Some Rational, Reasonable, Truthfully Logical, Cognitive Thought Regarding CTE

Boxcar said:
Thank you! If you have a moment, please see my reply to John in #104.

We have been humans for a long time. Our ability to process complex data has been around for a long time, too. Action - Reaction. Instant Action - Instant Reaction. We are never trained in how to avoid a high speed automobile accident, we just do it. My third baseman is 28 years old. He has been playing baseball since he was 3 1/2 when his Dad taught him how to play catch. No orientation is required, no processing, only reaction. He knows everything there is to know about that moment and he knows what has to be done. The ball will always be round and first base will always be where it was yesterday.

In pool, there are two balls and they are sitting very, very still.
Click to expand...
Actually we have been trained in how to avoid accidents. And yet accidents still happen so not everyone takes to the training as well as others.

If someone has been doing something intently since they were three then they certainly ought to be able to perform most tasks required for that something without any struggle.

Are you going to maintain that there are not any techniques taught to baseball players? Let's do an experiment with five year olds and teach some of them to catch and throw and give the others no instruction and see who has better results in a week.

Of course some people have more aptitude for some tasks. My daughter can sing, I can't. But she can't sing professionally because she doesn't know how to do a lot of what needs to be known in order to be a pro. Things she will need to learn.

Humans are animals. Animals that are engaged in tasks that have nothing to do with survival. The breadth of human ability is great and runs from great strength to great weakness and from great intelligence to great impairment. We use our brains to create compensations for our physical limitations.

We create rules and tools and techniques that get honed and improved over and over. We do this because that is how our species has evolved. We are builders and problem solvers. We cooperate across all boundaries.

All this to say that no man is an island and no person who scoops up a line drive at third and whips it to first in a dazzling display of physical movement got there by themselves.
 
Boxcar said:
That's an interesting assessment, John, and I'm glad you took it up. It is, however, a subjective assessment. The hitter had you way back, anticipating the hit. What if he bunts? The pitcher threw him the perfect pitch for a hard pull. What if Numbnuts takes him low and away? Or worse, comes inside at his letters?

In the milliseconds in which my scenario plays out, my third baseman doesn't think...because he doesn't have to think, all he does is react. As human, beings, we have been hard wired for eons to react instinctively.

There is a difference between assumptions and objective data.
Click to expand...
The reason you are way back is because you are anticipating based on previous data.

All you can do is assess and react. In fact a very good example of this is penalty kicks in soccer.

Pool is not a good comparison because the balls are static. So the shooter has time to assess without having to deal with a ball flying at them. The task is in some ways made more difficult by the amount of choice available.
 
JoeyInCali said:
One time I was at Hard Times . Tang Hoa, a US Open finalist, was actually getting some pointers in aiming . Why? I have no clue . The aim instructor was teaching how to aim a shot . It's another version of CTE. Lord only knows how many versions there are .
Efren was seated next to me . He tells me I'd like to play that maestro . Frankly, Efren could have given the aim instructor the orange crush .
When they were done Efren set up the shot . He tells me and a common friend, you don't need aiming lessons on that shot . " You're not supposed to miss it ." He fires at it , ball goes down the hole quick.
Cue ball was near the left side pocket and object ball was near the bottom right corner.
Click to expand...
And? Efren had been playing since he was a child.

Just because one person can do something doesn't mean that another person can do it in the same way.

Efren was right, you're not supposed to miss the shot. So why does it bother you so much that there are people who are trying to help other people not miss shots?
 
BC21 said:
The reality is actually pretty simple, and common sense....

Aspiring pool players that have plenty of time to invest in the good ol' HAMB (trial and error) method likely won't need an aiming system, other than standard ghostball. That's how most of us learned, and how most pros learned.

For aspiring players who have fulltime jobs and families and other interests besides pool, they could easily spend 20+ years playing here and there, maybe 5 games per week in an APA or VNEA league, and still never become a proficient shot maker through HAMB. Or for the newby or veteran player who seems to have no mojo or has lost the mojo for pocketing balls...For these players, a good aiming system can be very beneficial.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I have been saying for more than a decade.
Screenshot_20210617-104325_Facebook.jpg
 
JB Cases said:
This is exactly what I have been saying for more than a decade.View attachment 599050
Click to expand...

Sounds like a satisfied customer.

But in the VNEA, an "ERO" is a runout on your 1st inning at the table with ALL the balls still up. There is no way to get a 10-2 or a 10-1 score for an ERO....well, unless you pocket 1 or 2 of your opponent's balls while running out, or unless they've changed the rules for an ERO since I played that league. It was a few years ago.
 
BC21 said:
Sounds like a satisfied customer.

But in the VNEA, an "ERO" is a runout on your 1st inning at the table with ALL the balls still up. There is no way to get a 10-2 or a 10-1 score for an ERO....well, unless you pocket 1 or 2 of your opponent's balls while running out, or unless they've changed the rules for an ERO since I played that league. It was a few years ago.
Click to expand...
Well maybe he is a liar. Pretty sure the point of the post is clear in the context of this discussion, a regular person who is ENJOYING the game more because of an aiming method that has increased his confidence and ability.
 
The_JV said:
I'm ignoring the rest of your posts prior to this one that were directed at me. Consider that 'ducking the issue', 'cherry picking', 'consession of the argument', I don't care. I'm at my wits end with trying to have a focused discussion with you. Pulling reason out of these talks is like hunting for needle in a bag of pissed off cats.

...<epiphany> sacred cow = my sanity </epiphany>
...<snip> (another attempt to have a conversation) </snip>
Click to expand...
Well, if you would focus on the overall points and the context it would help. I am fully clear what MY form is like.

If you want a focused discussion then inside of a contentious thread isn't the best place for that. Your focus and mine are not aligned. I don't post in these threads asking for advice about my form. I am trying to make general points that compare and contrast the VALUE to the user for the aiming methods that I want to compare and contrast.

Ideally I would LOVE for there to be some sort of standard test that we could all agree on which would show aiming acuity to an acceptable degree. I would love it if enough us were interested enough to learn each aiming system to proficiency and test them out using that standard test. I would love it if we then had the score data and shot difficulty to use for results-based stats and if the user filled out a standard form designed to get feedback on how the user felt when using the system being tested. That is my ultimate focus here.

I would like the various systems identified along with any variants/home brews that are in the same "family" so to speak. I would like for us to agree on what the words objective and objectivity mean in specific regards to the task of aiming pool balls.

I would like for us to explore the perceptual differences between fractional aligning when standing versus the sighting=hit alignment in fractional aiming.

And I would like us to explore the development curve to see if we could actually codify what improvement from zero knowledge and zero experience that one should/could expect with various combinations of effort/study/instruction. To me these are all questions that we pretty much don't have solid answers for. So we speculate and argue about the speculation.

And in the end maybe that is all we really can do because the enthusiasm to work towards these answers doesn't appear to be there and certainly the money isn't there to fund the effort required to get good data.

If any of that is your goal then we have that in common. If not then we are going to be talking past each other. All I am in the end is a pool nut who wants to play as well as I can when I have the time to play. And as a fan of the sport I want to see it grow and prosper. To that end I think that it comes down to enjoyment when playing and the more people who enjoy this game the more support it will have. And any tools that help players at all levels should be welcomed and embraced and innovated and improved upon whenever possible.

I am interested in EVERY way to make any aiming method better. Even Ghost Ball. I saw another post in another thread today where the poster said that his ferrule happens to be about half the diameter of the cueball. And he uses this to find GB center and align to it and has seen a dramatic increase in his pocketing ability. So I started thinking about that and will mark a shaft accordingly to test it. I also had a few thoughts on how it might marked to account for the perceived thickness of the hit. These types of thoughts and more are what comes to me concerning aiming in general. While I prefer CTE I am fully aware that there are other methods that work decently to great for a wide range of shots, including Ghost Ball.

I hope that this illustrates my primary motivation. I used to be in the "just see it" crowd as well and didn't think aiming was worth talking about beyond being introduced to ghost ball. Part of that came from the fact that when I got interested in pool the first book about pool I read was Bob Byrne's Standard Book of Pool from the library. I could be wrong and I should confirm this before writing this but I don't want to go dig out that book at this moment, but I think that GB was the primary or only aiming instruction in that book so for a long time I thought that's all there was and all that was needed along with repetition.

Anyway, that's where I am at.
 
BC21 said:
But in the VNEA, an "ERO" is a runout on your 1st inning at the table with ALL the balls still up. There is no way to get a 10-2 or a 10-1 score for an ERO....well, unless you pocket 1 or 2 of your opponent's balls while running out, or unless they've changed the rules for an ERO since I played that league. It was a few years ago.
Click to expand...
To be fair, it reads to me like the 10-2's and 10-1's could be in addition to the ero's (if that's possible):
"Six ero's a few back to back, more than a couple 10 till 2's, and a few 10 till 1's."

pj <- this is a public service butt-in
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
To be fair, it reads to me like the 10-2's and 10-1's could be in addition to the ero's (if that's possible):
"Six ero's a few back to back, more than a couple 10 till 2's, and a few 10 till 1's."

pj <- this is a public service butt-in
chgo
Click to expand...

Good point. Makes more sense. ☺️
 
Was French Roots (the OP) banned? I figure he must be a former (banned) member to come out of the gate so strong with CTE. His profile does not come up when clicking on it. IDK how a banned member shows up on the new forums.
 
Dang, now I'm really confused. There used to be some idiot ass-hat over on NPR who swore to God I was English. Oh well, I guess it's not uncommon to find liars on the internet.
 
Last edited:
Boxcar said:
Dang, now I'm really confused. There used to be some idiot ass-hat over on NPR who swore to God I was English. Oh well, I guess it's not uncommon to find liars on the internet.
Click to expand...
On the internet nobody knows you're a dog...,.. Goes the famous cartoon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top