Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1993 18:49:18 +0000

Graham Matthews <gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk> writes:
> Ah but you have glossed over the key point. How does a player train his
> neural net? By playing! He doesn't start with a book in the physics of
> tennis, he starts by playing. Now if I want to simulate this I should
> allow my players to practice (thats like the players practicing in
> the real world), but to give them the equations would be to say that
> you learn tennis in the real world by sitting and reading physics books.

I don't think so.  To me, hiding the formulas is like saying that tennis
players are _forbidden_ to read physics books.  One thing that you will
agree about tennis is that there are no "secrets."  The laws of physics,
at the level which does govern the flight of a tennis ball, are well
understood.  As are various physiological facts about how the human body
behaves on the tennis court.  You can study them if you think you want
to, and in fact designers of tennis equipment and trainers of tennis
players do just that.  And it helps them compete better.

Suppose that the physical characteristics of the tennis ball were a
closely guarded secret.  Every time the players went out on the court to
play, they would be issued balls from a locked safe.  The balls would be
carefully tracked and returned at the end of the day.  This is the
equivalent of forcing the players to get all of their information
through actually playing the game, instead of through external analysis.
Do you really think that this would make it a better game?  Would it
really have the desired effect?

For that matter, suppose that someone walks up to the tennis court for
the first time, and the first thing that they want to do is measure the
distance between baselines, and the elasticity of the ball and the
racket, and the wind velocity, and the atmospheric pressure, and compute
how hard they have to hit the ball to get it to travel just that
distance under those conditions.  Would you _forbid_ them to do so?

I don't think so.

Everyone in this discussion agrees that it is nice for there to be games
in which a detailed understanding and analysis of formulas does not
confer a significant advantage.  (Although, some of us also enjoy other
types of games as well.)  I would be very happy to see Olympia be such a
game.  But publishing the formulas is the equivalent of publishing the
size of the tennis court, the parameters of the ball, and so on.  In
tennis that information is directly available to anyone who wishes to
either measure or experience it.  In computer-moderated play- by-mail
games it is not.  Concealing that information is the equivalent in
real-world terms of trying to keep secret how high a tennis ball
bounces.

What the players who want the formulas want to do with them is exactly
the equivalent of practice, something that you say you are not opposed
to above.  I want to be able to look at various hypothetical situations
and learn what will happen in them.  (For that matter, suppose you
don't publish the formulas, but you provide a "practice arena" for your
game, in which I can set up any game situation repeatedly and see what
happens.  This is equivalent to publishing the formulas, as I can very
quickly deduce from the outcomes all that I need to know.)

David desJardins

References

PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
saschreu@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 14:04:09 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 16:20:03 +0000

Referenced By

PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
saschreu@cs.vu.nl (Schreuder SA)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 14:04:09 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 16:20:03 +0000