The contestants and crew of the Battle of the Brains
The BBC show Battle of the Brains was first shown in the UK in April. In the past week, a number of people have told me that they saw it on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel in the US.
Next to come to the US is the National Geographic “My Brilliant Brain” documentary. Click here to see the 6-part preview of the show.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
It’s a fascinating show. I watched it back in April.
From recollection, there were 7 contestants in this Battle, but I didn’t hear how you placed.
Didn’t hear your name in the first five. Still, it wasn’t just about winning, was it?
Not sure if this is the entire segment, but found this at youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qOlacRg_w8
On the BBC Horizon show, the joint winners were Bonnie Greer (dramatist et al) and Seth Lloyd (quantum physicist).
Greer was strong in creativity and emotional intelligence, was best when she stopped trying to be analytical but ‘just let her mind go’.
“The rest appeared to be rated roughly similar to the rating they received on the IQ test alone”: http://tinyurl.com/25fe46
SP didn’t feature much in the programme, which suggests she wasn’t doing too well, though she was ok on throwing a ball into a basket while wearing vision-inverting spectacles – as you do.
I was left with the disappointing feeling that chess time develops skills in chess, but is maybe less effective in developing transferrable skills than I thought.
You can’t generalise from a statistic of one, but I wondered if John Nunn or even William Hartston, both chess players, mathematicians and writers, would have done better.
I expect chess players to do well in whatever activity where the rules are simple and you are not allowed a pen or pencil (so you calculate a ton of simple moves ahead). So things like multiplying large numbers in their head.
I do believe that playing a lot of intellectual games like chess can help the mind, but I think you have to play a variety of games and not just one game. Chess sharpens something, but it’s just one thing. You expect an artist to be best at creativity, but an artist who only paints flowers might not be as creative as an artist who does everything. Creativity is helpful in science, but even the most uncreative scientist studies the world around her and you’ll find that nature is very creative – some of the stuff that happens in nature poets couldn’t even dream up! It’s my opinion chess can be helpful but that a variety of games is even better.
Good angle by Anon 2.40.
As a family, we played many games – multi-player games in which everyone could get involved:
– games of pure chance (Snakes and Ladders) taught how to deal with triumph and disaster
– games of skill, chance, but complete information (Monopoly)
– games of skill/chance and incomplete information (Cluedo, card games, Can’t Stop)
– two-person games (noughts and crosses, Nim, chess etc)
The 2-person games don’t teach you to see the situation from others’ points of view.
Someone should make a shopping list of transferrable skills developable by games, and then rate various games as to how they help.
The other consideration is the ‘entry cost’ of each game at each level: chess involves a lot of time.
“Can’t Stop” deserves to be known better. It teaches the importance of not trying to ‘have it all’.
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http://www.schoolofcreativepsychology.com and http://www.geniustemple.com
http://www.genius-psychologics.com