Hello Bluelight, long time don't see!
I am turning to you guys because this is a topic that is not often discussed among high-rated chess players and I would like to enrich my perspectives, and I hope you can help.
Recently, I came across a study¹ on the effects of Psilocybin retreats on creativity, empathy, and well-being showing that the participants who consumed Psilocybe truffles showed changes in divergent and convergent thinking (ability to focus on one solution VS the ability to see the big-picture and come up with many solutions) among with the ability to feel what the other is feeling without impairing the participant's capacity to understand the other's feelings.
By chance, just after I finished reading this study I found a paper² from 2017 which followed 39 high-rated chess players and administered them four drugs:
-
Caffeine;
- M
ethylphenidate;
- Modafinil;
- Placebo
;
The study found that the players who consumed
methylphenidate and Modafinil performed considerably better than the participants who were given the placebo. The researchers also discovered that the players who weren't administered the placebo also had a higher probability of losing time, because they would consider their moves more deeply, often losing track of the time.
Question: "Can Psychedelics Improve Performance In A Game of Chess?"
What intrigues me the most in this idea comes from the fact that I see the game of chess as a mirror of the player. An inexperienced player may be unable to express themselves fluently over the board, but a player that already internalized the fundamentals of the game is able to make conscious choices and from that point on, each move gradually projects the inner mind of the player externally, on the board. This is the main advantage of having a high-rated player as a participant in this study. However, what interests me the most is the potential that the game of chess has to be used as a tool for self-discovery and self-development, and for this end, having volunteers ranging from total beginners to grandmasters may illustrate how psychedelics affect the chess learning curve.
The process of learning is an intrinsic part of chess and an important part of life, if psychedelics can enhance players' performance during a game of chess assisting them to make better moves, this can shine a light on how psychedelics can help people act better in their lives.
Question: "How Can Psychedelics Help Adults Improve on Chess and Life?"
If chess is a mirror to the inner world of the player, then if the participant of a chess study consumes a psychedelic substance and plays chess for the entire duration of the experience, then we will be able to observe the effects of the substance stage by stage by observing the game and the player.
Decades ago BBC had a wonderful chess series called The Masters Game where they organized a chess tournament and had some of the world's most brilliant players play against each other. After every game, while the game was still fresh in the player's mind, the two opponents would immediately sit down with a recording crew would go move by move and they would carefully recall and register their thought processes during the game. From the spectator's perspective, you have the privilege to watch the game with the player's voice-over about what they are thinking.
You can see a clip here:
The perfect study would invite players of different ratings, who would be administered the substance of choice (LSD, Psilocybe, Mescaline, Salvia divinorum, etc...) and have the players share their thoughts and processes in real-time as they play the move
Well, I just started thinking about this, so I came here to ask for some opinions and thoughts about this project and if we have some volunteers from this forum who would like to participate in this independent study.
I have to go now, I hope this was clear, so just to synthesize quickly:
TL;DR
Study where participants play chess for the duration of a psychedelic experience to observe enhancement in cognition, learning ability and decision making;
¹Natasha L. Mason, Elisabeth Mischler, Malin V. Uthaug & Kim P. C. Kuypers (2019) Sub-Acute Effects of Psilocybin on Empathy, Creative Thinking, and Subjective Well-Being, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 51:2, 123–134, DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2019.1580804
²Franke, A.G., et al., Methylphenidate, modafinil, and caffeine for cognitive enhancement in chess: A double-
blind, randomized controlled trial. European Neuropsychopharmacology (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2017.01.006
