Why a Chess Computer Has Nothing to Do with Intelligence
Being the best at something only counts if you can explain it to someone else.
Imagine asking the best chess computer why it makes certain moves.
The computer can’t explain this. It might be able to produce words or code, but that’s not the same as transferring knowledge to another person.
From an intelligence perspective, this is best understood as the lowest imaginable level of intelligence.
Take a top athlete, for example—there’s a big difference. An athlete transmits knowledge through movement. Children can imitate it.
But a chess computer offers nothing to imitate: you only see the move it makes. There are no facial expressions or body language—nothing from which someone could learn anything.
So from a learning perspective, it’s virtually useless.
It’s beautiful that we can see how good something can be at chess—but that’s just one very small factor. We learn almost nothing from it.
The highest form of intelligence comes from people (or other things) that you can actually learn from. This could be a teacher, but also someone who has been through difficult experiences and can offer real advice.
A computer can only replicate that through the stories of others (which is amazing in itself), but from a learning perspective, it doesn’t offer anything truly new.
Another good metaphor is this: a computer doesn’t know anything.
It can only do. It only does something when we ask it to. It has no clean, independent knowledge stored in the bag—no understanding, no insight, no awareness. Just action, on command.
Information has depth – the Bible is a 3D picture, not a flat text
Letters may appear flat and one-dimensional.
But the experienced eye sees depth in them. Some letters are more important than others.
The same goes for the Bible: not all letters carry the same weight.
When someone emails me at work, the finesse lies in seeing which details in the message are truly important.
How We Mess Up the Observer Effect and Relative Positioning
When we talk about relative positioning, we often think in terms of geographical locations.
Let’s say I’m on a train. I move through the landscape.
What is changing? It’s not just my geographical location—my emotional state is changing too.
For instance, during a train ride to work, I might go from calm → angry → calm → curious.
Don’t underestimate this effect. As my emotional state shifts, my perception of the world changes with it. I can look at the same world with completely different eyes—within seconds. These shifts often feel binary: you suddenly feel very stressed, and you don’t know what triggered it—it just is.
So while we are looking at the world, we are also changing ourselves. If a quantum particle could observe you, it would see an excited ball of energy—which is you.
"How We Change the World by Looking at It"
If I look at the world with angry eyes, the chances of you becoming aggressive too are higher. So by observing something, we actually change its behavior.