Post-cognitive takes on the beautiful game, sports, skill acquisition, ecological dynamics, learning, philosophy, and psychology
Apr 6, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The modern emphases on the pressing play of attackers and the build-up play of defenders are both just a product of the game displaying stronger interactions between scales.
The higher the level, the more events build on each other so this will naturally progress "upstream"
However, football tactical analysis is still hampered by limited understanding of the way different scales interact.
All the major questions about phases of play, transition, relation vs position, technique vs tactics etc all come down to questions about how scales interact.
Jan 12, 2024 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
A few quick thoughts on JDP. I am not against JDP so much as I think it does not possess the tools to explain why it (sometimes) works.
I've found that attempts to explain JDP often smuggle in an association with positive outcome rather than explain it (e.g. "better position")
Situating JDP within a more comprehensive framework may explain some of its successes and also, potentially, weaknesses.
Despite fancy phrases like "spaces of phase" it is not clear how a position should be evaluated aside from post hoc determination (led to a better outcome)
Nov 10, 2023 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
Engaged in a brief discussion about empirical support for ecological approaches in sport so here are a few links for people to check out.
Only QT'ing for the sake of thread/clarity.
Would love for people to engage more with this empirical research!
First, just a brief overview: The term ecological dynamics which is often used in a sport context refers to ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory.
These are both very well established fields that extend far beyond sport.
Nov 3, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Quick 🧵on why ecological dynamics has enabled such breakthroughs in the understanding of skill.
The key reconceptualization occurs at a level of depth that is often overlooked by armchair analysts.
I've recently been having a conversation with @NickGearing1 around the idea of isolated training.
So I thought I'd do a thread on repetition, isolation, and effective training. 🧵⬇️
First off, I'd like to thank Nick for the good-faith discussion and ask anyone getting involved with this thread to refrain from ad hominem attacks etc.
There are multiple points to the discussion, but I'm going to hone in on a few here.
Jun 10, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Direct perception is one of the most controversial aspects of ecological approaches to psychology.
It is also one of the most misunderstood concepts.
A quick thread on why we need direct perception and what people get wrong about it. 🧵
Direct perception starts from the observation that living organisms navigate their environments with a high degree of success most of the time.
Yes, we trip and fall sometimes but we take most basic actions for granted. We all do simple things like get up from the couch
Jun 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A few quick thoughts on an argument I've been seeing a lot lately. It goes like this:
1. Humans are physical things.
2. Computers are physical things.
3. To say that some aspect of human life (intelligence, consciousness, agency, intentionality etc) can not be implemented
by a computer is to say that those aspects are somehow magical.
This doesn't work.
Open-ended evolution requires material implementation, dynamics, and impredicativity. This often ignored in AI circles.
When Von Neumann moved to a formal model of self-replicating
Feb 9, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
🧵For a behaviour or process to be adequately explained by a chain-like sequence of component processes (eg. Perception, decision, execution etc), this timescale of mental processes needs to be more or less independent from faster & slower timescales.
This enables the component processes purportedly operating between stimulus and response to be analysed in terms of their independent contributions to the outcome of the whole. If this is the case, noise should be uncorrelated.
Dec 6, 2022 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
There's several years worth of discussions behind a lot of these ideas and debates, but going to try to summarise my position here. Fwiw, I think the sport is at the point where ontological questions can no longer be ignored so I'm a big fan of vigorous discussion around this.
From my perspective, the continuum isn't exactly positionism vs. relationism. The question, for me, is how to think about the role of blueprint-y things like game models, tactical plans etc.
There are actually two questions here. First, how much credit/emphasis should we give
Sep 19, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
We often hear that football belongs to, or is *for* the fans.
Let me explain why I strongly disagree with that take, and why it's such a fundamental issue 🧵
At first glance, the take that football belongs to the fans feels harmless. In fact, the fans are typically portrayed as the every-man; the working class who support their local team etc.
And fandom can be an amazing experience. Birth rates go up when a country wins the WC!
Aug 16, 2022 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
Why does the topic of isolated technical training evoke such strong reactions when critically examined?
There are two parts to the equation, in my opinion. It has to do with the role of the coach, and implicates their personal history (status in society, career, wages etc)
Let's look at the second part first and work backwards. Coaching is inherently a bit of a weird profession. You have some sport that emerges and gets popular in society (that could be a whole new thread) and at some point coaches start becoming associated with this activity.
Aug 4, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Representative design: a 🧵
Representative design (RD) is a simple idea. Practice is supposed to represent the game in *some* way.
The first question that people typically ask is "how does task A relate to task B?" This is an old and polarizing question.
There is one school of thought that holds A (practice) creates components (programs) which are then executed in B (game).
Another school says A must relate to B in terms of perceptual information, not just movement.
And this is where the RD battles are usually fought.
Nov 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Have been thinking about decisions a bit lately and this struck me
Consider a task in which i decide to walk to the left of an obstacle vs the right. I'm thinking of fajen and warren's steering stuff here. If I'm walking, the further left I navigate, the more annoying it is
To change course and go right. That said, nothing stops me from walking backwards and going to the right (maybe this is a 2nd decision tbf) but consider a situation in which I'm propelled fwd. This changes what it means to make a decision bc there is no reversibility
Nov 28, 2020 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
@stirling_j@PsychScientists First, let's acknowledge the Hegelian nature of the divide. Its not exactly ecoD v Cog. There's a universal/particular thing here. It's ecoD vs cog VS ecoD +cog.
@stirling_j@PsychScientists I think Andrew makes a very fair point that many practitioners don't understand how deep the divide goes. They are radically different views on how organisms perceive and learn all the way down to ontology. Is this dogmatic?
