<Comment deleted by user>
I finnished reading, and I appreciate the chess snapshots and explanations as new information for me, but I do not have the experience or knowledge to understand the background opening choices statements. But it suffices for me to have been able to see points of the board your were emphasizing in explanations.
Finally the only possible disagreement might be about having no preconceptions. I find we need questions to be motivated better to find out what the unknown has in store. We are never a blank canvas, and we might want to test our knowledge with hypotheses in order to test whether our past experience in relation to have seen similar positions is relevant in the behavior that worked then also working now. We have small brains, and I think we can have hypotheses, at least personally they drive my exploration of the unknown.. not diving in total unknown but learning not far from known and testing boundaries for new information. The problem of generalization, needs testing hypotheses..and it needs what you promote. Maybe hypotheses and questions, and tentative generalization to test on the board are not part of what you consider as pre-conceptions, but it might appear so.
It would be negating the existing intuition or knowledge, I understand what you are advocating, but i think chess is also about internalizing the knowledge not just accepting it being poured in. one has to be ready to see the new information as partly conflict with existing priors and hypotheses. This is not being blank. one has to have shining confrontations to become aware of how to reform their internal model of whatever they are exploring. "has to" is a suggestion.. I just mean that a surprise implies some hypothesis, and are better learned as surprises capturing attention, than as one bit of information among many others. well that's it.. minor nuance i bet.
I think part of the fun in amateur chess at least (that might be a difference of perspective too), is the autonomous discovery which might imply a different type of communication which mentors or coaches or instructors, more about how to learn than to learn something. Less immediate need to play effectively, so if advice is not containing the reasoning that goes with it, it might not be satisfying, almost as if they were spoilers. I don't know i am a bit drifting here.. just liking to find other angles to anything i read....
good blog. was interesting to read by chunks.. and react to.
Great article and an important topic, only thing missing is some advice on how to achieve and maintain this superior state of mind!
Couldn’t share it because of the profanity
Otherwise, good.
Zen mind - no mind ?
@boilingFrog said in #16:
> Zen mind - no mind ?
I took the proposition as relative notion. some dosage of fresh look stance. I do not think the proposal was the full extent of the -ism. But some gist from it. Absolutes are suspect in general, but sometime to raise an idea making it crisp and "spectacular" helps considering it. That is how i filter many things coming my way, anyway. Communication of all nuances at once is not possible with such medium as sound borne languages. Even the writing of such language forces tricks to make some ideas stand out for a moment. I think such passage through exaggerated formulation is related to the lack of parallelism in verbal communication. so maybe not really blank canvas, but self-awareness of conflicting pre-conceptions with new information and willingness to look anew, if it matters? or is that too diluted?
My goodness. This article is about learning in general, absolutely. Not only chess related. A friend of mine who doesn't play chess just read it. It helped him a lot.
Thank you VERY MUCH for this beauty, Noel! Absolutely AMAZING reading!
Wish you the best :)
Yes, very true observations.