What is the Main Principle of Chess?

What is the starting point of chess? An overarching principle that regulates all life and behavior of chessmen. From which everything else begins to unfold and flow. From which everything originates and to which everything returns. What is it that makes everything in chess hang together? 

This may look like a diversion from what I started in the last blog where the systems theory was discussed and how chess may be described by it. In fact, this post is leading to the same destination by looking at things from a different angle in order to put light on what is really the most important aspect of chess.

The basic problem of the ancient Greek philosophy was an outlook issue about the ultimate substance of the world (Arche). The first question was “What is beginning of all things”?

The term arche, which originally simply meant “beginning,” acquired the new meaning of “principle” and has played a huge role in philosophy and science since. This concept of a principle presupposes that all we observe in the world, or on the battleboard, is nothing but transmutations of something that essentially remains the same eternally. This idea also lies at the bottom of all scientific laws — the law of the conservation of matter, force, and energy is the main principle from which all subsequent theoretical work springs in physics and chemistry.  

What then could be the First Principle, or First Cause of our game?

What is that Prime Mover (primum movens) that could remind us of the concept advanced by Aristotle that was supposed to define a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe.

So what causes our chessmen to move? 

Is it perhaps something related to the rules of movement that traditionally represent the chess beginnings and how we typically get started in the game?

Actually, the movements are just properties exhibited by chessmen as imposed by the game rules. We are here set to name the main principle. And it is a whole new ballgame.

Both the rules and principles determine the way we act and take decisions. The rules are something that is imposed from the outside and must be obeyed, whereas principles are internal, and force us to do what we think is right or correct. Principles are simple concepts that highlight how we think about — and solve — complex problems. They serve as a premise or starting point for all further reasoning and arguments. Principles can be summed up in a few words. Rules can't.

“Science [of chess] is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.”— Carl Sagan

Everyone playing chess must know the rules. But only the few know how to think properly. They are called chess Masters. The rest of us chess players obviously fail to comprehend the universal principle through which all events on the chessboard are interrelated and occur, and thus "live like dreamers with a false view of the world," Heraclitus would say. With a lackluster performance that can be expected from it.

“As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”— Harrington Emerson

Thus it turns out that our First Principle should reflect a concept that sits at the foundation of our thought process. It should guide our thinking and fuel our creativity. It should provide us insight into not only what works in solving complex problems at the board, but also why something works.

When we start in chess they bombard us with tons of chess "rules" and "principles" like "A knight on the rim is grim," or "Don't move the same piece twice in the opening."

“To become good at anything you have to know how to apply basic principles. To become great at it, you have to know when to violate those principles.”― Garry Kasparov, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins

Actually, these "rules" are just practical recommendations, or guidelines that don't necessarily apply to all cases all the time. They are neither rules, nor principles. For one thing, certainly we can't bend the rules (e.g. "A pawn moves one or two squares from the starting position"). On the other hand, principles are called principles because they apply in all situations. So the above quote by the 13th World champion and a political activist is just sheer nonsense. Principles cannot be violated.

Wouldn't it then make common sense for us to put the main principle, once we have agreed upon it, to the fore of all our chess efforts. It would be like laying the foundation stone of all chess edifice. The cornerstone that will support every other aspect of thinking in and of chess.  

It would help us better understand how chess Masters' thought process work.

It might also provide a new perspective that would help us design better methods for improvers. 

And it would definitely have huge potential for promoting new, more effective methods for beginners. At the very early stage of development, their chess mindset is just a blank slate waiting to be written upon.

This plane is unpopulated until the First Concept. And then all the subsequent concepts have to be bridged to it.

What could be that cornerstone of chess? 

Your thoughts?

The chess literature is for the most part of a purely technical nature. It deals with the play and not with the player and his way of thinking; it treats the problem and not the problem solver. ―Adriaan de Groot, Thought and Choice 1965

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