Page 107 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

By “carved neural pathways” I am referring to the process of creating chunks
and the navigation system between chunks . I am no t making a literal phy sical

description, so much as illustrating the way the brain oper ates. Le t’s say tha t I
spend fifteen years studying chess. Dur ing thes e tho us ands of hour s, my mind
is effectively cutting paths through the dense jungl e of chess. The jungl e
analogy is a good one. Imagine ho w time-cons um ing it woul d be to us e a

machete to cut your way through thi ck foliage. A few miles coul d take da ys.
Once the path is cleared, however, you coul d move qui ckly thr ough the
clearing. If you were to make a road and ride a bi ke or other vehi cle, the
transportation would get faster still.

When confronted by a new chess position, initially I have to plod thr ough
the variations. During this process, I di scover organ izing pr inci ples and ne w
patterns of movement. This new inf ormation gets systematized into a ne twork
of chunks that I can access with increasing ease as my navigat iona l func tion

improves.
Now, let’s turn to the learning of chess and see ho w thes e funct ions really
operate. We will start with day one. The first thi ng I hav e to do is to
internalize how the pieces move. I hav e to learn thei r values. I ha ve to learn

how to coordinate them with one ano ther. Early on, thes e steps might seem
complex. There is the pawn, the kni ght , the bi sho p, the rook, the que en, and
the king. Each piece is unique, with its own strengths and weaknesses. Each
time I look at a chess piece I have to remember what it is and how it moves.

Then I look at the next piece and try to remember how that one moves. The re
are initially thirty-two pieces on a ches sbo ard. To make a respo ns ibl e che ss
decision, I have to look at all those pieces and check for captur es, qui ck attacks ,
and other obvious possibilities. By the time I get to the thi rd pi ece, I’m already

a bit overwhelmed. By the tenth piece I hav e a headache, have already forgo tten
what I discovered about the first nine pi eces, and my oppo nen t is bored. At thi s
point I will probably just make a move and bl under .
So let’s say that now, instead of launch ing from the standar d starting

position, we begin on an empty bo ard with just a king and a pawn aga ins t a
king. These are relatively simple pieces. I learn how they both move, and the n I
play around with them for a while unt il I feel comfortable. Then , over time, I
learn about bishops in isolation, then kni ght s, rooks , and queens . Soon eno ugh,

the movements and values of the chess pieces are nat ur al to me. I don’t ha ve to
think about them consciously, but see thei r potential simul taneous ly with the