Chess will never be solved, here's why

@5234

"So relying on the judgement of GMs to eliminate broad categories of games/positions from consideration, thereby making the task easier, isn't actually relying on the judgement of GMs?"
++ The bulk of the work is done by the engines calculating from the humanly prepared starting positions towards the endgame table base or a prior 3-fold  repetition. The GMs initiate the calculation and also terminate it when there is no doubt at all like in the opposite colored bishop ending presented. The GMs use knowledge only, no judgement. 

@5260

"@tygxc does not understand the definition of weak solution"
++ I do understand. I quote peer-reviewed literature on solving games:

You post links to peer-reviewed literature. You misquote (or misinterpret) the content.'weakly solved means that for the initial position a strategy has been determined to achieve the game-theoretic value against any opposition'
calls for opposition, i.e. an act of opposing, of resisting against the game-theoretic value.

An obvious misinterpretation.'the game-theoretic value of a game, i.e., the outcome when all participants play optimally"
calls for all participants to play optimally't is often beneficial to incorporate knowledge-based methods in game-solving programs'
encourages to incorporate knowledge

Knowledge being distinct from wild guesses with van den Herik's intended meaning.

"1. the initial position is symmetrical, so white cannot be lost"
++ Yes, that is correct. Moreover white has the advantage of 1 tempo.
1 tempo is worth less than 1 pawn, about 0.33 pawn.

By weight or volume?

You can queen a pawn but you cannot queen a tempo.
So black cannot be lost either. So the initial position is a draw.

Struggling to understand that. Can you explain how it works in this simpler position?

"waving hands deals with any possibility of zugzwang"
++ There is no Zugzwang in the initial position.

So you can wave your hands. What a clever boy!

"2. there are a lot more draws between strong players than white wins, so obviously that is the right result."
++ Yes, the stronger the players, the more draws. The longer the time, the more draws.

They rather bizarrely had a chess craze in the public bar of my local once where almost none of the participants had ever played before. Almost all of the games on the first day were drawn on time (closing time); possibly also under the 75 move rule but I don't think anyone was counting.Over the years the draw rate goes up.
It is impossible to explain in a consistent way the results of the ICCF WC: 136 games = 127 draws + 6 white wins + 3 black wins assuming chess being a white or black win.

I see no difficulty. You find it impossible because you're trying to use a flawed method in the explanation.

You've been invited several times to explain the results in a set of SF15 v SF15 KNNvKP games from a position known to be a White win because it's in the tablebases - no response. I post another set of SF15 v SF15 games here, perhaps you could try those.

I haven't indicated whether the starting position is a win or a draw or how many errors I think there are, but you claim to be able to tell that from the results without reference to a tablebase. There are 12 games all drawn by reference to 7 man tablebases (no agreed draws).

I can't get the right results using your method - can you show a worked example please? What should be the result of the starting position and how many errors have been made? (No peeking.)

@5286
"this method relies on admittedly-imperfect human judgement to choose only some positions to be calculated by machines whose evaluation functions have been set by humans with imperfect knowledge."
++ Terminating what an imperfect human player believes to be an obvious draw holds no risk except that of being wrong, just like in every game lost over the board.

Selecting 4 promising lines holds no risk.

Laughable.

"And human history is filled with "facts" that were KNOWN to be true (in virtually every field), only to be upset by later discoveries." ++ Many mathematical proofs had flaws and needed correction. The Four Color Theorem had a flaw at first. No, Kempe's attempt at a proof (1879) had a flaw. Many proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis were found flawed.  No mistaken proof of the Riemann Hypothesis has survived peer review, so the claim that such proofs were taken as fact is delusional.

That is no excuse to refrain from attempting all mathematical proofs. Likewise there might be a mistake is no excuse for not solving chess.

Better analogies are real proofs of the Four Colour Theorem, one of which has been computer verified - the entire proof has been mechanised and the validity of each step checked by the Coq proof assistant. This verification shows that the theorem can be derived from the axioms of graph theory by pure deduction.

Any real solution of chess would be amenable to such computer checking. Your notion of a mock solution would fail at the first hurdle.

++ Terminating an obvious draw holds no risk.

The starting position is an obvious draw.

Oops, I just solved chess.

QED

@tygxc could hardly disagree, but he will feel a bit peeved that you have managed it without a team of GMs and $5 million funding.

ouch... see elroch i would never let him disrespect me like that personally

Chess will be solved when knowledge is accepted. Computer search engines only sees in algorithms, human ( including Susan Polgar) see by both. Computer sees mistake I see sacrifice, checkmate!

One reason for that is because zero is a non-rational number, from the point of view of calculations. ...

...
Selecting 4 promising lines holds no risk.

...

One reason, perhaps, why @Elroch prefers to sidestep your arguments.

But you said you were personally certain. I also am personally certain. In my view, not to be certain that 1. d4 doesn't lose for white is pretension only. It's fake. A pretense at displaying wisdom.

Proof doesn't matter in the way that Elroch thinks.

They matter in exactly the way I, with the relevant expertise, think. They are the way to arrive at absolute truth about abstract entities. For example, the game of chess with your preferred rule set (in so far as it applies only to the moves, not to the extraneous stuff off the board) is precisely definable as an abstract entity, and all logical propositions about this abstract entity are either true or false and the only way to justify certainty about such a proposition is to prove (or disprove) it. [Note that the finiteness of the game of chess means that there are no undecideable propositions about chess, as there are about all infinite mathematical objects]

He doesn't have the mind of a scientist but of a pure theorist, dealing only in abstractions. And he makes mistakes.

I worked 14 years as an applied scientist. My mind (or some part of it) is therefore technically that of a scientist.

It is easy for you to glibly (not to mention maximally vaguely) claim I make mistakes, but I am confident you are unable to point a significant example that would be accepted by the more rational participants of this group.

As for implicitly claiming that you never make mistakes, that's preposterous. ...

But you said you were personally certain. I also am personally certain. In my view, not to be certain that 1. d4 doesn't lose for white is pretension only. It's fake. A pretense at displaying wisdom.

Proof doesn't matter in the way that Elroch thinks. He doesn't have the mind of a scientist but of a pure theorist, dealing only in abstractions. And he makes mistakes.