I do not see there being a college course on "wisdom"ever being offered. Several problems. .. It would be politically incorrect to say what is "wise" and what is stupid. We can't have people running about with learned wisdom, taught by radical professors. Can you imagine the repercussions? Politicians, scientists, criminals would all be up in arms.
Chess and logical thinking?
Sort:
Dec 16, 2015
0
#43
mdinnerspace wrote:
I do not see there being a college course on "wisdom"ever being offered. Several problems. .. It would be politically incorrect to say what is "wise" and what is stupid. We can't have people running about with learned wisdom, taught by radical professors. Can you imagine the repercussions? Politicians, scientists, criminals would all be up in arms.
That's certainly one of the impediments: the ideological duo of religion and politics. Always politics interfering with the progress of the human race. However, that type of wisdom isn't exactly what I'm talking about.
More specifically, I'm talking about a new branch of science that I call Systemology. I had to give it my own name since it doesn't even exist yet. In the '80s there was a lot of talk about "emergent systems" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence, http://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=9&secNum=1), which is strongly related to Systemology. Systemology would be an objective science, not ideological like religion and politics, and its claims would be most commonly provable by statistics. In every aspect of life and nature you see the same general phenomena arise in complex systems. In chess, one of the most striking such phenomena is the relationship between tempi/material and Einstein's E=mc^2. (If enough people here are unfamiliar with the relationship between those two concepts, I'll post a new thread about it.) That means that if you understand the essence of any complex system, whether life, intelligence, air molecules, chaotic systems, physics, mathematics, chess, or whatever, you already have a deep understanding of other complex systems. The only thing to learn at that general level is the corresponding analog in the system that is new to you. That is one of the reasons I say that with wisdom one should be able to learn about the practical, everyday system of life from knowing the system of chess. Politics need not enter the picture at all, unless politicians are eager to use that as an excuse to hold up a new and enlightening branch of science.
P.S.--I just found out per Wikipedia that there exists a field called Systems Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory), which at first glance seems exactly what I've been calling Systemology, though I'll have to look into it more to see if it matches my own concept.
Yes. Sacrificing one's queen for mate is logical but routine. It requires no thought at all if it's mate in one, two or three.
I was referring to a queen sac for positional gain or for an incalculable yet to be revealed advantage based on one's gut feeling & relatable experience in a position. In hindsight one could probably say, yeah it was a logical. But in the absolute moment when the move is played, who could say that it was "logical"? I doubt any chess engine would say so (if it could actually "think" logically which is another topic altogether! Heh)
I would think one's philosophy in life is more comparable to chess than is a system of logic. Theoretical physics is, to me, comparable to logic although I believe engineering, mathematics, applied physics is comparable to chess than logic.
True. Then it's one's own philosophy of playing chess than it being the logical choice (especially if you acknowledge it's incalculable). Romantic chess is certainly not "logical" chess as I touched upon earlier.
You're right in saying sacs for positional gain is strategic but missed my point. Namely, that it's not logic that dictates the tactical shot for positional gain. But experience and intuition.
Dec 20, 2015
0
#47
I think chess is its own reward. But many of the spokemen who claim that chess has certain benefits such as logical thinking are usually doing that as justification for making it available for any interested elementary student.I think this would result in a positive things (such as social interaction) but i don't think that many of the claims for chess are verified by objective sources. Some of my best friends (as well as my wife) i have met through chess and that is justification enough.
Dec 20, 2015
0
#48
No response yet from the original poster? Oh well, we're having fun in our musings, even in his absence.
I checked out Kasparov's book that was mentioned in this thread and came across this interesting quote that also matches my opinion that chess is more like visual logic than mathematical logic:
----------
(p. 48)
Without a doubt, the question I am most often asked is "How many
moves ahead do you see?" As with most such questions, the honest an-
swer is "It depends," but that hasn't stopped people from asking or gen-
erations of chess players from concocting pithy replies. "As far as needed"
is one, or "One move further than my opponent." There is no concrete
figure, no maximum or minimum; in a way, it's like asking a painter how
many brushstrokes he uses in a painting. Calculation in chess is not one
plus one; it's more like figuring out a route on a map that keeps changing
before your eyes.
Kasparov, Garry, and Mig Greengard. 2007. How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, From the Board to the Boardroom. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.
Dec 21, 2015
0
#49
Reality: most players are intensely staring at their pieces not thinking of some strategy, but simply trying not to blunder.
0110001101101000 wrote:
Reality: most players are intensely staring at their pieces not thinking of some strategy, but simply trying not to blunder.
And that's logical too.
Dec 21, 2015
0
#51
That's just some word play :) That sort of logic is peripheral as we're saying the main mechanism of playing (for most players) involves observation and not schemes.
Well, at least when we're dealing with the conscious side of it. Unconsciously we're using patterns and experience to guide all sorts of decisions of course.
Which is another thing non-players get wrong IMO. That between two players, most of the disparity in skill is due to training and not some intellectual prowess. At some point of course it comes down to the hardware, but not nearly as much as the general public believes.
Dec 21, 2015
0
#52
The name is binary for "ch"
In the "about me" section I spell out "chess." Each letter takes eight 1s or 0s so "chess" wouldn't fit.
Not an extremely creative name for a chess forum I must admit :)
Dec 21, 2015
0
#54
Yeah, it's ridiculous, not my best internet moniker lol.
Real names are awkward, but fake ones are odd too. If I'm going to be someone I'm not, might as well be unrelateable... may have been my thinking at the time.
Dec 21, 2015
0
#56
8 is a number I haven't given much thought too.
What an odd sentence.
Dec 21, 2015
0
#59
Whip_Kitten and batgirl certainly give more for the imagination to go with.
If batgirl is a hero, then maybe Whip_Kitten is her nemesis haha.
Indeed. Maybe I'm naive but logic & chess aren't comparable to me. Most times, a seemingly logical move in certain positions, isn't the "right" one. The "logical" move tends to be the predictable move which may fall in with the overall strategy foreseen beforehand i.e. a forced combination or loss of the initiative. Logic cannot define intuitive feel for a position in chess because it is often subjective. Chess lends itself to abstract concepts realised from experience or arduous concrete calculation. Queen sacs aren't logical. A rook vs 5 pawns isn't logical. Obtaining two knights vs two bishops (when the knights dominate) in a game isn't logical to most if it hadn't been foreseen.
We can make "logical" moves but that does not mean to say we are logical. Logic assumes A to be true. Logic assumes B must be played because of A. And soo on.
Chess isn't Soo simplistic like checkers (checkers being solved notwithstanding).