why do you LOVE chess??

What is love? Is it desirable? It is the same thing as happiness, or perhaps the opposite?

Schopenhauer was perhaps the first mainstream philosopher to write primarily about love, both as a moral emotion and generally how two people fall for each other. Schopenhauer said that contrary to popular belief, love was the opposite of happiness - love being caused by a biological need to reproduce.

Then, in the German tradition, Nietzsche came onto the scene. Raised in Schopenhauer's views, Nietzsche offered a different approach to love - it is the opposite not of happiness, but of friendship (perhaps they are the same thing, as according to Aristotle the ancient). According to Nietzsche, the only love that one should have is for thyself (differing from Kant who believed self-love good but also to "love" - although actually perhaps not so different because Kant was strictly against pathological love) so perhaps the Germans were idealists in this sense.

But in the German literature you see the perils of love and the epic fails of all of the characters who do fall in love.

Derrida describes love as lack (which Aristotle would say equals desire and arguably all philosophers). You love a woman because you desire what you lack (and now perhaps same-sex is supported by this theory). And friendship, you see yourself in the other and strive to be good like them. 

Because love is in another world and everyone's experience is unique please share!

Chess is love, chess is life.

I think Nietzche is wrong about everything. I don't want to discuss the whole philosophy aspects in the original post. I'll just say that I love Chess only because it gives me a way, a game, that allows a relatively long lasting escape from reality. The fact that there is no end in chess learning for human players makes more engrossing. You cannot just "win" chess. I also like Go for the same reason. Same goes for video games. I enjoy them because they allow me to escape from reality sometimes. But video games are mostly finite. If you play very complex turn based started games they'll be even more complex than chess (for example Civilization games) but since the games themselves change and evolve over time with rule changes it is not rewarding to play Civ or other strategy games too much. You will get good at it and then the rules change in the next game. But with chess the unchanging rules make it worthwhile to play long term. The fact that it is an analog distraction from reality makes it easier to play.

may be chess is the reality and everything else is just fantasy

look, because for something to be real it must be "enclosed" in a space. but if infinitely many things are real there would be an infinite amount of space, which would mean no "space" at all (for there would be no boundary to mark the space). so the world you are escaping from isnt real. the chess takes you away to the real world, "over the rainbow"

You love beauty. Is chess "beautiful "? I don't think so. Chess is competition, it is extreme aggression. You want to kill your opponent. Perhaps Freud could help us here better than German philosophers

Because it's the only thing that can make my folks proud of me, know what I'm saying

dont love chest

like it

love peepul

i love CC

Hi Gilasaurus,

i would recommend reading Kafka, particularly his 4-book set "The Sons" pay special attention to his "letter"

hopefully will hear better news!

HF

chest dont love

dont love sumpin that caint love bak

CC guril dont love me

but i love her

now i'm stuck

Honest answers:

- Intellectually complex and satisfying.

- An honest game. You can BS all you want about "this subvariation of this opening line was played in 1944 by such GM", but if your rating is the pits, it's pretty clear you're full of hot air, and you can't fake your way out of it over the board.

- Never goes obsolete. I used to LOVE playing video games (still do but never have the time, actually), but seeing every game change every 6 months or less gets both expensive and annoying. 

 

- The more you study chess, the more fun it gets! Interestingly, winning more doesn't seem affect the fun-factor quite as much; beating a slew of players rated -250 points under doesn't mean much, but beating a much stronger player even once out of many losses is awesome.