Tyler Cowen argues in a TED talk (~15 min) that stories pervade our mental lives. He thinks they are a major source of cognitive biases and, on the margin, we should be more suspicious of them - especially simple stories. Here's an interesting quote about the meta-level:
What story do you take away from Tyler Cowen? ...Another possibility is you might tell a story of rebirth. You might say, "I used to think too much in terms of stories, but then I heard Tyler Cowen, and now I think less in terms of stories". ...You could also tell a story of deep tragedy. "This guy Tyler Cowen came and he told us not to think in terms of stories, but all he could do was tell us stories about how other people think too much in terms of stories."
Nitpicking - but actually in Go, multiple moves may have the same (maximal) value - and go is normally played with either a "ko" rule which says that the location of the last move played can make a difference - or a "superko" rule - in which case the entire history of the board can matter.
Yes, multiple moves with the same value are easily found in the opening - trivially from the symmetries on an empty board, and even after a few moves - and in the endgame, where the exact value of moves can be computed and is typically in single-digit points.
In the midgame though, wouldn't it be much more surprising to find two or more moves for one side which have exactly the same value - more than one "best move" - as all the symmetries have pretty much vanished by then ? I'll admit I haven't considered that deeply, just assumed it true.
The sup... (read more)