chess thinking

[jts]

Ayn Rand admits she is not a chess player and knows only the rudiments of the game. Then she lectures about chess to the world chess champion.

From Ayn Rand's Open Letter to Boris Spassky:

Unlike algebra, chess does not represent the abstraction–the basic pattern–of mental effort; it represents the opposite: it focuses mental effort on a set of concretes, and demands such complex calculations that a mind has no room for anything else.

Every serious chess player knows there is more to chess than calculation. There is tactics and there is strategy. The game of chess abounds in what are called principles of strategy. Kasparov wrote in an article about a world title game he played with Karpov that at the world championship level chess thinking is sometimes almost philosophical. What would Ayn Rand say to that?

What am I not understanding?

[Guyau]

Rand’s delightful essay is reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It.

Jerry, I expect Rand’s views of the comparative cognitive requirements of chess and life were pretty much exhausted in that essay. To the questions of what are the relationships between cognition in chess and cognition in perception, in general knowledge, and in scientific knowledge—and how Rand’s picture squares—I surely would study first the final section of John Haugeland’s Having Thought. That section comprises four essays: “Objective Perception,” “Pattern and Being,” “Understanding: Dennett and Searle,” and “Truth and Rule-Following.” Sorry I am unable to dig into it with you at this time, but I thought you might like to know about this seminal work.

Stephen

[BaalChatzaf]

Ayn Rand admits she is not a chess player and knows only the rudiments of the game. Then she lectures about chess to the world chess champion.

From Ayn Rand's Open Letter to Boris Spassky:

Unlike algebra, chess does not represent the abstraction–the basic pattern–of mental effort; it represents the opposite: it focuses mental effort on a set of concretes, and demands such complex calculations that a mind has no room for anything else.

Every serious chess player knows there is more to chess than calculation. There is tactics and there is strategy. The game of chess abounds in what are called principles of strategy. Kasparov wrote in an article about a world title game he played with Karpov that at the world championship level chess thinking is sometimes almost philosophical. What would Ayn Rand say to that?

What am I not understanding?

The greatest chess players had a holistic grasp of the game states. They did not mechanically follow the move-tree. Analyzing move-trees is how computers play chess. With enough computing power they can outplay humans but do nothing else. Rand had a narrow view of the game. She was, what we call, a potzer. A mere pusher of wood with no real grasp of the game.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[George H. Smith]

Whenever the topic comes up among O'ists about the worst thing that Rand ever wrote, I always nominate her letter to Spassky. Her analysis of chess is like reducing novelists to people who make up stories that are not true.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Whenever the topic comes up among O'ists about the worst thing that Rand ever wrote, I always nominate her letter to Spassky. Her analysis of chess is like reducing novelists to people who make up stories that are not true.

Ghs

Jesus, George! What a line!

--Brant

I had to give up chess as a teenager as I didn't have the mind for it, but I had read a book by Botvinnik so I understood enough to beat my brother: the last game we played (1960) he threw up the chessboard and the last game I remember playing was speed-chess with my nephew at the University of Montana in 1986; the one ancient player I would want to see playing today would be Capablanca taking on all the greats of the last 50 years, especially Fisher, and I wonder how that IBM computer would deal with him not knowing he was coming

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I read a book by chessmaster Emanuel Lasker years ago when I was involved in a chess club in São Paulo. (I actually used to spend hours studying books on chess.)

The one phrase that stuck out to me and has been with me for years is, "Chess is a fight."

Just like with sports, I think there was a blank spot in Rand's mind about enjoying organized competitions for the thrill of defeat and victory, going from the individual to tribal feelings in a make-believe fight. As I remember, she always looked at sports in one of the basic ways we look at art forms and stuff in museams--in other words, she saw a sports event (and that would include chess) as a means to display a skill. Something like a concert.

I think the idea of letting yourself go in a make-believe activity to trounce an enemy tribe was something she looked down on. She was not immune to the thrill of competition, but I think she tried to cram the urge into a form that would fit her understanding of rational versus whim. (Examples of this would make an interesting article.)

I agree with Jerry about highlighting strategy and tactics. If that form of thinking isn't essential to the human mind in getting stuff done, I don't know what is.

In terms of activity, I see a direct relationship between the form of strategy and tactics, and the form of genus and differentia. It's a big part (strategy or genus) setting the background boundaries while the small part (tactics or differentia) makes distinctions and contrasts within those boundaries.

I also agree with George that her letter to Spassky belongs among the worst things Rand ever wrote, despite the good stuff in it.

Her analysis of chess is like reducing novelists to people who make up stories that are not true.

That's a particularly elegant analogy and spot on.

(My post just crossed with Brant's.)

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Near the beginning of her Open Letter to Boris Spassky, Rand writes: "Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop—and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature...."

It is a bit odd to introduce metaphysical absolutism into chess and other games, which operate according to rules that are entirely conventional. There are variants of chess that use different rules, and the rules of conventional chess evolved over time.

Of course, it is quite correct to say that once the rules have been established and agreed upon, then those rules must be strictly followed -- but even this is not true unconditionally, as when an expert permits a lesser player to take back a move or spots him a piece. It is simply incorrect to say, as Rand does of chess pieces, that "the identities and the rules of their movements are immutable." Such identities and rules are not immutable; they are conventional and can be changed.

Ghs

[Selene]

Great thread.

An example of what George just referred to is that a knight [horse] and a bishop used to have the same "weight," or value in the 1950's. They were both rated as "3," in terms of their "value." A Queen was valued at "9." I believe that the rook [castle] was valued at "5" or "6" [i would have to check that].

This weighting or valuing was a way to keep track of your relative "material" advantage of disadvantage in a game. However, it had no relation to your "position," development and pawn structure which invariably determines the outcome of a chess game.

However, over the last few decades, the strategic employment of the bishop has changed the weight ascribed to the knight and bishop. They are no longer equal. A bishop is more valued in the modern game than the knight is. Now, I believe the value of a bishop is still a"3" and the knight is "2 1/2."

As to a chess book that will change your entire philosophy of your game, I highly recommend Pawn Power by Hans Kmoch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kmoch. It is very difficult and highly mathematical in much of the book. However, the basic conceptual approach to the game is truly transformational. http://www.chessville.com/Reference_Center/Pawn_Power_Glossary.htm

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

The rook was/is 5.

--Brant

always felt I could do more with the bishops than knights, but I ascribed that to my chess ignorance, which is little improved over these last 52 years

anybody remember the classic and comletely unexpected queen sacrifice which won an important game by a grandmaster, maybe Fisher?

[Brant Gaede]

Near the beginning of her Open Letter to Boris Spassky, Rand writes: "Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop—and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature...."

It is a bit odd to introduce metaphysical absolutism into chess and other games, which operate according to rules that are entirely conventional. There are variants of chess that use different rules, and the rules of conventional chess evolved over time.

Of course, it is quite correct to say that once the rules have been established and agreed upon, then those rules must be strictly followed -- but even this is not true unconditionally, as when an expert permits a lesser player to take back a move or spots him a piece. It is simply incorrect to say, as Rand does of chess pieces, that "the identities and the rules of their movements are immutable." Such identities and rules are not immutable; they are conventional and can be changed.

Ghs

I can't stand and never adapted to the new rules of move notation--why did they do that?

--Brant

p to q4

[anthony]

Near the beginning of her Open Letter to Boris Spassky, Rand writes: "Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop—and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature...."

It is a bit odd to introduce metaphysical absolutism into chess and other games, which operate according to rules that are entirely conventional. There are variants of chess that use different rules, and the rules of conventional chess evolved over time.

Ghs

Hm, yes, quite a determinist statement, if not a little elitist...

Those common foot-soldiers don't get a mention, and pawns are decisive

in many end-games.

[BaalChatzaf]

Of course, it is quite correct to say that once the rules have been established and agreed upon, then those rules must be strictly followed -- but even this is not true unconditionally, as when an expert permits a lesser player to take back a move or spots him a piece. It is simply incorrect to say, as Rand does of chess pieces, that "the identities and the rules of their movements are immutable." Such identities and rules are not immutable; they are conventional and can be changed.

Ghs

Also the functionality of a piece is determined by its relation to others pieces. A queen pinned to her king by a long range opposing piece such as a bishop or rook may be worth zip if the pin cannot be blocked by an intermediate piece.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Whenever the topic comes up among O'ists about the worst thing that Rand ever wrote, I always nominate her letter to Spassky. Her analysis of chess is like reducing novelists to people who make up stories that are not true.

Ghs

Did Spassky comment on Rand's letter?