Sudoku and the old art of using the mind

in sudoku •  3 years ago 

Online Sudoku is an increasingly popular number game in Brazil that hides a series of secrets and benefits to the player without him even realizing it, such as developing the ability to solve problems outside the game, reducing stress and anxiety levels. , between others.

One of the discoveries that perhaps surprises us most about the puzzle, believe it or not, is that this hobby was not created in Japan, as the name might suggest, let alone an ancient heritage of some ancient sage culture. It was created in the United States in the 70s, with the name of “Number Place”, or, “Lugar do Número” in Portuguese, and it is still called that way there.

A Japanese company decided to import the idea, naming it in the land of the Rising Sun as we know it in Brazil today, Sudoku, which is the Japanese abbreviation for suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru.

(数字は独身に限る) which means “the digits must remain unique”, which basically summarizes the only rule of the game that tells us that we must fill a matrix of 9 blocks, with 9 spaces inside each one of them, in that you need to mark numbers from 1 to 9. The challenge is not to repeat any number, whether in each row, column, or block. The game already offers us some of the answered spaces, so that we can use as a starting point, and the fewer spaces that are already marked, the more difficult it will be to complete the puzzle.

Web Sudoku does not require great math skills, as it may seem at first glance, but, on the contrary, it even helps us to develop them. Like a magic cube, for example, this hobby hides algorithms capable of solving it more quickly, which has been helping to learn and practice logic for decades. The analysis combinatory of white spaces reveals the high number of possible solutions. However, the game challenges us even more, in different aspects.

The Sudoku puzzles game requires from its players, mainly, concentration, after all, it's very easy to confuse the numbers if we don't pay attention. In addition, it also works with logical reasoning so that you can deduce the correct way to fill each space, and also two types of vision, one that contemplates each detail individually, which can be called micro vision, and another that can observe the entire matrix, the macro view. It is natural that, when exercising these skills through the practice of free Sudoku, they become more active in other aspects of our life.

With the ever-increasing offer of individualized entertainment today, we are seeing less of the world around us from different points of view. On the contrary, we see everything more and more only in one way, which is often ours. The comfort of technology, which we cannot deny has great value, as a consequence, takes away an important effort, that of understanding how the simplest things work. This means, in practice, that we are outsourcing our intelligence to machines, when we should only grant them the right to preserve us from efforts beyond our Human capabilities, such as performing very complex calculations in fractions of a second, or lifting loads that ordinary people do not could. If this lifestyle of ours has had an impact on adults, imagine the damage it leaves children and young people.

Videos on YouTube, mobile apps, virtual reality, among many other things, are great achievements of our era, but they need to be managed with the same care as a medicine for children, because despite providing some options they can offer, yes, some learning, they do not for the most part. Most of the activities aimed at the little ones have no purpose other than to consume their attention, their time, and try to convert this into sales of the most diverse products.

We are used to avoiding any kind of effort, the elevator is even used to go up ten steps, in the same way as we use to go up ten floors. So it is with our TV remote, which avoids the effort our parents, or even ourselves, used decades ago to get up and go to the set if we wanted to change the channel. Or the windows of our vehicles, which today come with electric drive as standard. None of this is a crime or an evil in itself, but every tool needs to be used well to function as it should. Imagine if it makes sense to avoid one flight of stairs a day, to trade it for hours at the gym every week? But, the biggest danger is exactly when this comfort takes away our mental effort, leading us to a kind of “laziness”, which directly affects our growth and productivity.

If we look closely, we see that the main pillars of our existence are erected with a lot of effort from the mind. Our assets, our professional training, the university course, the way we relate to the world, the mastery of language, everything requires the use of intelligence. Therefore, this mental laziness is very treacherous, as it subtly makes us a failure in all areas, since Life demands continuous reasoning. Every decision we make, every project, every endeavor requires work of the mind, we must be very careful with how lazy we are in the exercise of reasoning.

The Sudoku game is challenging because it doesn't offer all the answers, and guarantees the best reward when it is solved, personal fulfillment. Other electronic games for children, in contrast, adopt reward policies that can arouse excessive competitiveness, reversal of values, and an exaggerated attachment to the material. Many of them, available for download at the main app stores, directly sell the player competitive advantages such as tips or better conditions to win the game, which in practice put those who pay for them ahead of other players. With no real effort, and available only to those who can afford it, these methods end up transmitting excessively materialistic values ​​to players, who are largely children and teenagers.

If we ask any doctor, or going even further, to almost anyone about the benefits of exercise, we will certainly have a unanimous response encouraging us to do it, as it improves our health, and preserves our body. The mind is no different in this regard. Moving it keeps it going, and so naturally healthy. Let us move our mind, so that it remains always young, and capable of great deeds.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  
Loading...