Equating Go Skill with Intelligence

    Keywords: Opening, MiddleGame

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)

RichLancashire: could you also "prove" that highly educated people are more likely to stick at Go, say because of increased enjoyment?

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.

Malweth Though I'll agree with 3 of your four statements, I would have to say that in terms of refining thought process Go could have a very strong relationship to ones test taking or other scholastic abilities. The only caveats would be:

TDerz The beneficial requirements for being good at something (not limited to Go) are

Set realistic goals within a good learning strategy.

- the more the better, you must have something from the list and they seem to be synergistic -

To return to the statement/question of this page, relation between skill & intelligence I would guess that the usual single dimensional tests referred to, focus (usually) heavily on mathematical stuff, which also is learned/already acquired but not intelligence in the sense of " deal appropriately with a new, unknown situation".

IQ-test in schools show furthermore - consequently in line with above -that there is a dependency upon where you where raised on the results (which children's songs and fairy tales you listened to - which animals & plants or machines & cities you saw alters your common knowledge for associative questions). Hence your background can influence your measured intelligence in a particular test.

I could try and equate the obscure talent with that specific intelligence. This would be wrong. Here comes a definition which I encountered recently: "'Talent is (present), if you can do more than you know (think)'"; somehow, the pun strikes me more in German "' Talent ist, wenn Du mehr kannst als Du weißt'"; "Wissen" here within the meaning of true cognitive understanding/fact knowing/believing to know.

Hence, I think only it is safe to say: if all other factors are the same of 2 learning people (ceteris paribus), then a higher speed of improvement (e.g. coping with new concepts in Go)) could be a sign of of a very specific Go (Tennis/Guitar/making friends ...)-Intelligence (this was pointed out above by others). This specific intelligence had little to do with school results, success in professional life, being popular etc. (if there is no relationship, resp. correlation between this intelligence and the profession; It is however arbitrarily to assume that the correlation will be zero, as people would be more qualified for jobs/professions according to their likings & talents).

To relate it even more, next to the very-difficult-to-measure talent, the motivation affecting the result of improvement over time (=above measure for intelligence) is also difficult to establish accurately and objectively.

My conclusion: forget about the relationship with intelligence. If you do not want to leave the subject, read at least Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence", it showed me how important it is to be a complete person, hence being intelligent in many aspects (emotional, cognitive, motorically etc.).

I estimate that the motivation is the most important factor:

Talent in point 1 has been equated above with the specific intelligence, hence anyone would be allowed to induce from there, that after all talent/intelligence is the ultimate source of all skill. I believe however, that we are born, better procreated, relatively equal w.r.t. cognitive skills (this whole thing here ends up in the old dogmatic nature/nurture discussion).

I respect anyone for special skills in some area, but would not dream of assuming beforehand something of this person in other areas.

We will all know similar examples (in Go): EUR 6dan's unsuccessful in real life and e.g. hopping in real life from underpaid job to dole (addiction/motivation + too much time); successful doctors, professors, business people (again 6dan EUR) being lonely or divorced (too much time?, not all-round personality? EQ?) ; ambitious 5- to 12-kyus which learned the game when they were 30-40, have a family with kids and few time/opportunity to improve; the prodigy neighbouring kids who reach simultaneously 2-3dan within 18 months (motivation) - and then quit! (lost goal,environment)! 2-dans in Go, Chess, Twixt, table tennis their business and many more unrelated hobbies & activities who are satisfied with their level and move on (motivation). 5 kyus (Go) who are best friends, talkative, sociable and know much about literature, history, events, travelling, countries ... (all-round). People who cheat (too early) on Go problem solutions (discipline).


This is a copy of the living page "Equating Go Skill with Intelligence" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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