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go

Excerpted from Go and the Three Games by William Pinckard:

All games channel mental energies, whether they lead to enlightenment or the reverse, but it is suggestive to consider the `Three Games' in their social context because then we can see how each of them reflects certain basic characteristics of a general or regional type.

Chess, for example, the great historical game of the West, involves monarchs, armies, slaughter, and the eventual destruction of one king by another. The game appears to be entirely directed along the lines of the great myths of the West from the Mahabharata to the Song of Roland -- the overthrow of a hero and the crowning of a new hero. The pieces, from king down to pawn (peon), give a picture of a heirarchical and pyramidal society with powers strictly defined and limited.

Backgammon, the favorite game of the Near and Middle East, is preoccupied with the question of Chance and Fate (Kismet). All play is governed by the roll of dice over which the player has no control whatever. The players are matched against each other, but each tries to capture a wave of luck and ride it to victory. The loser curses his misfortune and tries again, but the individual is helpless in the grip of superior forces.

Go, the game of ancient China and modern Japan (and now popular throughout the world), is unique in that every piece is of equal value and can be played anywhere on the board. The aim is not to destroy but to build territory. Single stones become groups, and groups become organic structures which live or die. A stone's power depends on its location and the moment. Over the entire board there occur transformations of growth and decay, movement and stasis, small defeats and temporary victories. The stronger player is the teacher, the weaker is the learner, and even today the polite way to ask for a game is to say `Please teach me.'

Things are different now, but in earlier times, when go was so much admired by painters and poets, generals and monks, the point of the game was not so much for one player to overcome another but for both to engage in a kind of cooperative dialogue (`hand conversation', they used to call it) with the aim of overcoming a common enemy. The common enemy was, of course, as it always is, human weaknesses: greed, anger and stupidity.

...

The `Three Games' is a useful classification because taken together they make up a coherent world view. Most of philosophy boils down to speculation centered around the three basic relationships of the human species. The first is man in his relationship to the remote gods and the mysterious forces of the universe. The second is man in the society he builds up around him. The third is man in his own self. Or, to put it another way, man the backgammon-player, man the chess-player, and man the go-player.

Here are some ways I think go reflects life:

Determinism. The analogy to the perfect move in Go is truth in life. Both must exist but because humans are limited we can only attempt to approach them indirectly.

Accepting what you cannot change. The longer you refuse to accept that you have lost an area, the more Go punishes you.

Duality. Male and female, black and white, attack and defense, a gain here is a loss there. Often the best move is the one your opponent would make. Go also challenges the notion of foreground and background, like truth and falsehood in mathematics -- each piece is simultaneously attacking and being attacked.

Chaos. The influence of a single piece can turn out to have a great effect on the game, just like the "butterfly flapping its wings".

Theorem proving. The patterns that arise, and the correct moves in each situation, are theorems. Learning means developing new, more complex theorems, but to map them all out is still impossible.

Purpose means following a way, not achieving a goal. It is impossible to win by playing bad moves, and if you always play the best moves, then winning is irrelevant.

IDIC. Simple rules give rise to very complex situations.