What a wonderful piece! What sticks with me is this line you quote from Josh Waitzkin's book: "My demons became our demons. If I lost, you felt pain. You were shattered with me. That is something that runs parallel to a loss of love." I take that to mean that they felt pain together in the absence, or loss, of love. There was no love anymore because success had become the accomplishment in chess. That's what the teacher is trying to point out in the movie clip. Perhaps that's a simplistic way to see the larger point of your essay; a rules-based way to see the world is only part of the full experience. And a neural network cannot really convey such an experience, even though its chatbot is very good at pretending it can.
That's a super interesting thought, Christa, thanks for sharing.
For a little more context on the quoted passage, what Josh was saying to his dad is that it sometimes felt like his (Fred's) love was conditioned upon Josh's success playing chess. It's pretty clear, at least to me, this messed with Josh's head at the time and likely is part of what led to him to quit playing in his early 20s. But, interestingly, with the passage of time Josh says he sometimes yearns to rediscover something he could share with his father with that depth of intensity.
The whole dialogue between them makes for fascinating reading.
Thank you so much for this reply. Yes, I see now that the yearning later in Josh's life marks a loss of love, and this love for his father was tied up with chess. I don't doubt that his father loved him intensely, in his conditional kind of way, and this love continues to have consequences into Josh's adulthood--and wow, yes, he misses it. I guess all kinds of love have consequences for the rest of our lives. I think it's so important to talk about all this, because sometimes we cannot help ourselves, but we can hopefully appreciate the complexities and perhaps we can change. Your essay helps with that.
What a wonderful piece! What sticks with me is this line you quote from Josh Waitzkin's book: "My demons became our demons. If I lost, you felt pain. You were shattered with me. That is something that runs parallel to a loss of love." I take that to mean that they felt pain together in the absence, or loss, of love. There was no love anymore because success had become the accomplishment in chess. That's what the teacher is trying to point out in the movie clip. Perhaps that's a simplistic way to see the larger point of your essay; a rules-based way to see the world is only part of the full experience. And a neural network cannot really convey such an experience, even though its chatbot is very good at pretending it can.
That's a super interesting thought, Christa, thanks for sharing.
For a little more context on the quoted passage, what Josh was saying to his dad is that it sometimes felt like his (Fred's) love was conditioned upon Josh's success playing chess. It's pretty clear, at least to me, this messed with Josh's head at the time and likely is part of what led to him to quit playing in his early 20s. But, interestingly, with the passage of time Josh says he sometimes yearns to rediscover something he could share with his father with that depth of intensity.
The whole dialogue between them makes for fascinating reading.
Thank you so much for this reply. Yes, I see now that the yearning later in Josh's life marks a loss of love, and this love for his father was tied up with chess. I don't doubt that his father loved him intensely, in his conditional kind of way, and this love continues to have consequences into Josh's adulthood--and wow, yes, he misses it. I guess all kinds of love have consequences for the rest of our lives. I think it's so important to talk about all this, because sometimes we cannot help ourselves, but we can hopefully appreciate the complexities and perhaps we can change. Your essay helps with that.
There is an even better game for cognitive scientists - 20 Questions! I discuss what lessons it can teach here - https://alexandernaumenko.substack.com/p/intelligence-and-language