Embedded Files
In this lecture Dennis describes the phenomenon of ‘Zugzwang’, which, loosely defined is a no-win situation, but there’s a little more to it than that which you will discover as you listen.
Much like game strategies, having an unhandled ‘Zugzwang’ on your case will prevent the ‘to know’ goals package from erasing on level 5A.
Learn the mechanics behind this phenomenon, how to identify it and handle it, and it will put you all the closer to the final resolution of your mind.
As long as you know the data from the original manual, you will find this lecture much easier listening than the previous one on the game strategy. There are only a few terms to explain:
HANG FIRE: Delay or be delayed in taking action or progressing.
TIME TRACK: The time from when you are born to the present. Sometimes only the word ‘track’ is used when referring to this timeline.
Cleft Stick: When advance or retreat are both losing options, wnen one is "in between a rock and a hard place". A situation where there is no good choice. A no-win situation.
Today is the 10th of May 1994, the same date as the lecture on the other side of this tape and I
want to talk to you about what is undoubtedly the most puzzling of all the mental mechanisms.
It is not only the most puzzling but is also evidently the one that's least understood.
There is not even a word in the English language which gets close to describing the mechanism.
Yet the mechanism is very common; causes considerable stress to every games player,
particularly compulsive games players who are highly trained to the mechanism and under
certain circumstances the game loss that the mechanism can bring about can ruin a person's life.
Although on the other end of the spectrum the game loss can be quite trivial, but never the less
there's a broad spectrum of possible game loss associated with the mechanism. So it's far from a
trivial mechanism. When I first discovered this mechanism in my own psyche during my own
research I started to hunt up my psychology books and general reference books and I could find
absolutely no trace of this mechanism.
Zugzwang
And I was hard put upon to find a title that would describe the mechanism till I remembered that
the mechanism occurred in the game of chess. The noble game of chess contains this
mechanism, and in chess the mechanism is called ‘Zugzwang’. So we will adopt that title and use
the word zugzwang to describe this mental mechanism.
The word zugzwang is a German word and the word zugzwang in German describes the
mechanism exactly as it occurs in the game of chess. The translation of the German word
zugzwang means "the compulsion to move." Although the translation of this word is not an exact
description of the mental mechanism it's close enough for our purposes.
So we will call this mental mechanism 'zugzwang.' It's as good a name as any and better than
most. I'd better start off by explaining how the mechanism occurs in the game of chess. What is
zugzwang in chess? Well zugzwang occurs in chess when a player although it's his move and his
position is quite sound, any move he makes is a bad move and will lead to inevitable game loss.
However, one of the rules of chess says that the player, when it is his turn to move, he must make
a move or he will forfeit the game by violation of the rules of chess. So the unfortunate player in
zugzwang is faced with two losing game options. He either makes a move and loses the game by
making a bad move or he loses the game by not making a bad move, and loses the game by
breach of the rules of chess.
So to celebrate that they call the mechanism zugzwang in chess, which means literally the
compulsion to move. The player is beaten by the compulsion to move. Even in the game of chess
we see this quality that is reflected in the life game that the player is under no particular threat
and yet suddenly because of this compulsion to move he loses the game. And similarly in life the
player can be jogging along in games play, everything seems to be going well, when suddenly an
event occurs. The next moment, he's facing a situation, he's in zugzwang.
He hits a zugzwang situation and immediately goes into game loss. And it can be tremendously
puzzling to the player because he just doesn't know what went on, what's happening. He's not
under a tremendous duress from the opponent. He's not under tremendous duress from the
universe, but because of the particular circumstances that occur game loss is inevitable. And
that's the situation he finds himself in. It's a most puzzling situation.
What makes it particularly upsetting for the games player is that he can't really blame anyone for
the zugzwang. He doesn't know quite how he got overwhelmed, how he lost the game, because
he's under no particular duress from anyone. And it's just because of the particular
circumstances he finds himself in that he goes into game loss.
So psychologically the mechanism hangs fire on the time track. Nearly anyone who's been
zugzwanged in life, and most people have, you'll find that the incident will sit there as a great
puzzlement. They just don't know how it happened. They don't know quite what happened. They
don't understand the mechanism of what happened to them and the unfortunate thing is that
they don't understand what happened in the incident.
The incident contains a 'Not be Known', it contains a mystery and while the incident contains a
mystery it won't erase. And while the incident won't erase, of course, the 'To Know' goals
package won't erase. You can't erase the 'To Know' goals package in the presence of mysteries,
you see. So the whole of Level 5 can be prevented from completing because of a zugzwang
incident sitting on a person's track.
This is why I'm mentioning the mechanism; I have to mention it to you because you may need this
data to get it apart. You may get the incident apart and discover it all for yourself. A person could
do this like I discovered the mechanism in my own research, but never the less, this tape would
be helpful to you, particularly if you'd tried and tried and tried and then despaired. Well this tape
would then solve it for you, because I do understand the exact anatomy of zugzwang and the
solution to zugzwang does occur. I do explain it in this tape. Now without more ado I think the
best approach would be to give an immediate example from life of zugzwang.
Zugzwang Example
A wealthy businessman decided that he'd like to engage upon a little tax evasion and so he
writes on his tax return form that he's made a large donation to a well known charity, when in
fact, of course, he hasn't. And completes the tax return and sends it off to the tax office and
thinks no more about it. A few weeks later he gets a telephone call from the charity thanking
him very much for his donation and asking him when they can expect a check.
Now granting only that this businessman regards any unnecessary expenditure of money to the
tax office or to the charity as a game loss, granting that, granting that and only granting that,
then the man is zugzwanged. Now let's examine this situation.
First off it is quite clear what has happened. That he sent his tax return in and because there's
such a large amount of money involved in the donation to the charity that the tax office had
contacted the charity and asked if it's true that he has made this donation to the charity.
The charity upon receiving this information from the tax office said to the tax office, "We'll
investigate, hang on, we'll let you know" and have thought to themselves, "Right, well... we can
get a good donation here."
So they're very hopeful and they immediately contact the businessman and work on the
assumption that he's made this donation and they just simply want to know when they can
expect to get the check. See? So they're hopeful and the tax office is simply doing their job.
Now that's how the situation came about, quite clearly. Now when we examine this situation we
see that the businessman isn't under any tremendous duress here, is he? There's no
overwhelming force being directed against him, yet his game loss is inevitable. What could he
do?
Well the first thing that he could do is pay the charity the amount that he said he would pay
them in his tax return. He pays the charity. The charity then report back to the tax office that
they've received the check from the businessman and that satisfies the tax office, and so they're
happy. And the charity is happy, the tax office is happy but the man has lost the game because
he's now paid, in his own mind, an unnecessary expenditure of money to the charity, so he
suffered game loss. So that's one option.
The other option he can make is to not pay the charity, but if he doesn't pay the charity, the
charity are bound to report back to the tax offices that they've received no donation from this
businessman to their charity in that financial year. Now because of the large amount of money
involved on the tax return the tax office is bound to take some action on this and they will fine
the man for forwarding a false tax return. So again, he suffers game loss here; he's now paying
out unnecessary money to the tax office.
So, if he pays the charity, he loses the game and if he doesn't pay the charity then he has to pay
the tax office and again he loses the game, so either way he's going to lose the game.
So we say he's zugzwanged and the game loss is inevitable. Now I could give you many more
examples of zugzwang but I won't do so because that example is quite sufficient for our
purposes and is a good typical example of zugzwang. Not every zugzwang contains an intent on
the part of the game player to break the law or do anything untoward but, never the less, that
example is quite typical, quite typical of the zugzwang situation.
Game Loss is Inevitable
Now the first thing we must understand about zugzwang situation is that game loss is inevitable,
don't miss that one. Game loss in zugzwang is inevitable. The person isn't going to get out of the
game loss, it's inevitable. One way or another he's going to lose the game.
And it's our goal our purpose on this tape to discover just what is going on and why this is
inevitable. Well there are a few technical terms and technical things we need to look at and
examine. Then we can go ahead and do what we call a zugzwang analysis and you will see when
we've completed the analysis the whole picture becomes very clear.
The Losing Game Option
So first of all let's take up the first of these technical terms. The first of our technical terms we
need to look at is this subject of a 'losing game option'. Now this is a technical term in games
play. It's a technical term and is defined as follows:
A losing game option is any action that the player is free to undertake that he knows will
lead to game loss
Any action that the games player is free to undertake that he knows will lead to game loss. End
of definition. So there are two things about the losing game option that are important. One is
that there is freedom of choice in it. A person is free to engage upon this action or is free to
engage upon the action or not to engage upon the action. There is no compulsion. There's a free
action.
And the other is that they know, are consciously aware, they do know that if they engage upon
this action they will lose the game. That's why we call it a losing game option. Now every
postulate that a person operates on in games play can have a number of losing game options.
I'll give you an example of this and you'll see what I mean. If a person is operating on the purpose
to survive then a losing game option is to throw themselves off a cliff. They know that if they
throw themselves off a cliff they will lose the game; they will not survive.
They also know that losing game option A is "throw themselves off a cliff" and losing game
option B might be "to shoot themselves through the heart with a bullet" and both will cause
them to die and cause them to lose the game when they're running on the game postulate to
survive. So you see that any game can have a large number of losing game options. You see that?
It's not a one to one proposition. Not a one to one relationship between a postulate and a losing
game option. The other thing you need to know about the relationship here, between a game
postulate and the losing game options is that if the game postulate changes the losing game
options change.
That much is obvious on first principles but I thought I better mention it for completeness sake.
Senior Encompassing Game
Now the next technical thing we need to understand with this mechanism of zugzwang is the
concept of a 'senior encompassing game'. I won't give a precise definition of this I'll simply
describe it to you and you'll understand what it is. By its name it's obvious that the game the
person is playing is surrounded by a larger game.
An example of a senior encompassing game is all the games on this planet are played within the
physical laws that govern this universe. So the laws that govern the physical universe are a senior
encompassing game to any games that are played on this planet. Another example of a senior
encompassing game can be the laws of the country or the laws of the land in which you live. You
may be playing certain games within the country in which you live but you're playing these within
the structure of the laws of the land.
Generally speaking senior encompassing games fall into two types. They're either the laws of the
physical universe itself or they're the laws of the land or the laws that your operating on in the
society in which your living. They may be something as simple as the laws of the game of chess,
but they're, never the less, an agreed upon set of laws that when you play a game of chess you
abide by these laws.
So there again they are a part of the society in which you live. So there are, generally speaking,
only two types of senior encompassing game, the laws of the physical universe itself, and the
laws of the society in which you live. Ok so much for that.
Now zugzwang comes about and this is the inner datum of the inner datum about zugzwang,
zugzwang comes about in games play when a situation arises where the senior encompassing
game impinges upon the game of the player and produces a relationship between his losing
game options of a particular type.
Let's call any two of the losing games options of a postulate, A and B. So we have this postulate
and any two of its losing game options of this postulate we'll call A and B. In a zugzwang
situation the senior encompassing game, because of the circumstances, impinges upon the
player and causes his losing game options to be related in the form 'if Not A then B'.
Now I'll go through it again. The zugzwang situation occurs when the situation is such that the
senior encompassing game impinges upon the game of the player and causes any two of his
losing game options of a postulate to be related in the form 'if Not A then B' and that is
zugzwang.
Zugzwang Defined
I'll give you a formal definition of zugzwang:
"A player is said to be zugzwang when any two of the losing game options of a postulate, call
them A and B, are brought into the relationship 'if Not-A then B' by the impingement of a senior
encompassing game. The game loss in zugzwang is inevitable."
Now when we look at that definition we see why the games loss is inevitable. It's inevitable
simply because if the person's games options or losing game options I should say are in the
relationship 'if Not-A then B' then if a person doesn't embark upon losing game option A then he
must embark upon losing game option B and therefore would lose the game. So he's in a "no
good choice" situation, he's in this cleft stick of either losing the game by adopting losing game
option A or if he doesn't embark upon game option A then he will embark upon game option B
and lose the game. See that?
That is the zugzwang. That is the zugzwang mechanism. Now if you followed the complexity of
this through so far you'll see that it's not surprising that the mechanism is very deeply buried and
is very little understood. Why people get so terribly puzzled when they get zugzwanged. They
simply do not understand the mechanism.
Zugzwang Logical Propositions
You have to be a bit of a logician. You have to be a bit of a psychologist and you have to be a bit
of a mental researcher like me before you could even get close to understanding the mechanism
of zugzwang in life. For those of you who are logically inclined I can give you the logical
propositions, the logical postulates of zugzwang.
The person is operating on game postulate X, shall we say, and game postulate X has at least two
losing game options which we will call A and B. OK? There's our background, and the zugzwang
occurs when the senior encompassing game impinges and brings about this following situation.
We have 'if A then Not-X', 'if B then Not-X', 'if Not-A then B' just those three propositions, that's
the end of those three propositions.
Now when you examine those three propositions in logic you will find that one of the valid
deductions from those three propositions is that postulate X is reduced to zero. That those three
propositions hold X equal to zero. In other words, postulate X cannot maintain. In other words it
goes into loss. That's why the game loss is inevitable in zugzwang.
Postulate X cannot succeed, it can only fail under those circumstances. So for the benefit of
logicians who may be listening to this tape that is the logic of zugzwang and if you write it down
on a piece of paper and do the necessary piece of logical deduction you'll see that what I say is
true. That's the logic of zugzwang.
Zugzwang Analysis
Now let us apply what we know to what we call the zugzwang analysis. Now the most difficult
part of the analysis is understanding what we're doing, in other words if you've understood this
so far the rest is easy.
The difficult bit is behind us on the tape. A zugzwang analysis simply consists of isolating losing
game options A and B. Once you've got them it will stand out like a sore thumb that there in the
relationship 'if Not-A then B' you'll see why the games loss was inevitable.
So zugzwang analysis simply boils down to getting the situation at the point a zugzwang occurs,
picking up the situation on the track at the point where zugzwang occurred. When you became
aware that game loss was inevitable there and listing your losing game options.
Just list them, there won't be many. Usually there's only two, three, four, half a dozen at the very
outside. Most commonly there are just two, call them A and B and you will see at a glance that
you're faced with a situation of either adopting A or if you don't adopt A then you must adopt B.
But because A and B are both losing game options, game loss is inevitable. And once you've done
that you understand the zugzwang. The mystery comes out of the zugzwang. You see how the
senior encompassing game has forced game loss on you. That peculiar relationship of 'if Not-A
then B' between the two losing game options in the situation.
If you understand that, then you understand everything about the zugzwang in that situation
and it collapses. You don't really need to know what your game postulate was once you start
listing your losing game options. The postulates that these losing game options are associated
with or connected to will pop into your mind so that you will discover the game postulates.
There's only one postulate that's involved. There's not a number of postulates. It's just one
postulate that goes into failure in zugzwang, and it is the failure of that postulate that brings
about the game loss.
There are not a number of postulates that go into failure in zugzwang, there's just the one. Now
let's apply this analysis to our examples of zugzwang. First we'll apply it to the game of chess.
Well here the application is so trivial that it will fall apart as we touch it.
Here are the losing game options. The player has two losing game options. Option A he makes a
move, bearing in mind they are all bad moves and losing game option B is to refuse to make a
move.
Well the senior encompassing game here is the laws of chess. That's the senior encompassing
game, and when he's in the zugzwang situation then he's in a situation where 'if Not-A then B'
maintains, the laws of chess insist on that. Now that's the senior encompassing game impinging
upon the particular game of chess that's being played.
In other words he's faced with the situation where if he doesn't make a move then he's refusing
to make a move and if he's refusing to make a move he loses the game by default, by violation of
the rules of chess. In other words that's losing game option B, see that?
Now there's the analysis of zugzwang in chess. The postulate that the player is operating on in
the game of chess is ‘to not lose the game’, to not lose it. The chess player is always happy to
either win the game or draw the game, his goal is not to lose it. So that's his postulate and his
two losing game options will deny this postulate. Ok, that completes the analysis in the chess
game.
Now let's apply the analysis to the business man and his donations to charity. Well let's start off
with the postulate here. The postulate I've already given is that ‘the businessman doesn't want
to make any unnecessary expenditure of money’. That's his postulate. So his losing game option
A is "to pay the charity." That's losing game option A, and losing game option B is "to pay the tax
office fine."
Now the senior encompassing game here is the laws of the land and is the laws of the tax office
system, which says that under certain circumstances the tax office is bound to check up on what
people put on their tax returns. That's a standard part of their operating procedure, is to make
checks, particularly when there's large amounts of money involved. So that's the laws of the land
and that's the laws of the senior encompassing game, and this senior encompassing game steps
in and zugzwangs him.
The senior encompassing game impinges upon this game that he's playing and enforces this
relationship of 'if Not-A then B' between his losing game options and says that if you don't pay
the charity then you will pay the tax office fine. 'if Not-A then B', and thereby reduces him to
zugzwang and inevitable game loss. You get it? And you see how easy it is.
Now all the bits are easily explainable. The whole mechanism comes apart when you understand
the postulate, the losing game options, the senior encompassing game and this peculiar
relationship of 'if Not-A then B', that under certain circumstances the senior encompassing game
can impose upon the losing game options.
What always puzzles a player about zugzwang is that he makes a postulate, which is not in
opposition to any postulate in the universe or any law of the society in which he lives,
necessarily. He makes this postulate and the next thing he knows is that the law of the universe
or the law of the society enforces game loss upon him.
This is what makes it so terribly puzzling. He doesn't understand the mechanism of the senior
encompassing game and the fact that he is not living in a vacuum. He's living in a society, he's
living in a universe and this universe can impinge and can impose upon him and can upset the
affairs of mice and men. You see what I'm getting at here? This is what he doesn't grasp.
When the person understands this, understands that there is such a thing as a senior
encompassing game and that he's got games within games, then he starts to understand the
zugzwang mechanism. He just adds to that this subject of the losing game options and that
peculiar relationship that gets imposed upon them of 'if Not-A then B' between any two of the
losing games options of a postulate then that's the whole picture.
Now this analysis will take apart any zugzwang situation. The data I've given you on this tape is
sufficient to take apart any zugzwang situation. If you've got an incident on your track when you
were zugzwanged then you pick up the incident at the point where game loss became inevitable.
Where you suffered the inevitable game loss. And that's the point to address and that's the
point where you will most easily find your losing game options and most easily find the senior
encompassing game and so forth. It will all be there in that instant in time where the senior
encompassing game imposed itself upon the junior game you might say and imposed zugzwang
upon it. That's the point where you pick up the incident. If you pick it up at that exact point all
the data I've given you, all the bits will be there. They'll just fall, BANG, into place, bang, bang,
bang, bang. The zugzwang will come apart and you'll understand, possibly for the first time in
many years just how come you lost that particular game.
Avoiding Zugzwang
A games player if he understands this mechanism very thoroughly and is able to change his
postulates very quickly can avoid zugzwang. In other words his postulates are in a fluid state, he
can avoid the zugzwang because there's always intimations that it's happening. He always gets
some time even if it's only for a few fractions of a second. Sometimes he's got days, weeks,
months but he's always got some time in which to change his postulates and avoid the game
loss.
In the game of chess it's inevitable. He can't avoid the game loss in chess because the rules of
chess are quite inflexible, quite fixed and he abides by and agrees by those rules and so forth.
But let's take the example of the businessman. At the point where he received that phone call
from the charity thanking him for his donation and asking when they can expect to receive a
check.
If at that point he changed his mind about what he considered game loss and regarded the
expenditure of money to the charity as good, then he would avoid zugzwang, avoid game loss. In
other words if he no longer regarded it as a game loss to pay the charity, he can escape the
zugzwang. He could write out a check for the charity and say, "Well I'm not losing the game when
I pay the charity."
So he could simply write out a check for the charity and everyone would be happy and he would
not lose the game. If he can change his mind and adopt that mental attitude. The non-
compulsive games player could do that. The compulsive games player can't do that, so he suffers
the zugzwang.
So as I said earlier on, on the tape, the people most likely to suffer zugzwang are the compulsive
game players. They are in a state of compulsive games play which fixes their postulates. Their
fixidity of postulates fixes them to such an extent that they can't change their postulates at a
moment's notice when they have to in a zugzwang situation so they go into inevitable game loss.
So it's the compulsive games player that suffers the most zugzwang. The non-compulsive games
player can avoid it. Actually it's a very interesting observation upon our society, and how little is
understood about life and games play in our society that this mechanism of zugzwang is not
understood. I can assure you that the mechanism is totally not understood in our society and the
fact that it is not understood is a total indictment upon our society in terms of how much it
understands about life and games play, because the mechanism isn't a difficult one to take apart
if you study it and are familiar with a few basics of life and livingness.
Finally and very briefly there is a connection between the subject of zugzwang, overwhelm and
the subject of the game strategies.
Forcing Zugzwang on Others
Quite obviously if you're in a frame of mind to do so and you know the losing game options and
postulates of your opponent and the senior encompassing game of your opponent it's not
difficult to set up a situation which puts your opponent in zugzwang and therefore inevitable
game loss.
There are a number of game strategies called zugzwang game strategies. They used to be
regarded in life as rather fiendish. Nobody really understands them but they can be highly
workable by people who do have some understanding of this mechanism and have an urge to use
such game strategies.
So be prepared to find a connection between the subject of zugzwang and the subject of game
strategies in life and livingness. Well I see I'm coming up to the end of this tape now. I don't want
to run off the end so we will close at this point.
I hope this material was helpful to you. Bye, bye for now.
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