn C. Rather, you learn A, then B, then learn to use A and B together, then A, B and C together. Unfortunately, I think I have spent eight or more years thinking that I learned C, and forgetting to try to use it together with A and B!
In other words, I think you should strive to move forward, but should never forget the basics. Unfortunately, one can waste a lot of time moving forward and forgetting the basics, or getting stuck on the basics and forgetting to move forward!
I found this interesting quote from skydyr on L19.
I think that [the fundamentals] are really a set of principles underlying moves than moves themselves. Not backing down from your opponent, making sure exchanges end up even at least, playing efficient moves, not playing extraneous moves, coordinating your stones, timing particular moves, counting liberties, attacking for profit, not giving their opponent an easy game, reading moves out before you play, and so forth. Things that are relatively easy to say (who aims to play inefficiently, or to lose in exchanges?) but not always so easy to put into practice, where the correct answer can require deep reading and/or good positional judgement to apply.
These aren’t things that you can just learn and be done with, but concepts that require continuous refinement and rejection of the current assumed knowledge in the pursuit of something more refined and nuanced as one gets better.
That’s part of pro trainings. I heard a pro mentions when she learned joseki as a kid, she was asked to repeat all variances on four corners to enforce the memory, and guess the pictures from different angles.
