timtyler comments on Rationality Lessons in the Game of Go - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (145)
I don't doubt that there are lots of rationality lessons in deterministic games like Go. But I think in some ways they crucially misrepresent life. When you've lost a game in Go you can always think:
"I lost because I didn't play well enough."
In games with a random element, like poker, you have to think:
"I lost because I didn't play well enough AND/OR because I was unlucky."
To become good at poker it's crucial to be able to distinguish between bad luck and play mistakes. You have to keep your cool when your opponent makes bad moves and wins anyway. You have to be able to think thoughts like this:
"That the card on top of the deck should have happened to be the only one that would let my opponent win the game is not evidence I should update on. It tells me nothing I didn't already know. It's just that Nature felt like slapping me in the face right now and there's nothing I can do about it. She'll wipe the grin off my opponent soon enough if he keeps playing like that."
In life, we are very often faced with situations where we have to analyze to what extent something is the result of our own actions and to what extent it is the result of factors outside our control.
You could flip coins to see who moves - if you really want randomness. You could introduce configurable quantities of randomness that way.