One form is “if I don’t achieve goal X I’ve lost the game anyway, so I might as well continue trying even though it’s looking unlikely”.
Is that really the sunk costs fallacy? I think it’s valid reasoning—play the moves that give you the best chance of winning even if that chance is looking slimmer. I think the sunk costs fallacy is more like a failure to be flexible—e.g., insisting on making some stones live when you could have a larger benefit elsewhere by sacrificing them. (And that thinking is punished quite harshly in go.)
Another form (for stronger players than me) is “if I play A, I will get a result that’s two points worse than I could have had if I played B earlier, so I can rule A out.”
I don’t think that’s sound reasoning; you could have made a mistake since having played B, and A might be the best current option. FWIW, I’m a reasonably strong go player—it’s easy to lie with tewari analysis, which is what it sounds like you’re talking about.
The first is certainly valid reasoning in Go, and I phrased it in a way that should make that obvious. But you can also phrase it as “I’ve spent so much effort trying to reach goal X that I’m committed now”, which is almost never sound in real life.
For the second, I’m not thinking so much of tewari as a fairly common kind of comment in professional game commentaries. I think there’s an implicit “and I surely haven’t made a mistake as disastrous as a two point loss” in there.
It’s probably still not sound reasoning, but for most players the best strategy for finding good moves relies more on ‘feel’ and a bag of heuristics than on reasoning. I’m not sure I’d count that as a way that Go differs from real life, though.
The first is certainly valid reasoning in Go, and I phrased it in a way that should make that obvious.
I agree.
But you can also phrase it as “I’ve spent so much effort trying to reach goal X that I’m committed now”, which is almost never sound in real life.
I think that this phrasing significantly changes the meaning of what you said originally, which was:
if I don’t achieve goal X I’ve lost the game anyway, so I might as well continue trying even though it’s looking unlikely.
I interpret this as assigning +infinity utilons to winning the game, and asserting that goal X must be achieved to accomplish that. I think it’s completely valid, but the goal structure in life is so much more complicated than it is in go that it doesn’t really transfer.
Your rewording sounds more like the sunk costs fallacy to me, but I think that it’s terrible reasoning in go as well as life.
And on point 2:
I think there’s an implicit “and I surely haven’t made a mistake as disastrous as a two point loss” in there.
Which would make it valid reasoning. It might not be useful reasoning for life in general (as it’s much harder to tell if you made a mistake than it is in go) but I think it’s still valid.
Fair enough. I should have said “there are ideas which are useful heuristics in Go, but not in real life”, rather than talking about “sound reasoning”.
The “I’m committed now” one can be a genuinely useful heuristic in Go (though it’s better if you’re using it in the form “if I do this I will be committed”, rather than “oh dear, I’ve just noticed I’m committed”). “Spent so much effort” is in the sense of “given away so much”, rather than “taken so many moves trying”.
But you can also phrase it as “I’ve spent so much effort trying to reach goal X that I’m committed now”, which is almost never sound in real life.
Thanks to go, I’ve learned NOT to think like this, but to adjust according to the new information that flows in. It seems rather weird that you can get two totally opposite lessons from the same game.
Is that really the sunk costs fallacy? I think it’s valid reasoning—play the moves that give you the best chance of winning even if that chance is looking slimmer. I think the sunk costs fallacy is more like a failure to be flexible—e.g., insisting on making some stones live when you could have a larger benefit elsewhere by sacrificing them. (And that thinking is punished quite harshly in go.)
I don’t think that’s sound reasoning; you could have made a mistake since having played B, and A might be the best current option. FWIW, I’m a reasonably strong go player—it’s easy to lie with tewari analysis, which is what it sounds like you’re talking about.
The first is certainly valid reasoning in Go, and I phrased it in a way that should make that obvious. But you can also phrase it as “I’ve spent so much effort trying to reach goal X that I’m committed now”, which is almost never sound in real life.
For the second, I’m not thinking so much of tewari as a fairly common kind of comment in professional game commentaries. I think there’s an implicit “and I surely haven’t made a mistake as disastrous as a two point loss” in there.
It’s probably still not sound reasoning, but for most players the best strategy for finding good moves relies more on ‘feel’ and a bag of heuristics than on reasoning. I’m not sure I’d count that as a way that Go differs from real life, though.
I agree.
I think that this phrasing significantly changes the meaning of what you said originally, which was:
I interpret this as assigning +infinity utilons to winning the game, and asserting that goal X must be achieved to accomplish that. I think it’s completely valid, but the goal structure in life is so much more complicated than it is in go that it doesn’t really transfer.
Your rewording sounds more like the sunk costs fallacy to me, but I think that it’s terrible reasoning in go as well as life.
And on point 2:
Which would make it valid reasoning. It might not be useful reasoning for life in general (as it’s much harder to tell if you made a mistake than it is in go) but I think it’s still valid.
Fair enough. I should have said “there are ideas which are useful heuristics in Go, but not in real life”, rather than talking about “sound reasoning”.
The “I’m committed now” one can be a genuinely useful heuristic in Go (though it’s better if you’re using it in the form “if I do this I will be committed”, rather than “oh dear, I’ve just noticed I’m committed”). “Spent so much effort” is in the sense of “given away so much”, rather than “taken so many moves trying”.
Thanks to go, I’ve learned NOT to think like this, but to adjust according to the new information that flows in. It seems rather weird that you can get two totally opposite lessons from the same game.