Chess calculation and how you think ?

@Sarg0n

Iterativ thinking is not random. It is the natural thinking process. In the game you're in the position. You know about some features and start with a line. A line you calculate is not random. You want to reach a goal and the endpoint of the line gives you feedback. Starting from this and you take the next line or you check it or you move, again not really by chance.

Kotov reports the same in his observations, but then he sets up rules how you should think. This normative approach has pluses und minuses. Tisdall discusses this and quotes at the beginning of his first chapter Anatoli Lein: I don't think like a tree - do you think like a tree?"

Try to think random lines. You will remark, that it is really, really, really difficult. If you succeed you will need weeks to regenerate to your normal play. :)

@jupp53 We think we are in control of our brains, it only lets us have some awareness, otherwise we would drool.

How did we get to this? Wasn't this supposed to be general chess talk? But yes we are obviously in control of our brains 😀😀😂😂😂😂😁😁😁😁🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😮😮😮🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴😴😴😴😴😴😴😫😫😫😖😖😖😖😲😲😲🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🥵🥵🥵

@Savage_Cactus I should have said aware of everything that occurs in our thinking, not as punchy.

and if you still object to that less punchy version, consider the simple act of throwing a basket ball in the net (or a paper ball in your desk neighbor's paper can, in Dilbert's world).

Are you really aware of your calculations while throwing the object. That's your leela-in-the-head that's computing then, and it does not speak conscious very well.

@jupp53

Let's take a second to appreciate a few facts:

The chasm between what a GM writes down as a step-by-step, logical procedure, is not necessarily, nay, can't possibly be what is actually going on in their minds.

The idea that they are sitting there, following some step-by-step formula of how to create a chess move, can't be a correct idea.
The idea that applying what they say they're doing will create play that looks like what they create, can't be a correct idea.

The only and obvious conclusion is, "They are doing a great amount of it by second-nature. There is no telling how regimented or free-form it actually is on the conscious level, much less the sub-conscious level."

And this being the case, then opens the door to the question, "What else are they doing by second-nature that they're not aware of, or only partially aware of, that they had to have omitted from their books?"

The idea that we can mimic their second-nature (sub-conscious) with our primary nature (conscious), and still have "room" to create chess moves, is absurd.

What would happen to someone that is in the habit of constructing memory palaces, if they were placed behind the eyeballs of the average person? I imagine they would sob for a few days at their loss.

How many people, upon learning the process that memory-savants claim they use, are then able to mimic those "logical and rational steps" to where they, too, can now memorize entire dictionaries?

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

There is much more to Sarg0n's statement than you're giving him credit for.

what that person said.

I agree that Sargon's comment was not about dismissing the thread direction, but an effort to provide another angle to the thread about... (i forgot what the op question was, though %-)... thought processes involved in a good game of chess, for his cohort (better term?).

They are not aware of using methodical checklists type of thinking, so it may not be required, or the only way to get better. Or eventually, if you practice with those checklist in mind, they will become second nature, and you will not have to use them consciously, anymore (other sub-conscious patterns may have tagged along that internalization, i'm not excluding here).

@Sarg0n Please, where can I find that reference about the thinking process of Carlsen and Kramnik being random?

I use steps in training or learning, to find out what I'm missing and to work on my weaknesses,If my trained, board vision positional judgement, or calculation fail to help me understand the position, a steps thinking method can help me build new understanding. Either by helping me solve the position or helping me to understand what skills I was lacking.

In game you play, at your current level by concentrating on the chessboard. A step one through five is not a time efficient way to play chess.

In training you try to improve by giving yourself material that is a tiny bit harder than what your used to solving. You can use steps to help break small barriers.

@Onyx_Chess and @dboing

You didn't get the point.

Not being able to report completly your thinking process is well known before the beginning of scientific psychology, aka Wundt, Binet, McKeen Cattell.

Since then has been done some research and the idea of sub-concious processes is not fitting here. You should better talk about automatisms. "Nature" and "second nature" means what?

The fact of taking up one or several features of a position and jumping forth and back doesn't support the idea of random. It maybe support the idea of not controlling the process. Another word for this is letting it "flow". But what the heck is this idea of "control".

This control idea is a wish or desire, simply another topic than the thinking process. Personally I wanted to stick with communicable facts, check the observations, take factual human thinking as basis to work with, use sometimes scientific psychological concepts for progressing.

It needed years to understand why the normative approach from Kotov is not only advantageous. He has really merits. That's why he is still in discussion. To say it in proverbs: The way to hell is paved with good intentions. When rejecting this you should not spill out the child with the bath.

As I haven't eaten lore with spoons I read since years with interest what other people think about this topic.

@jupp53 "Since then has been done some research and the idea of sub-conscious processes is not fitting here. You should better talk about automatisms. "Nature" and "second nature" means what?"

You seem to have an educated definition of sub-conscious. When i use that term, i am speaking about non-conscious.
"conscious" is easier to agree on; then anything else, for me, is non-conscious and would include automatism, if your consciousness can be busy somewhere else while you are doing it. I may be confusing term boundaries....

but the thread started with checklists, which are of the conscious domain, everybody agrees, i assume.

optional reading:
The rest, all the terms you seem to be keen on separating into mutually exclusive semantics, are of the domain of practice with repetition and internal models of the world, like leela engines would do, in my understanding of machine learning with neural nets and deep architectures. This last paragraph, is more of a hypothesis i'm throwing.