Is Chess:
1. Sport?
2. Art?
3. Science?
4. Game?
5. All of the above
6. None of the above
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Chess?
About Author
Is Chess:
1. Sport?
2. Art?
3. Science?
4. Game?
5. All of the above
6. None of the above
Sport!
All of the above.
In the movie ‘Searching For Bobby Fischer’ Bruce Pandolfini played by Ben Kingsley says “Chess is neither a sport or a game, its art!” I believe chess is all of the above! Chess is a sport because it takes great mental and physical preparation to achieve a level with which to compete. Also Chess is a competition with winners and losers making it a sport. Chess is an art when playing novel ideas, using intuition, and every player has a finger print if you will or style with which they play it. Also great moves are played as great notes of music are scored and paintings are made with the creative process from the mind and soul making it art. Chess is a study from the thousands upon thousands of recorded games, books of games, and theory. It is an exercise of logic and theory of trial an error making it a science. Chess is played by novices for fun to Masters in competition for Titles money and prizes. All use rules and come to a conclusion of winner loser or draw making it definetly a game.
P.S. Is that too long an answer for a blog Susan ; )
TFK
Chess is competitive. So are the entrance examinations to get into college. But chess is done for fun (a game), while college is serious. Therefore chess is a sport as it’s competitive and done for the fun of it. Chess can be art if you want to make the definition of art to be so general that it’s worthless (not that the word is not already used laxly). Similarly, if you want to screw up language then you can call chess a science. The usual definition of science is the study of how the world works. Even art takes study: but it’s not science unless you want to use language imprecisely.
Its no way a sport. Its an indoor game. Mentally taxing at that. Game Shows like Weakest Link & Who wants to be a Millionaire are competitive, intellectually challenging and takes lots of study & preparation & lots of speed & nerve to do well but its still not considered a sport. So too chess.
Art – possibly. The ability to create something ‘beautiful’ – lots of tactics & subtle positional moves & imagination required.The way a person plays is in a way a form of self expression OTB.
Science – could jolly well be. Science seeks the truth & exactness of whats happening & why it happens thus in all phenomena around us. Chess requires exactitude, seeks the best move, questions motives & assesses possible hypothesis & conclusions and assessments OTB.
Anonymous to say “college is serious, and chess is for fun” is an asinine comment! Tell that to Susan Polgar, Garry Kasparov, or Bobby Fischer who devoted their life to this game, was not just for the fun of it!! You say art is a very weak expression for chess. Art like science and any other word in the list is subjective. Rembrandt as opposed to Pollock, both made art but your closed mind couldnt accept Pollock as art because his art is not the definition in Websters! Also if chess is not art take a look at some of the games of just 1 genuis of many, Bobby Fischer and say that isnt art. Your definition of science, quote “the study of how the world works”? Is kind of a strange way to explain science. I just spent an hour or so reading a physics teachers lecture on what science is and he didnt even have a definitive answer. So is the science of photography a study of how the world works? You sound like an intellectual who is short on IQ!!
TFK
Sport of course !
Chess may well be the ideal deterministic competition/game between two individuals. This, in itself suggests its appeal…and not its utility.
Chess rules/initial conditions are identical/unchanging (static) in all reference frames, and in this sense, unreal, for we live in an uncertain, ever changing, incomplete, intriguing, morphing (no pun intended), relativistic, at times inconsistent, reality.
Put another way, you might say that chess is the closest thing that humans have to a “True Contest of the Wit” in a game; one that offers a fair, equal opportunity at winning to either contestant.
Chess keeps all of the streets. Streets can be dangerous in the night.
Do you mean board chess or Internet chess or both? Internet chess is very different from board chess.
Chess offers life’s dimwits an opportunity to match wits with life’s movers and shakers.
If the words science and art are subjective then what makes you think that what you regard as art or science is more objective than what anyone else thinks? If you provide a definition of art and science then perhaps one can have meaningful discussion. If you say art and science can’t be defined then what’s the point of arguing if something’s art or science? Lot’s of things in the world are beautiful, lot’s of things in the world take careful study to master, so if those are your definitions of art and science, then lot’s of things in the world are art and science. That’s really abusing language.
Anon, but whats your point? Defining what art or science is, or analyization of grammar? One cant put a definition on what art is. Art is something creative you can appreciate with your senses or something that moves you spiritually and/ or intellectually. One can’t really rationalize what science is either, except to say it is questions and realizations through trial and error and study in deep anaylsis of a problem or subject. The human mind knows what art and science is.
TFK
analysis*
TFK
It’s a game, just like politics and war and life.
Chess is insanity.
science: do a web search for the “scientific method” (without quotes). If you have a child’s web search capability, you will learn that the scientific method separates science from alchemy, witchcraft, and other guesswork.
art: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. By this definition, anything and everything qualifies as art, and it hardly helps us determine what chess is. For instance, you might consider terrorism art, though hopefully few would agree.
skill, learning, motivation, memorization, planning, stategy, and technique: yes, human chess players all exhibit these traits to varying degrees.
risk, luck, feint, trapping, and uncertainty: yes, human players experience varying degrees of these elements, as well. “gambling”
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For those to lazy to look up “Scientific Method”:
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for the investigation of phenomena and the acquisition of new knowledge of the natural world, as well as the correction and integration of previous knowledge, based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence, and subject to laws of reasoning. Although specialized procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, there are identifiable features that distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of developing knowledge. Specific hypotheses are formed to propose explanations for natural phenomena and experimental studies test the predictions for accuracy in order to make increasingly dependable predictions of future results. Hypotheses in a given field of inquiry are logically bound together by a wider theory that assists researchers in forming new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups of specific hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.
Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process must be objective so that the scientist does not bias the interpretation of the results or change the results outright. The scientific method also may involve attempts, if possible and appropriate, to achieve control over the factors involved in the area of inquiry, which may in turn be manipulated to test new hypotheses in order to gain further knowledge.
The scientific method involves the following basic facets:
* Description (information must be reliable, i.e., replicable (repeatable) as well as valid (relevant to the inquiry)).
* Prediction (information must be valid for observations past, present, and future of given phenomena, i.e., purported “one shot” phenomena do not give rise to the capability to predict, nor to the ability to repeat an experiment)
* Control (gaining the ability to manipulate a variable, if possible and appropriate).
* Understanding (identification of the cause or causes of a particular phenomenon to the best achievable extent). Before a factor that is the object of research can be said to be understood, the following conditions must be met:
* Covariation of events (hypothesized cause must correlate with observed effect)
* Time-order relationship (hypothesized cause must occur before observed effect)
* Elimination of plausible alternatives (this is a gradual process which requires repeated experiments by multiple researchers who must be able to replicate the results to validate them).
The last of these is the most frequently contentious area, which leads to the following: All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative. As a body of knowledge grows and a particular hypothesis or theory repeatedly brings predictable results, confidence in the hypothesis or theory increases.
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Most scientists and engineers become familiar with and practice the following seven-step scientific method in approaching the unknown/task at hand. A linearized, pragmatical scheme is used as a guideline for proceeding:
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
7. Publish results
The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes (cycles) from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again.
While this schema is currently accepted as standard scientific method, it should also be noted that a number of philosophers, historians and sociologists of science (particularly Paul Feyerabend and advocates of the strong programme) claim that occasionally the herd mentality amongst scientists in pursuit of a discovery (suggested reading, The Double Helix, by Watson and Crick—deciphering the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA).
@blame_descartes – What Is Science?
First you must come up with a hypothesis based upon your understanding of the Scientific Elements, then perform an experiment to test the hypothesis. Afterwards, you have a pizza.
A hypothesis is a scientific guess. One predicts the result of an operation, performs an experiment to test the prediction, then has a pizza to celebrate the result.
It is very important to stay flexible, however. Sometimes the experiment may give a different result than predicted by the hypothesis.
Since real scientists don’t like to make mistakes, we always write the hypothesis in pencil.
Besides, science is hungry work!
Dr.Cranium (Sierra Labs.) ^^
chess is not an art – because it is not infinite … the number of possible moves is not infinite – therfore chess is not a science, too.
chess is a game – and as proposed by game theory – it is an finite-dimensional game – this feature makes chess accessible to algorithms – and submits chess software to the “horizon problem” – as it is doing to grandmasters – and other alians ….
most of all, chess is an “in-door” sport – competitive to human beings – their mnemnonic-abilities, their visual thinking abilities, their physical conditions, their over all brain memory and analytical thinking control …
however, chess is a very good method for educational purposes!
chess might be a good way to make money (if you have the abilities to do it!) – it’s a good way to learn self-discipline – it is an even better way to learn more about yourself (and by the way much more practical but less expensive than psychologists sessions! ^^)
no art, no science, not a world in the world, maybe a sport, a game for sure – lot’s of fun and doing no harm to no one – it’s chess
greetings – and exhausted – Vohaul
Anon you are a super ego word manipulative blabberish bore! You have a large vocabulary without understanding or saying anything with any real meaning! You are an anal retentive unimaginative intellectual without a passion or an interest in anything and you should get a life!! You remind me of the “head master” in the Pink Floyd song “If ya dont eat your meat how can ya have yer pudding?! How can ya have yer pudding if ya dont eat yer meat laddy”?! With all your banal ramblings and rhetoric you sound as if you are plagerizing an encylclopedia! I tryed to read your hallucinagenic definitons of science and whatever else you looked up at the library but my head came crashing down to my desk several times in an abrupted sleep. Scientific hypotheses like the wind come from all directions and change quite frequently, ranging from decafeinated coffee is good for you to the same is bad for you. Recently a biologist has rethought through analyis of genes found on fossils that dinosaurs may only be thousands of years old instead of millions. So science is all speculation and perception of the limited human mind. With your incessant (artificial)-intelligent deep thoughts and lack of reason you seem to me to be a candidate for the leader of The Tower of Bable. You know The Biblical story (maybe)? Where the people after the flood try to reach Heaven by building a tower hahaha!!!
Im finished professor, you can “babble” on for another decade.
TFK
Vohaul you too are a self proclaimed genuis. Is chess really finite? There is math to support just the opposite. George Steiner in his book ‘Field of Force’ states that there are 318,979,584,000 legitimite ways to make the first four moves in a chess game. It is said there are more possible variations in a game of chess than there are atoms in the universe roughly 10 to the 80th power and seconds that have elapsed since the solar system came into existence roughly 2×10 to the 17th power. As for chess it is estimated that there are approximately 25×10 to the 116th power ways for a game to go. It looks infinite to me. Then again men have built micro processing machines that can analyze board positions up to millions of moves per second, but what are the percentage of good moves out of those millions and can computers ever rationalize the board the way a human mind can by experience and pattern recognition.
TFK
Sorry anonymous my comments and insults were directed to the nitwit moron ‘blame_descartes’ with the child web search capability hahahaha!!!!! What an egghead! /
TFK
dear @TFK
– thanks a lot for your illuminative explanations about the number of possible moves up to move 4 starting with the basic chess position. very impressive number – but not very useful to solve the given problem.
steiners positions include “nonsense” move lines like
1.nf3 nf6
2.ng1 ng8
3.nf3 nc6
4.nf3 nb8
etc.
by the way – a well known objective by “eggheads and self proclaimed geniuses” …
interestingly “deep blue” (the multi processor machine defeating gary kasparov) calculated 200 million positions a second on 512 cpu’s – a modern – much stronger chess software as “zappa” or “deep fritz 9” calculates on a normal P4 desktop machine only about 20 million positions a second and will beat “deep blue” at any time.
WHY? there is a quite simple answer to this question: because a “zappa” software does not calculate silly moves or positions!
imagine a given chess position – the question is not how many moves are posssible – but – how many moves will not lose within the calculating horizon of the software!
by this method MOST moves can be discriminated … and – by the way – a P4 is a weak calculator – compared with a “super computer” with the ability of calculating nearly 10^15 positions a second. (and no grandmaster – male or female – yet has played such a machine – why? because it won’t make any sense – the machine will always win or draw)
no way out – chess is a finite game – it is solved yet by comps (remember this Hydra vs. Adams match a few months ago …!!!)
– and not accidently AI (artifical intelligence) research has switched from chess to “GO”…
still a chess fan, sincerly, Vohaul
I say art. Computers can do art, fractals and such, just more mathmatical types.
Anyway, from what I know so far, computers have not totally “solved” chess yet. And even if they do, it won’t make the game any less fun IMHO. I rather watch a game between “imperfect” humans than two computers any day.
PS
An opinion is just that…an opinion.
No need for attacking the Person (argumentum ad hominem). Web anna-bees use subjective ad hominem attacks while attempting to refute a point. Childish…very childish.
Definition: argumentum ad hominem
The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the argument itself. This takes many forms. For example,the person’s character, nationality or religion may be attacked. Alternatively, it may be pointed out that a person stands to gain from a favourable outcome. Or, finally, a person may be attacked by association, or by the company he keeps.
There are three major forms of Attacking the Person:
1. ad hominem (abusive): instead of attacking an assertion, the argument attacks the person who made the assertion.
2. ad hominem (circumstantial): instead of attacking an assertion the author points to the relationship between the person making the assertion and the person’s circumstances.
3. ad hominem (tu quoque): this form of attack on the person notes that a person does not practise what he
preaches.
Examples:
1. You may argue that God doesn’t exist, but you are just following a fad. (ad hominem abusive)
2. We should discount what Premier Klein says about taxation because he won’t be hurt by the increase. (ad hominem circumstantial)
3. We should disregard Share B.C.’s argument because they are being funded by the logging industry. (ad hominem circumstantial)
4. You say I shouldn’t drink, but you haven’t been sober for more than a year. (ad hominem tu quoque)
Proof:
Identify the attack and show that the character or circumstances of the person has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the proposition being defended.
What percent of your time do you spend listening?
How often are you giving 100% of your attention when you are listening?
What are the benefits of active listening?
How does listening help in controversy or conflict?
What are your habitual listening blocks?
Hearing and listening are not the same. Listening refers to a complex psychological procedure involving interpreting and understanding the significance of sensory experience. You can hear what someone is saying without really listening to him/her.
For most people, listening takes up more of your waking hours than any other activity. A study of persons in varied occupational fields showed that 70 percent of their waking moments were spent in communication. Of that time, listening occupied 45%. Many of the most important facets of your life are greatly influenced by your skills (or lack of skill) in listening. The quality of your friendships, the cohesiveness of your family relationships, your effectiveness at work–these hinge on your ability to listen.
Unfortunately, few people are good listeners. Even at the simple informational level, researchers claim that 75 percent of oral communication is ignored, misunderstood, or forgotten. Rarer still is the ability to listen for the deeper meanings in what people say. A major reason for the poor listening in our society is that most of us receive training in non-listening! Parents may say things like, “Don’t pay attention to him, ” or “Pretend you don’t notice.” Our schooling often conspires against the development of effective listening skills.
Listening skills can be grouped as attending skills, following skills, and reflecting skills. Attending skills include: a posture of involvement, appropriate body motion, eye contact, and a
Non-distracting environment. Following skills include: door openers, minimal encouragers, infrequent questions, and attentive silence. Reflecting skills include paraphrasing, reflecting feelings, reflecting meanings, and summative reflections (Bolton, 1979).
Active listening is far different from passive listening. It is one of the most important communication skills you can learn. Active listening is a process of putting into some meaningful whole your understanding of the speaker’s total message, including the verbal and the nonverbal, the content and the feelings. Active listening helps you check how accurately you have understood what the speaker said and meant. Through active listening you express acceptance of the speaker’s feelings. Then you prompt the speaker to further explore his or her feelings and thoughts.
Three techniques are central to active listening. They are: Paraphrasing the speaker’s meaning, expressing understanding of the speaker’s feelings, and asking questions. You might consider the following points in order to become a more active listener:
1. Work at listening. Listening is hard work so be ready to participate actively.
2. Combat sources of noise and remove distractions.
3. Avoid preoccupation with yourself or with external issues. Avoid focusing on your own performance in the interaction.
4. Use the thought-speech time differential effectively. Because you can process information faster than the average rate of speech, there is often a time lag. Use this time to summarize the speaker’s thoughts, formulate questions, and draw connections between what the speaker says and what you already know.
5. Assume there is value in what the speaker is saying.
Empathic and objective listening is also important. To empathize with others is to feel with them, to see the world as they see it. If you want to understand what a person means and what a person is feeling, you might try the following suggestions:
1. See the sequence of events and information from the speaker’s point of view.
2. View the speaker as an equal.
3. Seek to understand both thoughts and feelings.
4. Avoid “sharpening,” meaning highlighting one or two aspects of the message and ignoring the rest.
5. Beware of the “friend-or-foe” factor that may lead you to distort messages because of your attitudes toward another person.
6. Focus on both verbal and nonverbal messages.
7. Listen for both content and relational messages.
Effective listening is also nonjudgmental. It involves listening with an open mind with a view toward understanding. Here are suggestions for nonjudgmental listening:
1. Keep an open mind. Delay evaluation at least until you have fully understood the intent and the content of the message.
2. Avoid distorting messages through oversimplification or leveling–the tendency to eliminate details and to simplify complex messages so that they are easier to remember.
3. Avoid filtering out unpleasant or undesirable messages; you may miss the very information you need to change your assumptions or your behaviors.
4. Recognize your own biases; everyone has them. They may interfere with accurate listening and cause you to distort the message through the process of assimilation–the tendency to interpret what you hear or think you are hearing according to your own biases, prejudices, and expectations (DeVito, 1995).
When you encounter a difficult situation, an angry person, controversy or conflict, your listening skills are absolutely your most valuable resources. If you practice good listening habits in the easy situations, you will have these skills available when you really need them. Many relationships have been saved because someone had the ability to listen well and remain open rather than becoming defensive. The way to make a difficult communication even worse follows:
Blocks to Listening
Here are twelve blocks to listening. You will find that some are old favorites that you use over and over. Others are reserved for certain people or situations. Everyone uses listening blocks, so don’t think that something is wrong with you. However, this is an opportunity to become more aware of the blocks you use, and determine to eliminate them.
Comparing
Comparing makes it hard to listen because you’re always trying to assess who is smarter, more competent, more emotionally healthy—you or the other. You can’t let much in because you’re too busy seeing if you measure up.
Mind Reading
The mind reader doesn’t pay much attention to what people say. In fact, he or she often distrusts it. He/she is trying to figure out what the other person really thinks and feels. “She says she wants to go to a film, but I’ll bet she’s tired and wants to stay home.”
Rehearsing
You don’t have time to listen when you’re rehearsing what you plan to say next. Your whole attention is on the preparation and wording of your next comment. You try to look interested, but you’re only listening to your own mind. Some people rehearse whole chains of responses: “I’ll say, then he’ll say, then I’ll say…” and so on.
Filtering
When you filter, you listen to some things and not to others. You only pay enough attention to see if somebody’s angry, or unhappy, or if you’re in emotional danger. Once assured that the communication contains none of those things, you let your mind wander.
Another way people filter is simply to avoid hearing certain things—particularly anything threatening, negative, critical, or unpleasant. Generally, we hear things that confirm our existing view of reality and filter what might challenge it.
Judging
Negative labels have enormous power. If you prejudge someone as stupid or nuts or unqualified, you don’t need to pay much attention to what they say. You’ve already written them off. Hastily judging a statement as immoral, fascist, stupid or crazy means you’ve ceased to listen. A basic rule of listening is that judgments should only be made after you have heard and evaluated the content of the message.
Dreaming
You’re half-listening, and something the person says suddenly triggers a chain of private associations. Your neighbor says she’s been laid off, and in a flash you’re back to the scene where you got fired for playing hearts on those long coffee breaks. And you’re gone into your own world, only to return a few minutes later as your neighbor says, “What do you think about this?”
You are more prone to dreaming when you feel bored or anxious. Everybody dreams at times, but if you dream a lot with certain people, it may indicate a lack of commitment to knowing or appreciating them. At the very least, it’s a sign that what they say isn’t very important to you.
Identifying
With this block, you take everything a person tells you and refer it back to your own experience. They want to tell you about a toothache, but that reminds you of the time you hade oral surgery. You launch into your story before they can finish theirs. Everything you hear reminds you of something that you’ve felt, done, or suffered, and you need to share that.
Advising
You are the great problem solver, ready with help and suggestions. You don’t have to hear more than a few sentences before you begin searching for the right advice. However, while you’re thinking of suggestions, you’re missing what’s most important. The speaker feels basically alone because you couldn’t listen and just be there.
Sparring
This block has you arguing and debating with people. You focus your energy on finding things to disagree with. You take strong stands, are very clear about your beliefs. The way to avoid sparring is to repeat back and acknowledge what you’ve heard. Look for at least one thing you might agree with.
One common type of sparring is the put-down. You use sarcastic remarks to dismiss the other person’s point of view. For example, Helen starts telling Arthur about her problems in Biology class. Arthur says, “When are you going to have enough brains to drop that class?” The put-down is the standard block to listening in many marriages. When mis-communicating, each person repeats a familiar hostile litany.
A second type of sparring is discounting. Discounting is for people who can’t stand compliments. “Oh, I didn’t do anything…What do you mean, I was totally lame…” The basic technique of discounting is to run yourself down when you get a compliment.
Being Right
Being right means you will go to great lengths (twist the facts, start shouting, make excuses, make accusations, or call up past sins) to avoid being wrong. You can’t listen to criticism, you can’t be corrected, and you can’t take suggestions to change. Your convictions are unshakable.
Derailing
This block is accomplished by suddenly changing the subject. You derail the conversation when you get bored or uncomfortable with the topic. Another way of derailing is by making a joke out of the situation. Whenever you feel discomfort or anxiety in seriously listening to another, you crack a joke.
Placating
“Right…right…right…absolutely…I know….of course…yes…” You want to be nice, pleasant, supportive. You want people to like you. So you agree with everything. You are placating rather than tuning in and examining what’s being said.