[HN Gopher] Notes on Puzzles
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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/...
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