I don't think its any more dangerous than thinking about anything else and better than many things. Hobbies distract you from the paranoia of every day life.
Is chess dangerous to the mind?
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I just started playing chess seriously, and I have wondered why did I do it. Do I want to look like intelligent person, or is it just the fact that it's a challenge and I have always been lousy at it? Who knows. But I also have my physical endeavors so this shall be my mental. About chess being harmful...maybe. Decades of it...:( most likely.
I knew someone that was quite impressive with critical thinking, very original. Then, he started to play chess, became really involved in the game, but his conversation suffered, his critical thinking about the world disappeared. He would just say things like, 'screw the world', or 'who cares about the world'. All his critical analysis, and original thinking remained locked in those 64 squares. He got all his information from the State-controlled media, and became quite ill-informed about events around him. It was sad...
I've been locked up in mental instittutions 6 times and none of my doctors has blamed chess.
tryst wrote:
Is chess dangerous to the mind?
I think it's only dangerous if someone becomes obessed with the game and has no other interests in their life to offer balance.
Only if you play yourwife/husband/partner
That is dangerous
Regards
dave
All things taken to the extreme are dangerous, including chess. A number of well known chessplayers comitted suicide (Oll, Vitolins), others ended up in mental institutions (Steinitz, Rubinstein). A number of chess-related novels have insanity as a leading theme (Zweig's "Royal Game", Nabokov's "Defence"). The bottom line is not to let THINGS control you.
Dec 1, 2009
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#9
tryst wrote:
I knew someone that was quite impressive with critical thinking, very original. Then, he started to play chess, became really involved in the game, but his conversation suffered, his critical thinking about the world disappeared. He would just say things like, 'screw the world', or 'who cares about the world'. All his critical analysis, and original thinking remained locked in those 64 squares. He got all his information from the State-controlled media, and became quite ill-informed about events around him. It was sad...
That's a very sad story but I don't think chess is the one to blame here.
philidor_position wrote:
tryst wrote:
I knew someone that was quite impressive with critical thinking, very original. Then, he started to play chess, became really involved in the game, but his conversation suffered, his critical thinking about the world disappeared. He would just say things like, 'screw the world', or 'who cares about the world'. All his critical analysis, and original thinking remained locked in those 64 squares. He got all his information from the State-controlled media, and became quite ill-informed about events around him. It was sad...
That's a very sad story but I don't think chess is the one to blame here.
I agree that is a really sad story.
Sorry to hear about Oll, didn't know that.
I think Fischer was an extreme example of a personality disorder, that Chess gave some sort of focus to, then he walked away from it.
chess made me really stupid, and crazy, so yes, chess is dangerous.
-The only good thing, is that dangerous people is playing chess, instead off going around among people.
everything is dangerous to the mind when not taken the right way.
I think that singular obsession is dangerous to the mind, and chess probably tends to either attract those who are prone to it or to encourage it in those who are not.
eddiewsox wrote:
I've been locked up in mental instittutions 6 times and none of my doctors has blamed chess.
Funny... all of mine have
tryst wrote:
my experience has been that chessplayers fancy themselves to be exceptional, but that claim is ridiculous overall. I said that most chessplayers, like most people in general, are ill-informed, trivial, and self-absorbed.
Well, besides being a pessimist in general, you're wrong about that. Beginners might think they're great, but the majority of players realize there's tons of stuff they don't understand and that they make mistakes all the time.
BTW I consider "chessplayers" to be players who go to rated tournaments. If you're just some guy who knows the rules and playes now and then that's just like anything else, you might as well call them a basketball player or swimmer.
Sure some titled players are very arrogent, but they make up less than 1% of chess players so you can't call that most -- unless you're from one of the european countries where being a "chessplayer" basically means you're at least an IM.
orangehonda wrote:
tryst wrote:
my experience has been that chessplayers fancy themselves to be exceptional, but that claim is ridiculous overall. I said that most chessplayers, like most people in general, are ill-informed, trivial, and self-absorbed.
Well, besides being a pessimist in general, you're wrong about that. Beginners might think they're great, but the majority of players realize there's tons of stuff they don't understand and that they make mistakes all the time.
BTW I consider "chessplayers" to be players who go to rated tournaments. If you're just some guy who knows the rules and playes now and then that's just like anything else, you might as well call them a basketball player or swimmer.
Sure some titled players are very arrogent, but they make up less than 1% of chess players so you can't call that most -- unless you're from one of the european countries where being a "chessplayer" basically means you're at least an IM.
What I wrote is MY experience orangehonda, so I don't know how you can say I am "wrong" about it. I'll just assume that is the manner in which you express your opinion. As far as being considered a "chessplayer" only if you go to rated tournaments, I disagree with you considering the hundreds of thousands of people, who are quite good, who only play online, in parks, or amongst each other. They deserve at least one title: chessplayer. As a waitress, I've talked to thousands of people, and have heard thousands of conversations, and as a person who plays chess OTB and online, I have listened to and read many conversations, enough to make a clear judgement on the matter pertaining to arrogance, and ignorance on the whole. My opinion is not lifted from the ground of pessimism, but rather my experience of the overwhelming majority.
Well to be a great chess player, you need to find creative ways to use what you already know, and sometimes creative tactics. Chess isn't a game of consulting the principles every move.
This blog is immature, uninformed, and dangerous to the mind.
tryst wrote:
What I wrote is MY experience orangehonda, so I don't know how you can say I am "wrong" about it. I'll just assume that is the manner in which you express your opinion. As far as being considered a "chessplayer" only if you go to rated tournaments, I disagree with you considering the hundreds of thousands of people, who are quite good, who only play online, in parks, or amongst each other. They deserve at least one title: chessplayer. As a waitress, I've talked to thousands of people, and have heard thousands of conversations, and as a person who plays chess OTB and online, I have listened to and read many conversations, enough to make a clear judgement on the matter pertaining to arrogance, and ignorance on the whole. My opinion is not lifted from the ground of pessimism, but rather my experience of the overwhelming majority.
It is valid for orangehonda to question the validity of your "experience" because what you are relating is not actually your experience (which is simply that you have talked with, played, observed many chess players and people) but rather your interpretation of your experience (that they are illinformed, etc. etc. etc.). As such, it is very open to criticism from everyone else who has also talked with, played, and observed many hundreds of chess players and who has gotten a different impression of them than you have. That the overwhelming majority of people in general are ill-informed, trivial, and self-absorbed is an absolutely premature statement to make since you have only met a very small percentage of the billions of people in the world and probably mainly only in one culture. You are making sweeping generalizations about people in general and chess players in particular on the basis of anecdotal evidence and then jumping to another ridiculous conclusion (chess is dangerous to the mind) on the basis of that. I think what you have really observed and experienced is that "obssession is dangerous to the mind" (which could also be debatable, I suppose) not that chess in particular is dangerous to the mind.
I was speaking with a friend last night, and she made the statement, "I've always thought people that play chess are pretty intelligent." I retorted, that that was not the case, my experience has been that chessplayers fancy themselves to be exceptional, but that claim is ridiculous overall. I said that most chessplayers, like most people in general, are ill-informed, trivial, and self-absorbed. After some time speaking about the subject, a conclusion was reached that chess, for players, and non-players alike, is for many a fantasy of being exceptional, well-informed, important, and objective, and most people put claims on the endeavor that are just not there. Of course, I reflected for sometime on this conclusion and came to the question; Does chess take one away from clear and original thinking? As one goes through the labrynth of variations of chess, even dreaming of the game, does it lock your thinking away from the world and into it's own? Is chess dangerous to the mind?