Posted by: HgMan Posted on: Today at 10:02:38 Quote:


Sorry, I guess I didn't really make myself clear. I was referring to academic ability in school. I am not that good at remembering dates and events for a test. 

1)Posted by: basqueknight Posted on: 06/18/05 at 02:49:17 
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I have alway's been very good at both subjects...I think my ability in these has been directly reflected in my chess ability. I can visualizeand use logical thinking well in math...and I can analyze well in science. (But my memory is bad for history, and therefore I am not very good at opening memorization...lol)

2)Posted by: Markovich Posted on: 06/05/05 at 22:53:43 Quote:
How true. It is sad...I am an american myself and I have always been saddened by the lack of actual homegrown intellectualism. Do not get me wrong...I am a very religious person... but I also understand than science is the most important thing for a country. It has always been my view that America could possibly find it's downfall in it's scientific ignorance. The only real advantage it has in the real world is it's economy...and with the current state of our economy (Europe is steadily taking over) what will become of the United States Superpower? Will we become another Soviet Union? (not communist talk, just the downfall aspect of the soviet union). I am not the most patriotic person but I would feel sad if all America was remembered for was it's downfall and not it's genius (the only homegrown geniuses I can think of now are Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin).
One last thought regarding Music and chess...of course there is a correlation...both are art forms...you can express yourself and great beauty with chess and music. I myself have always loved both with a passion and will continue until I die...ChessLover Apakohkrieger

(Warning, long post ahead)

I have just read this "thread" from beginning to its current point.  I love it, but the original title has more or less been forgotten.  Or perhaps, by choosing such a broad range of topics to fit in this line, we are showing our intellectual side.  While I definitely have strong opinions about design theory (which really is just one more way of saying that the theory of evolution is wrong because it leaves out a Creator), chess, math, and music and other topics, I'd like to return to the original premise.

When an amateur chess player is constantly beaten by a stronger opponent, I have noticed that many brush it off as the better player having more time to study the game.  This has occurred at even the highest levels when Bobby Fischer was disparaged for studying only chess.  If we mean by intellectualism, a culture that admires the wide range of human achievement in arts, sciences, humanities, and invention then yes, chess helps to feed this culture.  There can be no equivocation. 

However, when we study individuals who have attained some level of skill at chess I go back to the amateur's put-down.   Very few of the very best chess players contributed to society in ways other than chess.  Oh, we can name exceptions, but as a general rule, those people who are trying to make a living playing chess spend so much time on their art that they often have no time for anything else.  Even personal relationships are problematic for these people.

Chess weaves in and out of mainstream consciousness much like an oboe might be heard weaving in and out of a Beethoven concerto.  Very few who are not in love with this very elitist and esoteric game even notice its presence, and yet we do enrich society with the thought that there is a very challenging sport/game/whatever that supposedly pits intelligences against each other.   

Whether a person is primarily good at math or geography, there is some evidence that chess can enrich our understanding of other subjects and ourselves.  Chess is associated with intellectualism in the popular media yet chessplayers are most often associated with semi-deranged park people.  Even the teachers, lawyers, doctors, and salesmen (and all who might be otherwise socially acceptable) who play chess competitively are all familiar with the otherworldiness we are accused of because we devote part of our lives to a board game.

I'd like to see us all work to improve our chess skills while thinking of the bigger picture and what we say about ourselves by spending so much of our resources on an apparently simple game.  I write this in a room that has a computer with about 3 million games loaded onto it, and a book case with over 400 chess books.  I'm not just a chess player, but as a chess player speaking to others similarly afflicted, our role in the intellectual culture of society isn't passive.  It's something we ourselves control.

There has always been a strong link between chess and music (Smyslov and Taimanov, to name but two, were outstanding musicians as well as top class chess players).  And it is fairlywell-established that there is also a link between musical ability and mathematical prowess.  So a link between chess and maths should not surprise us.

It seems I was wrong about china not having a chess tradition. According to the following article on XiangQi vs Chess, China may have been the true cradle of chess and not India!

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2455

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I haven't got that one, but I'll get it it passes my way somewhere.

Other books giving a perspective on Soviet chess is Russian Sillhouettes by Sosonko or The Story of a Chessplayer by Ehlvest, I've just started reading the latter  and so far I really like it!

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HgMan, sorry I took what you said the wrong way. 

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I think you somewhat overestimate the role of the Soviet state in promoting chess within Russian culture, and the culture of the other socialist republics.  To all evidence, chess is estremely popular among these peoples, and was so at the time of the revolution.  (I saw an interesting map in some book, I forget the title, marking the cities of the leading grandmasters by decade, and there was a noticeable eastward drift as the 19th century wore on.)  I'm not sure that if the great and glorious Soviet Union had decided to make itself pre-eminent in world baseball, it would have had quite as much success as it did with chess.

My perhaps ignorant impression is that Russian science, mathematics, music, literature, high culture in general, has consistently rivalled that of Western Europe (I admit that this has been less so in the graphic arts, though there were Malevich and Mayakovsky).  Perhaps again expressing my ignorance, if I had to name two countries where intellectuals have been highly esteemed, I would say Germany and Russia -- and both are places where chess is very strong.   

The counter-example would be France, I suppose.

"just because something is not scientific does not make it not true"
Modern physics, the most successfull science of the last 100 years, is not about finding truth. Physicists only pretend to design mathematical models, which can be verified/falsified by experiments.
Back to the initial subject: Willempie has shown, that even top players are human beings ...
As stated before: especially the most successfull chess country in history, the Soviet-Union, has shown how problematic the relation chess versus intellectualism is. So I do not think it an argument pro the statement, that the anti-intellectual tradition in the USA is connected with the relatively poor results in chess. I think we must not overestimate the role of chess in 21st century society.