On Sun, 2007-01-14 at 12:28 -0800, Mike Olsson wrote: > This is a bit off topic, but I am wondering if a person can play Go to > increase their IQ or improve their intelligence. Also, are there any > other games or methods that one can use to improve their IQ. From what > I have read Kasparov's IQ is around 135 so playing Chess doesn't > really increase a person's IQ.
IQ is an extremely crude way to measure intelligence. I believe almost any mental exercise that requires effort increases your ability to think clearly and effectively and thus helps you. The problem is that IQ tests only measure certain skills - the old joke goes that IQ tests measure your ability to take IQ tests! I read somewhere recently about very ordinary people learning what might seem like super-human feats of memory. There are simple techniques that you can use to memorize decks of cards, or just about any type of thing you want to specialize on. Memory is often considered 1 aspect of IQ but this shows that the human brain can learn just about any specialized feat and you don't have to be a special person. Now my disclaimer - I am not a psychologist nor do I have any formal training in this area, but I've always been extremely interested in the learning and teaching process. I have done experiments on myself too. For instance I discovered that you can learn faster if you put pressure on yourself - making up ways to test yourself perhaps using a stopwatch. I never became a really strong chess player but I did improve several hundred rating points in 1 year with just a very small amount of study - but I made it really intense - I studied tactics with books of problems and a stopwatch in a highly focused (not casual) manner. I also memorized some opening systems with a view to understanding them and although I didn't do much of this, it was all business when I did. I figured this out after first joining a local chess club - there were many players there who I found out later had not improved in 10 or 20 years! I was amazed! I saw that they came every week to the club and played skittles game and laughed and joked around. It was social for them but you probably would think playing all your life you would improve significantly from year to year. But not so if you are not really focused. One of the local masters believed (as I do) that any ordinary person can reach very high levels if the are willing to put in the work and the time. One of his examples was Bobby Fischer, who was viewed as an incredible prodigy but he pointed out how intense Bobby was and that he driven and had studied and played more games by the time he was 12 or 13 years old than most masters and even grandmasters in their whole careers. I think this has been known and is just old-fashioned common sense - you have to work hard to achieve success. I believe there are exercises you can do to improve your ability to score high on IQ tests. One exercise is to practice taking IQ tests. - Don > > ______________________________________________________________________ > Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate > in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A. > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
