The title is "How geometry is fundamental for chess." but 60% of this article is about how animals don't have a sense for numbers or bad at geometry.<p>Only a couple brief mentions about how chess piece moves are lines and transforms of lines. Other than that the author never establishes the title.<p>I was actually looking for some insight about chess and did not get any.
“ Humans are the only animals that we know that understand geometrical concepts. Things like lines and shapes (triangles, squares, circles etc.).”<p>False.<p>Crows for example understand geometry. I’d wager there are plenty more.<p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3718" rel="nofollow">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3718</a><p>“ These geometrical concepts do not exist in nature. There are no lines and squares. If it's obvious then why did it take 4.5 billion years since the development of life to emerge?”<p>What makes you think lines and squares don’t exist in nature? And what on earth does that have to do with how long life took to emerge?!
> These geometrical concepts do not exist in nature. There are no lines and squares.<p>This probably goes back to the classic debate between rationalism and empiricism. Do we have squares as a priori knowledge, or do we generalize from examples? But then how do we make abstract deductions about things? Do these deductions skew a certain way?<p>Clearly, deductive logic exists, yet also clearly, empiric observations exist. How do you properly marry the two?<p><a href="https://intellectualmathematics.com/blog/rationalism-2-0-kants-philosophy-of-geometry/" rel="nofollow">https://intellectualmathematics.com/blog/rationalism-2-0-kan...</a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/EbzESiemPHs?si=4UNA7JGPt7OmfnOi&t=206" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/EbzESiemPHs?si=4UNA7JGPt7OmfnOi&t=206</a><p>Here's Gromov, one of the greatest geometers of the last 50 years, discussing his viewpoint on this.
He always has these brilliant ond original perspectives on even the simplest concepts.<p>He also has this series of talks beginning with the question "What is probability, what is randomness?"<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJAQVletzdY&list=PLx5f8IelFRgGo3HGaMOGNAnAHIAr1yu5W" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJAQVletzdY&list=PLx5f8IelFR...</a>
It's the usual "until we prove animals do _X_ we can safely assert only humans do _X_" trope of biology.<p>As we learn that animals do things like have homosexual relationships, giggle when tickled, and understand basic rules of economics... biologists are learning to phrase it as "until we prove animals do _X_ we cannot be sure if animals do _X_", which is much safer.<p>(Also, there are trillions of lines in nature - WTF? Squares are somewhat rarer, except on the ground in wombat territory...)
Chess geometry is not the same as physical geometry. See, e.g., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_endgame_study" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_endgame_study</a>
Kinda disappointing article. Not much substance regarding the link between geometry and chess, as suggested by the title.<p>> Shapes are hypothesized to be formed by a programming language in the brain.<p>And what does this even mean? What does it mean for there to be a "programming language" in the brain?
I was never particularly good at geometry.<p>I've beaten over 2500 ELO in Crazyhouse on Lichess (2518 to be exact). Currently rated around 1900.<p>Am I missing something?
I found this article very interesting.<p>I would've also appreciated a discussion of how intuition of geometry might apply to chess playing abilities and how it might not be sufficient for playing chess well.<p>As a side note, I appreciated the small typos as a further signal that this was written by a human.
Geometry is fundamental, period.
If you watch any Hikaru Nakamura content, you will see him draw "classic right angle triangle"s with three pieces, "classic wooden shield"s (a cross showing the scope of a centralized bishop), so he definitely uses some kind of geometry while playing.<p>Not sure if he just recognizes the shapes as they appear or tries to make them appear, would be nice if he came here to answer.
Someone call Bernard Parharm lmao.
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