Chess as a symbol manipulation test.

[PeterTurland]

Hello,

Unlike most of the people here I don't see chess as an end in it's self, I see chess as a means to an end. I would like to die leaving the world a better place than I found it.

[Bill Porter]

Hello,

Unlike most of the people here I don't see chess as an end in it's self, I see chess as a means to an end. I would like to die leaving the world a better place than I found it.

Intelligence as measured by IQ tests has been increasing by about 0.3% per year for decades.

From http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... &css=print

Flynn's argument that real intelligence cannot have gone up as much as scores on the Raven assumes that there is a "real intelligence"—some unitary quality of mind not unlike Spearman's g. Abandoning that assumption, we may think instead that different forms of intelligence are developed by different kinds of experience. The paradox then disappears: We are indeed very much smarter than our grandparents where visual analysis is concerned, but not with respect to other aspects of intelligence.

As IQ scores are considerd so important, an aspect of schools' success is how well ( intentionally or not ) they teach children to get a high score in IQ tests.
Teaching such a skill is at the expense of other skills which may be far more useful.

Chess as a symbol manipulation test would almost inevitably end up in the same way. Sloppy analysts would soon be claiming that an hour of chess every day is one of the best ways of increasing intelligence.

Like most of the people here, I do see chess as an end in itself.
There are benefits such as improved visual memory and pattern recognition, but there are are many other ways of teaching such things.

[ Is "International News" the best place for this topic? ]

[PeterTurland]

Hello Bill,

The reason I posted into the international section is, because chess is a universal human language, it matters not, how old you are, what race you are or what sex you are, OTB we all start equal.

There is another universal language, it is the language of 'logic', the fact that we now know computers in terms of chess, can wipe the floor with all of us is evidence.

I have this mad dream of a democratically run UN with real teeth, by democracy, I mean a UN with delegates from each nation in proportion to it's population.

My idea is, that one of the qualifications required to be a UN delegate, is to have a demonstrated ability at logic, proven by a demonstratable chess ability, maybe an ELO of above 1600.

It is my guess, that this would lead to a better planet, in terms of how we treat each other and all the other species.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Is "International News" the best place for this topic?

No, it is not.