Any guess about the ultimate outcome of chess is hypothesizing. The guess "chess is a forced win for white" is just as valid as the guess "chess is a draw". Both are equal because both have good reasons to exist.
Hi, equally valid doesn't mean equally correct. "Valid" sort of means "on subject". An invalid guess means that the answer to "is chess a draw?" is "a piano".
You're confusing guessing with scientifically based hypothesis. We have every reason to believe that the scientifically based hypothesis that chess is a draw is correct. There's no reason to believe "chess is a win" to be correct, so you're comparing mushrooms with octopusses. Superficially similar but not alike in reality.
No. We are just as close to proving chess is a forced win for white as we are to proving chess is a draw. So far nobody has even come close to proving either one. Not even close. Lots and lots of guesses, lots of assumptions, lots of hypothesizing and grandstanding. Lots of faith, lots of belief, lots of wishful thinking. But no proof.
So as long as the two choices are equal, and they are, then there is no harm in choosing either one. Whatever your personal preference is on the topic, it's perfectly valid. Which is why for those who say it MUST be one way, and can't be the other, prove it. Obviously it can't be proven, so until it can, it's probably best to keep an open mind on all the possibilities.
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Apparently, you and @tygxc now "know" that chess is a draw. In your case this is inconsistent with your earlier position, but there is no necessity for this type of knowing to be consistent.
It may be inconsistent with my earlier position as you understood it but I've always maintained that I know that chess is a draw.
Quote from a book on philosophy I happen to be reading:
<<How do you know that you know the stuff you think you know? Take away the option of answering, “I just do!” and what’s left is epistemology.>>
Yes of course. Where does this knowledge come from and why do we classify it as knowledge? Earlier I pointed out that we can subjectively classify something as knowledge but that the common concept is that knowledge is something that's commonly shared. Obviously it may not be shared among a majority of people. It may be among a small minority or, obviously, in a minority of one when a person sees something physical, unseen by others: for instance, as a witness to a murder.
This business about chess isn't physical. It's cognitive and it's a possible interpretation of previous chess results. It seems a very reasonable interpretation. It has never been refuted. Those of us who believe it to be knowledge share the conviction that it will never be refuted. One or the other is correct and we think that our alternative is the one that is real. If so, then that would mean that btickler's opinion is the one that's deluded. Yet that does not excuse his use of the word "delusion", when referring to others. It's merely an effect of his weakness at debate. He ought not do it. It's a childish, Facebook kind of thing.
That doesn't mean that every belief that is based on something (rather than nothing) is certain. It is extremely common for people not to recognise that their basis for a belief means it is uncertain.
Yes, absolutely right. However, you and I are agreed that there's no likelihood of a full solution for chess coming soon. Personally I think it's impossible. That means that if we wish to try to answer the question of whether chess is a draw, we have no deductive argument to fall back upon: nor any likelihood of there ever being one. Therefore we have to go with evidence, such as we have. That means inductively, doesn't it?
The answer is really very simple: we have to accept there is uncertainty.
I would have thought you would agree on the semantics that where there is uncertainty, the correct word is "believe" rather than "know".
For example, a very rational person holds a lottery tick and says "I believe I will not win the superdraw tonight". She may be aware that there is a theoretical 1 in 500,000,000 chance of winning the roll-over prize. She does not say "I know I will not win the superdraw tonight" because she considers the distinction based on a very unlikely 2 in a billion chance important and it may have been why she bought a ticket.
Now, here is an example of a less rational person, apparently incapable of understanding this point:
#3831
"It is widely hypothesized that classical chess is theoretically drawn"
++ That is the cautionous way to say "Chess is a draw" like Fischer said.
Firstly, no it isn't. Being "widely hypothesised" is so different to being a certainty that it is surprising that anyone would make the claim that the two are the same.
Given this degree of sloppiness it is no surprise that I was unable to justify the claim that Fischer ever said "chess is a draw" (not that if he had it would carry any more weight than other things he said that were false). Rather I find that Fischer thought that it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically, for which there are three references. Note the appropriate uncertainty.