The Invisible Ships

A New Way to Learn What is Alien To Us

Have you ever wondered how did the ships of the Spanish and Portuguese explorers consistently sail so close to the shores of the various continents, without any reaction or resistance from the natives on those land masses?

It has been a talking point among the historians how the huge ships of Captain Cook, Ferdinand Magellan or Christopher Columbus arrived at the costs of South America, Cuba or Australia and were practically ignored by the inhabitants of those places even when they were anchored very close to the coast.

These observations gained prominence with John Banks, a Botanist on the ship of Captain Cook. According to Banks, on several occasions when their 106-feet long ship, Endeavour, came close to the coasts of Australia, the inhabitants paid no attention to them. The fishermen would be so engaged in their tasks that the ships would pass a quarter a mile of them, and the fishermen wouldn't even lift their heads to notice such gargantuan ships, let alone react or respond to something that was alien to them.

Similar experiences were narrated by Christopher Columbus on how the native Indians could not see the ships that were there in their plain sight.

This gave rise to a theory called "The Invisible Ships Phenomenon". The explanation to the natives' indifference to alien objects like ship was - the ships were so alien to the natives, that their mental slots and receptors were unable to process these objects, and the ships remained "invisible" to them.

These ships, often had to be stopped at a distance from the shores because of the narrow coasts, and then the explorers had to take the landing boats to reach the shores. John Banks writes that when they took the landing boats, the inhabitants did notice and react to their arrival promptly.

"You will soon see why"

We can interpret something only in terms of the basic components that make up our awareness. Even the known components do not perfectly fit the reality, we describe it "approximately" in terms of the closest fit to those components.

For example, we see squares and circles and cones and spheres all around us in our daily lives, even though objects in real life and nature rarely resemble perfect geometrical shapes.

It wouldn't be incorrect to say that the Game of Thrones mountain, Mt Kirkjufell of Iceland is either conical or pyramidal in shape, although the mountain is far from an ideal depiction of these shapes. At the same time, someone unaware of "cones" or "pyramids" would find it extremely challenging to describe what the mountain looks like.

It is possible to describe a concept or an entity in terms of familiar components.

When we cannot deconstruct an entity into familiar constituents, we might find it extremely difficult to understand the related phenomenon.

When you watch chess experts analyzing the games played by AlphaZero, a lot of moves are so wild and bewildering, that there is no known explanation for these moves. In a lot of scenarios, the analyst explains the rationale for a move as : "you will soon see why this move was played". After several moves, the expert refers back to this move, and points out - "remember that move ? this is why this move was played THEN".

Describing a phenomenon

We can arrange the hierarchy of the observed phenomenon in two distinct layers.

At the lower level is the "reality" of how things happen in the real world out there - "What Exactly Happened". In context of chess, this may translate into the exact board positions, and the exact sequence of moves leading to various board positions and various chess "events".

Above this layer, lies the more "human-friendly" layer - which involves a verbal description of "exactly what happened". This is where we try to make sense of what exactly happened, and articulate it in those terms that are possible for us and others to comprehend.

This is the layer which defines "expertise". An expert is truly one who is able to "describe" an underlying raw phenomenon with great precision, accuracy, simplicity and comprehensibility in terms of known and acceptable concepts and parameters.

While all of us might observe the raw phenomenon with equal perspicuity, it is the accuracy and the lucidity with which one can describe it in terms of human-understandable concepts that is the hallmark of an expert.

The Vocabulary of the Known

The layer of the Verbal Description has the concepts and theories that are applicable to the domain as its alphabet and vocabulary. How effective the layer is, depends on the effectiveness of the identified concepts and theories which are used in describing a phenomenon.

For example, in chess, concepts like gaining space, saving time, occupying the center, material advantage, etc constitute discussion of the sport and the analysis of the games. Every game is analyzed and every move judged in terms of how the move fares with respect to these concepts.

What makes AlphaZero an enigma is, many of its moves cannot be described in terms of the known chess parameters.

If the moves of AlphaZero didn't consistently lead to crushing defeats of the opponent engines, every AlphaZero move would have been dismissed by chess experts as "amateurish blunder". The only reason why experts feel the need to take the moves of AlphaZero seriously, is that it leads to spectacular and crushing victories all the time.

On their own merit, the current discourse of chess principles would unambiguously classify these moves as "trash". In almost every single case, an AlphaZero move appears to be a blunder, bringing no obvious benefits for a long long time, until a point is reached where the experts go - "this is why the move was played then".

The moves of AlphaZero are as baffling to the topmost Chess Grandmaster as it is to a Chess Beginner.

The Chess Grandmasters often get so bewildered and dumbfounded by the moves of AlphaZero, that they often express their analysis in terms of humour.

In a certain game, when AlphaZero made a sequence of moves so incomprehensible to even the top Grandmasters, the Brazilian Grandmaster Alexandr Fier wrote this in his Facebook Post as an analysis of the move : "and here alpha zero comes with the obvious plan of playing King to H2, Rook to H1, and Knight to G1 putting the pieces for the next game, as this one is already winning."

In this particular game (shown in the above diagram), Alpha Zero first moved his King, bringing it out of its safe square and placing it on a square that was vulnerable to attacks. Then, it moved the Rook to the corner, which doesn't seem to provide any reasonable benefit. It goes beyond everyone's critical limit for tolerating absurdity when it brings back a well developed Knight to the back rank.

It appeared as if AlphaZero is bringing back all its pieces from wherever they were, back to their original squares, as Fier says - to begin a new game.

This is a simple example of how AlphaZero has left the best Chess brains go completely clueless.

At present, the only explanation to justify that the moves played by Alpha Zero are not blunders, but are super-human, is that these moves lead to crushing defeat of the opponent chess engines.

It is for this reason, the most common explanation of the majority of Alpha Zero moves are : "you will soon see why ...". At present, no body else has a clue on why these moves are great moves.

The Compelling Need to "Make Sense"

The underlying raw phenomenon - the "Exactly What Happened" layer - is what the "Reality" is. This is exactly what is actually happening out there - on the chessboard, or in our lives.

However, in most cases, the "Exactly What Happened" is often quite complex for the human conscious mind to make sense of.

Whether it is a sequence of chess moves in an intricate situation, whether it is the way the stock prices fluctuate, whether it is the manner in which professionals respond to various management policies, or whether it is a complex analytical and scientific problems - the sequence of events "on the ground" is often beyond normal human comprehension limits.

Any attempt to describe the "reality" creates a gross approximation of the reality. In order to enable the reality to make sense to us, we often make a "map of the reality". Due to the incomprehensibility of the "reality", and because the "map of the reality" seems to make total sense to us, over a period of time, the "map of the reality" tends to take precedence over the "reality" itself. We start believing in the infallibility of the "map of the reality". When things do not add up out there in the world, we gawk at the "paradox" and the unfairness present around us.

It is important to have a map of reality, because that is what helps us navigate through our lives. However, it is also imperative to realize that this map of reality is a construct of the human mind, and hence, is bound to be intrinsically inaccurate.

Reality has no obligation to align with the concepts and notions we create in our minds.

It is for us to align our concepts and notions to the reality. However, with the constant application of our concepts and theories, quite often successfully, we start assuming that these concepts are infallible rules that cannot be broken.

A new scientific thought almost always gets outrightly rejected simply because it seems to "disobey the rules of science". A new idea often gets laughed at, ridiculed and trashed in the beginning, not because the idea lacks any merit, but because it doesn't sufficiently respect the knowledge of the day, and hence people are unwilling to give even a close second look.

Getting Intimate with "Creativity"

The Concepts and Theories we deal with act like a mask or a glove. They prevent us from looking at or touching the reality directly. Every analysis ends up being a jugglery of the concepts and theories that are popularly accepted on the given day. The moment any idea seems to transgress the boundaries of our accepted theories, we shirk and give up on the idea of progressing any further in that direction.

This is prevalent in all area of life - academic or life-skills.

Millions of bright and original ideas are trashed daily at the first instance that they tread on the toes of what is the accepted "common sense" of the day.

We are extremely protective of what makes sense to us, and we would do our best to prevent anything from demolishing what makes sense to us.

So it is in chess.

The Prerequisites of Understanding a New Reality

In order to understand the AlphaZero better, we need to first give away the current parameters of "sound chess play". We need to let go of the "Rules of the Book". We need to re-build our understanding of what makes a good chess position.

Our concepts often start from the first principles as tiny micro-granules. With time, for the sake of ease of applicability, these finer principles undergo a process of conglomeration, ending up as profound macro- principles, far coarser and lot more rigid than when we started developing them.

These conglomerates of concepts and theories become our biggest barrier in understanding the reality with accuracy and precision.

To consider an example, in a conventional chess game, the player might consider a strategy of launching either a King-side attack or a Queen-side attack. In order to launch an attack on either side, one needs to consolidate the important pieces on the relevant side, and one feels he has accumulated sufficient power, an attack on that side is launched.

Alpha Zero, on the other hand, has no concept of a King-side attack or a Queen-side attack. It shifts between a Queen side to King side attack as if nothing happened.

A chess expert who looks at these 4 images would find it hard to believe that they belong to the same game. He would absolutely refuse to believe that the player who did this had a strong position, let alone achieve a spectacular win. It would be a tough ask to digest that the White (AlphaZero), which has wasted time re-arranging its rook between left and right flanks within the span of a few moves, not only did well in the game, but won the game in a manner that the Black's defense collapsed like a pack of cards.

In the first position, the Black Rooks are positioned perfectly to launch a fierce King-side attack, which moves to a fierce Queen-side attack in the 2nd position, swinging back to the King-side manouvering of the two rooks, and in the 4th position, one of the rooks has been exchanged, but the other one is holding strong on the Queen side.

We need to ask ourselves - is Alpha Zero trying to launch a King-side attack, or a Queen-side attack ?

The answer is : Neither.

Alpha Zero doesn't follow a coarse strategy based on broad macro-level concepts. It just does what is required to be done at a given point of time.

A human player, or even a chess engine, would rarely resort to such manouvres. The very idea goes against the principle of sound chess play, that one shouldn't be losing moving a piece from one side to the other back and forth. Most players wouldn't look even look beyond what this concept mandates. The expert would probably be willing to give a second look, if he sees an immediate tactical benefit in the next few moves.

However, the advantages of the moves of AlphaZero start showing up very late in the game, and it needs a long retrospective look to make even remote sense.

A similar explanation can be given in terms of AlphaZero's aversion to "Material Advantage". A chess aspirant doesn't just start his training merely by learning the rules of the game. A whole legacy of chess philosophy is heaped upon him. For example, a chess beginner may be told very early in his learning process that each piece has a material strength. The Pawns are rated at 1 point, Knights and Bishops at 3 points, Rook at 5 and the Queen at 9. The chess beginner would then play every game comparing his material strength with the opponent's material strength. The chess engines do the same. In all these cases, an extremely important consideration of the game is to be at least equal in Material strength, and wherever possible, try to gain more material.

On the other hand, AlphaZero learnt chess from first principles, playing against itself. It was never told what a Knight's worth is or how powerful a Queen is. What it knows is the relative importance of a piece in its given position, and how different pieces may converge 20 moves later to just collapse everything that the opponent has built.

By instilling the idea of "Material Strength" in the minds of chess learners at an early stage, we create a Virtual Reality for the player, where the pieces have been replaced by their numerical values. By doing this, we rob the players of their ability to look at the pieces for what they are and what they can do in a given position. Every piece becomes a number, and futile, unnecessary battles are fought to keep the numbers comparable.

While the Virtual map of the Reality does help to navigate through many situations easily, it completely robs our ability to look at the Reality. A chess move may be outrightly trashed not because it was leading us to a disastrous position, but because it brought down our "numbers" adversely. The obsession with retaining material parity just cuts off the consideration of several moves from the consciousness of the chess player.

This obsession with a Virtual analysis of the Reality is found everywhere. Everyone everywhere is fighting a useless battle to protect a certain numerical advantage, which in no way relevant to the real benefits that we seek. The result is - we are rapidly getting disengaged with the reality, and working hard at making the Virtual parameters of the reality look more rosy.

Getting past the Virtual Reality of Concepts

It is important to realize that any concept, theory, notion, or rule-of-the-thumb is a creation of the human mind.

A concept is our mental superimposition over the reality. However, at some point of time, we start taking these phantoms of the mind so seriously, that they end up substituting the reality. We dread look beyond the veils of our mental concepts.

The first step towards being an Alpha Zero would be to lift these mental phantoms of concepts, theories, notions, rules-of-the-thumb, which surround us like a veil and become the boundaries of our thinking faculties.

We cannot be a creative, original thinker till we pierce these veils and start looking at the "reality" directly.

Possibly - the inability to explain the reality as we were used to, would feel confounding and uncomfortable at first. We may not be able to verbalize our understanding of the reality, and that would give us and others a very uncomfortable feeling that we "do not know".

Probably the only initial explanation of why something is happening could be - "you will see the reason soon".

And that's a fine place to get started ...

If we keep our focus on the reality, observe it deeper, and let our observation of the reality help us evolve the micro-level concepts and theories that actually work, we would gradually evolve concepts that work on the ground. If we continue to operate by the instruction manuals prepared by the experts and handed over to us, we would continue to live on "borrowed" creativity.

In future articles, we would study the art of distilling "concepts from the reality" , based on the insights derived from the Chess games of Alpha Zero.

It is not Wrong Just Because They Couldn't See It ...

When the games played by AlphaZero are analyzed by its rival, Stockfish, it often turns out that the moves played by Alpha Zero do not appear even in the top ten of Stockfish's selection of best moves for that position.

There is a very important learning for us in there.

Just because another individual (or an expert) doesn't have the wherewithal to identify the merit in an idea, it doesn't make the idea bad.

A more palatable explanation of the Invisible Ships Phenomenon states that the native inhabitants were usually so caught up in their hardships that anything that didn't affect (or threaten) their daily lives significantly were ignored. Whether the natives really couldn't see the ships, or whether they ignored them is often debatable.

However, just because they ignored the ships or failed to see the ships, it didn't mean that the ships did not exist.

When our current glossary of concepts, ideas, notions and theories do not serve the purpose of giving us an accurate understanding of the world around us, we need to realize that this is a clarion call to start afresh. We could either choose to re-build our concepts, ideas, notions and theories from first principles all over again, or we could spend a life-time imposing our existent virtual map onto the reality and feeling lost amidst the paradoxes we ee.

The secret to not being baffled by the reality is : whenever there is a disconnect between the reality and the map of the reality, we need to give precedence to the reality. We need to blank out that part of the map of the reality doesn't align to the reality. Being in a blank state where we are unable to make conscious sense of the reality is far more authentic than relying on inaccurate maps of reality.

We would begin to understand the world much better if we used the reality to direct the formation of our maps of reality, howsoever blurred, rather than using our map of reality to evaluate and judge the reality.

What does it take to create an accurate map of the reality from the first principles ?

?It would be intriguing to explore how to utilize the mind's intrinsic nature of "connecting the dots" to create a better map of the reality.

Beyond Outsourced Thinking

(c) ReInvent Software Solutions, 2019. All Rights Reserved.