AN AUSTRALIAN friend <bridgeburner/twinlark> and I did computer analysis on several World Championship (WC) matches of past and recent WC matches. We came to the conclusion that the top 3 players in the world (“Past” and “Modern”) from the late 1890s to the present, starting from the era of Lasker and Capablanca and Alekhine, according to computer analysis, played at relatively the same levels.
I would be the first to admit that I once thought as many do, that more recent chess players played better than the oldies just because they lived closer to our time… but after tremendous efforts to analyze these WC matches, my opinion drastically changed. The pre-WW2 Champions played just as accurately as the present ones. I just was a usual victim of the Narcissistic Generation Syndrome, the unfounded notion that people today are better because they lived closer to our time, in all fields of endeavor.
The above is related to anatomical and physiological limits. For example, human bodies are not designed to run as fast as cheetahs. In order for a human to break the nine second limit for the 100-meter dash, one has to redesign his body meaning muscles and nerves and skeleton (and without steroids) into that of a cheetah.
This can be regarded as a right wall that cuts off the normal curve of our abilities.
Another example: Thus, we can never out calculate a computer because we are designed differently with a lower limit to calculative abilities. (It follows that computers will always beat humans in a long match of chess.)
Sometimes though it is possible to break the right wall limit of a normal curve.
For example, in past times wherein the Caesarean Section was not yet invented, babies and mothers with cephalopelvic disproportion would result in the death of the baby and probably the mother too. Because the baby’s head is too large for the pelvic canal of the mother. This limit has now been surpassed because of the Caesarean Section, an operation that removes the baby from the belly of the mother.
Therefore, there are undoubtedly people nowadays with bigger skulls and brains before the time of the Caesarean Section.
This is good news for readers who wish that people would get bigger brains. (Send comments and suggestions to mabuhibisaya2017@gmail.com)/PN
