Nitpick about that first paragraph: that sort of backward chaining is pretty common in chess, actually. Near the end of a game you’re very often envisaging aparticular state of affairs and planning how to get there. Not necessarily the exact final state, but something like “I need his king in this corner or that corner, and I need it to arrive there when my knight is here or here so that my bishop can do that and deliver checkmate”. Even in the middle of the game you may have intermediate goals like “move my pawn safely from e7 to e5″ or “drive the knight away from e4 without weakening my king position”.
It feels as if actually there’s a continuum from “do things that make the situation better in some generalized sense” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways that seem like they’re likely to be useful” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways I can see likely uses for” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways that I definitely have concrete uses for” to “do things that bring about a broad class of later states that I like” to “do things that bring about a very specific range of later states that I like” to “do things that bring about a single specific outcome that I need”.
In chess, we have gears-level mechanisms to explain why various moves are good. Some are principled, like control of the center and development. Others are obtained from backchaining. We have an unambiguous victory condition. It’s easy to play and quick to resolve any individual game. And we can get information on whether or not they really help by looking at player ratings.
In the real world, everything is harder. More complex, less defined, slower, harder, without a complete list of rules and mechanisms, only the roughest strategy worked out, little agreement on who’s the best or what victory looks like, and no ability to look at their complete set of decisions to see how they achieved success.
Backchaining and making principled moves are still the guiding lights. In fact, my dad says “you can drive across the country by the light of your headlights.”
Nitpick about that first paragraph: that sort of backward chaining is pretty common in chess, actually. Near the end of a game you’re very often envisaging aparticular state of affairs and planning how to get there. Not necessarily the exact final state, but something like “I need his king in this corner or that corner, and I need it to arrive there when my knight is here or here so that my bishop can do that and deliver checkmate”. Even in the middle of the game you may have intermediate goals like “move my pawn safely from e7 to e5″ or “drive the knight away from e4 without weakening my king position”.
It feels as if actually there’s a continuum from “do things that make the situation better in some generalized sense” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways that seem like they’re likely to be useful” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways I can see likely uses for” to “do things that make the situation better in particular ways that I definitely have concrete uses for” to “do things that bring about a broad class of later states that I like” to “do things that bring about a very specific range of later states that I like” to “do things that bring about a single specific outcome that I need”.
In chess, we have gears-level mechanisms to explain why various moves are good. Some are principled, like control of the center and development. Others are obtained from backchaining. We have an unambiguous victory condition. It’s easy to play and quick to resolve any individual game. And we can get information on whether or not they really help by looking at player ratings.
In the real world, everything is harder. More complex, less defined, slower, harder, without a complete list of rules and mechanisms, only the roughest strategy worked out, little agreement on who’s the best or what victory looks like, and no ability to look at their complete set of decisions to see how they achieved success.
Backchaining and making principled moves are still the guiding lights. In fact, my dad says “you can drive across the country by the light of your headlights.”