Chess vs IQ

IQ = Intelligence quotient, originally obtained by expressing the perceived cognitive ability of a child, expressed in years and months as the age of the average child which attains that standard, as a proportion of its chronological age. It's a function of problem-solving ability. There are some fake intelligence tests around .... fake because they are culturally biassed. Real intelligence is about solving problems that are novel to you.

What's it like being a Mensa member? My wife passed the test, scoring about IQ = 157, but she never kept up her membership and never attended a meeting.

I too was able to join Mensa, but it seemed very pretentious. Not to insult your wife. I'm just talking about the very active members, many of which feel they are superior to others.

I didn't say that that's not the case. As I mentioned, iq tests (WISC-V being the one which I took and the one about which I know the most) typically consist of a serious of subtests with different weights. For the aforementioned test, each subtest is weighted according to its correlation with g, and the subscores for processing speed and working memory are given less weight than the fluid reasoning index and visual-spatial index. The point is not that iq tests don't test those things; rather, it's that many sections give them little weight and are given more overall weight than the sections which adequately examine them.

Gotta love being told that I've never taken a test when I've had to take them twice for psych evals

Also, you ignored my second point...

I was 162 Dead on! However I really don't believe it affects any part of my life. (Besides being a nerd)  

-GC

If you've taken them then you should know about the huge pattern recognition aspect of them. As for your second point, it fits in quite nicely with my first one. Since I have stated that since chess is basically pattern recognition, and so is an IQ test, I clearly believe that high IQ equals high chess ability. Using this bit of information, it's not hard to deduce that I think that if Kasparov was one of the best chess players in the world, he could also be one of the smartest people in the world. I didn't say it was necessarily true, I just said it wasn't hard to believe. As for why I "ignored" your second point was because I thought that all of this was basic logic, and that you could put two and two together. 

Thanks!

You have to be trolling.

1) calling an iq test a measure of pattern recognition is incredibly reductive since chess ability is likely best correlated not with pattern recognition but with working memory and processing speed, both of which are given little weight on most iq tests. Consequently, the overall correlation would be there but would likely be minimal. In fact, if you bothered to check the pastebin, the notes by the journalists corroborate this idea in that they claim that Kasparov tested very well in certain areas and only at an average level in others.

2) Clearly, if your claims were correct, then finding that Kasparov's intelligence isn't exceptional (though definitely quite high) should indicate (given chess ability ~ iq) that his chess ability is also similarly unexceptional. Obviously, this is false, so don't try to belittle me by claiming that it's "basic logic."

3) You asked me if I'd taken an iq test, and I told you that I had. If you're going to just ignore someone's answer to a question, don't ask the question.

Yeah, I let my membership lapse after a year.

People with high IQ won't play chess because they are busy with other works and jobs. It means chess players won't have any IQ at all.

I had a friend in high school who loved Mensa. He thought he would be able to network with people at the meetings, but they were rather, ehh.  He loved the discount program though and thought it was worth it for that alone. 

The thing about chess is, you can be taught how to handle specific positions, and how to play them at a high level.

You don't need to be brilliant to do this. You just need to be shown, and to have the underlying concepts explained to you, in simple terms. Then, playing strong chess is just a matter of remembering what you've learned, and building upon the concepts that you've been taught.

(Obviously there's much more to chess than that. But to keep things simple, that's what chess ability is: the product of learning).

Sure, a person with a high IQ might be able to "figure out" chess, at a much quicker pace (and in a more intuitive manner) than a person with a low IQ. But having such a talent isn't really required.

And such an ability becomes difficult to identify, once both types of players reach a high level of play.

137 puts your son in the top 1%, which is very intelligent but not genius-level. My iq was measured at 140 at school 45 years ago, and I was regarded as gifted rather than an outstanding student - generally near the top of my class but rarely at the pinnacle. I did a Philosophy PhD a few years ago in my early middle age, which I'm very proud of, but it wasn't easy. There were people in my cohort who were very obviously much cleverer than me.

Well done for two things at least. Firstly, being honest about the meaning of IQ. Many people are starting to think that 140+ is genius level and it should be obvious that is nonsense. Secondly, well done on your philosophy PhD. I got a B.A. in philosophy. To some extent, the dissertation I wrote was more masters level, without the more rigorous referencing and structure which that would require, and I continued long after with my ideas regarding epistemology. I hope you will tell me .... what was your specialisation in philosophy?

My specialization was Indian philosophy vs Western philosophy

What was yours?

Epistemology, I suppose. I did do a module on Indian or Eastern philosophy but it was presented by an English guy who was held in very great regard but who was a Buddhist convert, more or less. I was more interested in classical Hinduism. I remember having to do an essay on "Is Emptiness Really Empty", which can be approached from all angles, really, and was a bit like the classic school detention essay, "On the inside of a ping pong ball". Having spent five months in India in 1976, I had become interested.

Well to be fair, due to the Flynn effect, your IQ would be lower than my son's. 

I would counter that the existence of Magnus Carlsen does not make John Bartholomew a weak chess player, despite the fact that Carlsen is significantly stronger than Bartholomew. 

Yes! 

We say 'nothing is impossible'.

Q. Then, what is impossible?

Ans. Nothing

Then, what is this 'nothing'?

We indirectly say that 'nothing' is impossible.

It means that there is something impossible. And the impossible thing is 'nothing'.

Some things are nothing to be worried about and no things are something to be scared of.

Nice to hear from you. My thesis was on modality, basically a response to David Lewis postulating a counterpart theory without possible worlds. I'm not really a born philosopher; I was really just scratching an itch, and quit the day of my award. Nowadays I write literary fiction and formal verse, 99.9% in iambic pentameter.

I forgot to ask where you did your BA. My first degree was in Eng. Lit. as an 18 year old at UCL. Then I went back to UCL as a 29 year old for my Philosophy BA, and did my MA & PhD at Bristol in my early to mid 40's - I'm in my late 50's now.