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Equating Go Skill with Intelligence
Path: BadHabits   · Prev: UsingJapaneseTermsWhenYouDonTKnowWhatTheyMean   · Next: PassingInGlobalAnalyses
   

A bad habit I got into at one time was to consider my rank or skill as a sign of intelligence.

It really isn't. Sadly, one of the first books I had read had done so, and I have messed myself up thinking I am unintelligent if I am bad at Go.

-- Tim Brent


Bill: I don't think that you can say that a professional 9-dan is more intelligent than an amateur 10-kyu, in general. However, one aspect or kind of intelligence is the ability to visualize spatial relationships. In that regard most pros are probably better than most amateurs. Also, research suggests that pros utilize areas of the brain not typically devoted to memory to store go information. Whether you want to call that intelligence or not is another question. :-)

I used to play tournament bridge, and my impression is that good bridge players are quite good at non-monotonic reasoning, and many are good at probabilistic reasoning.

As for go players, my impression is that we (good and not so good) have a high tolerance for ambiguity. That is also an aspect of intelligence.

Finally, as a group I find go players to be highly cultured, aside from any skill at the game. I cannot say that for other groups of intellectual game players.


Rafael Caetano: Bill, surely your last comment refers to Western go players, right? ;-)

Bill: No. I find Oriental go players to be highly cultured, as well.

Bob Myers: A few hours in a Japanese go parlor should disabuse you of this notion.

Rafael Caetano: That's what I meant... I thought Bill would agree, since he has lived in Japan.

Bill: Well, I guess Bob and I made different go-playing buddies in Japan. ;-)


Dieter: Q: Can we equate Go skill with intelligence ?

A: Define intelligence. Define Go skill. Consider the impact of intelligence on go skill and the other way round, logically where possible and statistically where necessary.

I will not undertake the endeavour here. From my experience with the Go world, which is limited to parts of Western Europe and the Internet Go community, I can safely conclude that Go players mostly have a high level of education. This relation can be used to attempt to "prove" a couple of things.

  1. Highly educated people are more likely to find out about the game. (That's what I think it says)
  2. Highly educated people are better at Go. (Possibly, but that's not what it proves)
  3. Go players are more likely to get a good education. (False, I think)
  4. Playing Go improves school results. (Equally false)

I have not discovered a relationship between Go rank and education. I do see a relationship between rank and the amount of time devoted to the game.

Maybe we could define intelligence as the ability to (rapidly) acquire new abilities . Go then merely represents a field where intelligence can be measured.

Charles Something to add to this: Go skill itself isn't really helped by the aspects of education that focus on control of inessential detail (rules, microscopic points about the endgame, the outer fringes of joseki) - at least for most amateur levels. It's a game, after all, and children may acquire the key abilities faster than some adults with university education who aren't lacking either in motivation or intelligence.



Path: BadHabits   · Prev: UsingJapaneseTermsWhenYouDonTKnowWhatTheyMean   · Next: PassingInGlobalAnalyses
This is a copy of the living page "Equating Go Skill with Intelligence" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.