[HN Gopher] Notes on Puzzles ___________________________________________________________________ Notes on Puzzles Author : nqureshi Score : 175 points Date : 2023-07-17 12:38 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (nabeelqu.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (nabeelqu.substack.com) | Thoeu388 wrote: | Interesting observations, I would add my own: | | - during long game, chess grand masters have physiology | comparable to marathon runner, while he runs. Deep thinking for | several hours, takes huge load on body. All the logic and | critical thinking, is not going to save you, if you are not fit, | and your brain does not work correctly. | | - real life is not about solving puzzles. Real life is a rigged | game where rules are not enforced. Instead of finding problems to | solve, you need to find oportunities (and loopholes) and exploit | them! | | - game is rigged, and oportunities close fast. What worked a | couple of years ago, probably does not work anymore. | glitchc wrote: | Sounds very similar to academic researchers. | dkarl wrote: | > - real life is not about solving puzzles. Real life is a | rigged game where rules are not enforced. Instead of finding | problems to solve, you need to find oportunities (and | loopholes) and exploit them! | | "Real life puzzles" are too open-ended and have too many levels | to really be called puzzles. A puzzle has a closed set of rules | that usually gives you only one level on which to solve the | problem. Many interview questions could be described as | puzzles. A "real life" programming task has a bunch of | different levels: what's the real problem the customer wants | solved, is this the problem this customer wants solved first, | do we have a bigger customer with a bigger problem you should | be working on instead, can the problem be solved without | programming, should the problem be solved in a different | system, are there other people on the team who solve problems | like this in their sleep and they'll give you the answer in | five minutes if you describe it on Slack? If it does seem like | you need to solve the problem, what's your level of confidence | that with investment of X time you can solve the problem, for | different values of X, and given this information, does it | still make sense to try to solve it? | | What makes puzzles relaxing and reassuring is knowing that | there is a solution, and that you know all the rules. Also, you | know that you'll recognize the solution when you get it. Real | life rarely gives you that reassurance. With a real-life | problem, you don't know if there's a solution, and even when | you have one, you can't know that there wasn't another solution | that would have been much better, because of possibilities you | failed to consider. The only way to turn a real-life problem | into a "puzzle" is to strip away the open-ended real-world | context and present a subset of it that can be described in a | closed form. | yard2010 wrote: | I think you're missing the point, while you are pretty correct | IMO, viewing the world in such a dichotomic way misses the fine | details along the spectrum | dkarl wrote: | Spot on. When you discover that people are solving a problem | by considering a wider context than you did, do you broaden | your thinking about the problem, or do you accuse them of | cheating and complain that the rules aren't being enforced? | Morality and (most) laws should be respected, but outside of | that, rules shouldn't stand in the way of solving problems. | mock-possum wrote: | > real life is not about solving puzzles | | He says, before laying out the outline of the puzzle and giving | suggestions on how to go about solving it | | Everything can be about solving puzzles if you let it. Given | enough time and patience you can understand anything - the only | interesting question is, how to you decide what to focus on? | | Navigating life is absolutely an exercise in puzzle solving, at | every step you know where you're at, you know where you want to | be, and you know what resources are available to you - given | all that, how do you plan your next step? If your first | solution doesn't work, you do a retro, learn your lessons, and | move on to your second solution, and your third. It's all | engineering. | Thoeu388 wrote: | From rule 2): | | > It's hard in real life, too: vanishingly few people are | meta-rational enough to try really hard to falsify their own | ideas. Your brain really wants to find reasons to support | what you believe. | | I don't think he goes with "meta" deep enough. It is great | for engineering problem solving mindset But it is also a good | way to end up like underpaid post doc, who needs second job | just to pay rent. | | And this type of advices are usually coming from someone who | "made it", has its own house and is practically retired. Very | impractical and harmful (to some extend) for young minds. | | Practical implementation for young person is not "falsifying" | and trying again again. But coming with solutions that takes | minimal time, is good enough and comparable to coworkers who | work on the same salary. Time you save can be invested into | education, family, hustle and so on. | Recursing wrote: | > during long game, chess grand masters have physiology | comparable to marathon runner, while he runs. | | That is obviously not true | https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/s0tqcd/chess_grandma... | Thoeu388 wrote: | I traced my source back to Sapolsky, so I guess you are | right. | | But I still maintain my claim, health really matters for | proper deep thinking. | nescioquid wrote: | I wouldn't be so hasty to say it is _obvious_ (parent made no | claims about calories). | | Many top chess players have considered themselves athletes, | and if you've ever tried to calculate under pressure at a | board for a few hours, I'm sure you'll agree it is an | exhausting activity. Fischer engaged in athletic training | when preparing for tournaments, for example, to aid in | maintaining mental focus (he wasn't unique). | | It would be silly to say that 2400 Elo indicates you can run | a four-minute mile, or that calculating 6-ply in a closed | position burns the same calories as running a block. If the | claim is 2400 Elo tend to have similar vascular flow in the | brain to people who engage in aerobic exercise or something | of that nature -- maybe? | yeahwhatever10 wrote: | I disdain this pessimism that is all over the internet. | Thoeu388 wrote: | What pessimism? I am talking about health, opportunities... | | Starting family today is very difficult, there is no easy and | direct route. | doopdoopsoup wrote: | I'm curious what strikes you as pessimistic in this comment | versus just being realistic about the current social | structures implicit to the US (I cant speak for the rest of | the world)? | bluepod4 wrote: | Probably because GGP's comment reflects a _narrow_ , | _unfavorable_ , and _extreme_ view of reality | | > Real life is a rigged game where rules are not enforced | | Even in the United States, there are _plenty_ of stupid and | non-stupid rules that people are forced to follow in order | to "play the game". There are also _plenty_ of rules that | only apply to certain groups. There are also _plenty_ of | people who don't play the game at all. | | Maybe if GGP weren't so extreme and negatively one-sided | with his view, then it'd come off as less pessimistic and | more critical. | respondo2134 wrote: | pessimistic and realistic are not mutually exclusive | (unfortunately). You can understand reality without | accepting it. | blastro wrote: | [flagged] | [deleted] | blueyes wrote: | The business ecosystem, like biological ecosystems, involves | forms of collective life that have learned how to sustain | themselves in competitive environments, usually by seeking | moats. Those moats "rig the game". The moats tend to fail | when the environment changes; e.g. due to technical | innovation, social movement, external shocks. It is the | central interest of any business to build moats and | drawbridges. | | Life is turtles all the way down and drawbridges all the way | up. Anyone seeking opportunities is looking for the openings | between those moats and drawbridges. | WoodenChair wrote: | A test of chess puzzles can reliably predict a player's ELO | rating and what kinds of game elements they struggle with. My | late dad did work on this in the 1980s to assess machine and | human chess performance which culminated in the Bratko-Kopec | Test[0], which eventually became a part of a standard suite for | assessing the performance of new chess programs. He also ended up | running the test on hundreds of human players to test its | calibration. | | He created several subsequent tests and wrote a book about it | [1]. I make a version of a few of the tests for iPhone if you're | so inclined [2]. | | 0: | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97800... | 1: https://amzn.to/3PVOne9 2: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/test- | your-chess/id362448420 | csours wrote: | > "What stops you, I think, is a combination of not really | believing you'll get it and not really caring. Is that too harsh | - or is it somewhere close to the truth?" | | This reminds me of the curse of working with really good senior | engineers. They already know the answers, they've already solved | the puzzles. It can be very easy to just defer to them all the | time. | | If you are a senior engineer who really understands a system, you | need to be conscious of this effect if you ever want someone else | to start learning your system. | dfxm12 wrote: | In my experience, people underestimate their abilities and are | so afraid to mess things up, even in a preprod environment, | that they don't even try. I try to encourage people and let | them know they can't mess anything up, but like the saying | goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them | drink. Some people get it faster than others. | | There's also the pressure from above to fix things quickly, | meaning some people don't have time to really explore and learn | and need to be given answers... | alostpuppy wrote: | 100% | robertlagrant wrote: | I don't see how the intermediate example gives a PC at all - king | can move such that it never gets there and white has the | advantage, no? | w10-1 wrote: | So: good (chess) players spend more time mentally countering | their proposed moves before moving. | | For developers or managers on HN, one outcome would be that it's | best to start one's career in testing, or to respect the resumes | of those who started in QA. If/since there are hundreds of ways | things can break, it's a harder problem to show how it will, or | prove it won't; and building a mental library of fault models | helps in vetting designs and implementations. | | Or, we could teach fault models directly, instead of accumulating | by experience. See e.g., Robert Binder, "Testing Object-oriented | Systems" (and ignore the model-driven-development gloss from | later editors). | | But the most important note is the aside: the author avoids chess | as addictive. Should we ask ourselves: how can this be? Should | that change how I think about my own work? | singleshot_ wrote: | I think the ideal first job in tech is IT help desk, not QA. | | Everything that shows up to the help desk is broken. QA people | need to have a skill for breaking things or at least an | awareness of how things break. They will learn this at the help | desk. | | Otherwise: I completely agree. | morelisp wrote: | _In the beginner 's mind there are many possibilities, but in the | expert's there are few._ | Chiba-City wrote: | [dead] | vintageplayer wrote: | Pretty cool article with few, but quality references. Thanks for | sharing! | deepzn wrote: | Adversarial learning. Machines are inherently better at it than | humans, which is one more reason to worry about AI. | nicpottier wrote: | Hah, what a great article. | | I play chess (poorly for the time spent on it) and I'm also a | reasonably successful founder of a couple software companies. I | find my struggle with chess is that I want to act intuitively, | something that has served me well all my life in other avenues. | But the board doesn't lie and if you don't think thoroughly you | will get punished. | | I have the capacity for it, I can think thoroughly in puzzles and | perform much better there than my on board play but I just | struggle so much with the discipline during regular games to | falsify my moves. So much so that I've mostly given up on trying | to improve despite really loving the game, it just grates on me. | I know I could be better but I lack the discipline and I guess I | just don't want to exercise that discipline in a game. | | Anyways, great article. | robinbobbin wrote: | > I find my struggle with chess is that I want to act | intuitively, something that has served me well all my life in | other avenues. But the board doesn't lie and if you don't think | thoroughly you will get punished. | | I believe strong players do act intuitively when playing chess | (especially fast chess), it's just that they've developed their | intuition through lots of practice and thorough thinking in the | past. For some reason our intuition about life seems to be more | developed, or perhaps the game of life is incredibly complex | and most people are roughly at the same skill level. | jvanderbot wrote: | The article is fine, inspirational, interesting, and all that, | but one quibble: reporting ratios is potentially misleading. If | grandmasters spend 4 minutes falsifying for every minute | ideating, and amateurs spend .5 / 1, that's great. But what if | amateurs spend 30 minutes coming up with a move vs 1 for masters? | Could be the grandmaster is faster at ideation by a larger | fraction than he is faster at falsification. That also makes | sense in a "just so" sense, because maybe falsification is brute | force with a large depth of search, and ideation is more like a | lookup table - just see where your pieces can move. | | I thought maybe I could find some primary sources, but the [1] | notation is just footnotes. | nqureshi wrote: | The primary source is the book mentioned in the post: | https://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Super-GM-Michael-Adams/dp/... | | You're right that GMs are much faster ideating, I point this | out later in the essay. But they also spend longer on | falsification, even in absolute terms. | ajkjk wrote: | To an extent it depends what ELO you're talking about, but I'm | an amateur (~1950 rated on lichess) and I find, when I watch GM | videos, that I have about the same move ideation as them, at | least in the midgame. Sometimes better, depending on the GM, | since everyone has different strengths. But the GMs | consistently better than me by a lot, of course, especially in | overall calculation and in knowing openings and endgame theory. | vvvvtt340 wrote: | I really enjoyed this article. I would recommend others check out | "Advice That Actually Worked For Me" by the same author. This | same topic is mentioned in #6. | https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/advice | natrys wrote: | Apparently I try too hard to falsify the falsification. I became | convinced that h4/g3 pawns could be used as a trap while I march | the b-pawn. Bd5 Bxh4 b5 Bxg3 Qxf7 Qxf7 Bxf7 Kxf7 b6! and the pawn | can't be stopped. | | Except it doesn't work, I needed to falsify the falsification of | the falsification 4 move down the line to see why :) | anoy8888 wrote: | i am quite confused . It started saying good chess players are | more careful and spent more time falsifying ideas but then he | later gave startup examples which is the opposite ( not so | careful with falsifying. Just jump into the water with conviction | and figure things out on the way ) . Startup game is more like | poker . It is very different from chess . Somehow the author drew | the wrong conclusions. Very confusing | Tijdreiziger wrote: | > Startup game is more like poker . It is very different from | chess . | | That's the point of the article. It contrasts the thinking | styles of 'founder-types' and 'scientist-types'. | | As a (in the terms of the article) 'scientist-type' who | regularly gets lost in the weeds of the details, I found it a | pretty interesting commentary. | blueyes wrote: | This is not quite true, because poker is fundamentally | adversarial, while startups are mostly not adversarial, at | least not directly. | | Startups are a beauty contest where each player focuses on | maximizing the things about them that appeal most to a panel | of judges (customers). Similar to the scramble competition | that Benenson cites here, rather than an arm-wrestling | contest. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31400660/ | deepzn wrote: | Startups are competition. You're fighting with others to | put up the best product in market. It's a race against time | as well. | blueyes wrote: | Right, but my argument is that there are many niches in | the market where there is no competition, and startups | should try to find that and then creates moats with IP, | data, etc. There are many situations where startups don't | have direct competition, because they are inventing | something radically new. Often true in life sciences, for | example. You're right that in those cases they are in a | race against time, since someone will eventually come | along, but they can go for years without a direct | adversary. | csours wrote: | In real life, things are rarely zero-sum or have one correct | answer. | | Nearly all engineering is balancing different concerns - | durability vs price, weight vs features, and so it goes. | | Besides engineering, you also have game theory, political | science, etc. | vintageplayer wrote: | I don't think startup game is more like Poker. It's a lot of | experimentation and learning. True, you gotta protect your bank | roll, but the type of strategy initiatives to take are | something like that of a chess. | | PS: I'm an early stage founder, who has finally some traction | with my current B2B data infra SaaS. I've had a failed company | in the past which had 4 major pivots, where we decided to | return most of the funding to learn few things again. | jschveibinz wrote: | THIS concept-looking for all the ways that a solution won't work | (i.e. fail)-is the key to the ideation stage of a business | startup. | | Thank you for posting this. | Strilanc wrote: | Where is the linked post getting the 4:1 vs 1:2 time-spent-on- | falsification ratios that it's claiming? It's like the heart of | the entire argument, but it's not sourced. | | Edit: Ah, okay, it's probably in the book being discussed where | he says they recorded thought process while playing ( | https://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Super-GM-Michael-Adams/dp/... | ). | nqureshi wrote: | It's from the book I mention right at the beginning of the | essay. https://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Super-GM-Michael- | Adams/dp/... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-17 23:00 UTC)