Chess will never be solved, here's why

So does this one. 

They have about the same relevance to the topic.

Incidentally when are you going to post your calculations to determine the theoretical results of these positions and the number of errors in the games. If you do that we can all forget about your proposals and talk about sensible things.

@5980
"I do not accept that all these top class players have any effect on the solvability of the game"
++ That is right: the game was created a finite game and thus was solvable on its creation.

That leaves 3 questions:

1. Is chess a draw, a white win, or a black win?
2. What does it take to weakly solve chess?
3. What does it take to strongly solve chess?

To answer question 1 we need experience and information. These are millions of human and engine games and also the obseration that the initiative of 1 tempo in the initial position is worth 1/3 pawn and thus not enough to win.

To answer question 2 we must determine the number of relevant positions: 10^17.

To answer question 3 we must determine the number of relevant positions: 10^44.

"distinguishing between overwhelming evidence and proven fact"
proof = evidence compelling the mind to accept a truth or fact

@5982

proof = evidence compelling the mind to accept a truth or fact

Whose mind? There are millions of people who feel there is plenty of evidence to prove there is a God who created the universe, and millions of people who don't.  So maybe for some of us, chess is provable and for some, it's not...depending on whether you find the evidence compelling? Well, that would explain the lack of consensus.

So maybe chess is a matter of faith rather than mathematics?

It's a matter of faith if one believes a forced draw is proven ...

Unquestionably (by unlimited examples), "knowing" defined by "a person claiming they know" indicates a state of mind.

Epistemologically, sometimes the claim is dead wrong, sometimes it is a good bet but not certain, and sometimes it is justified. It is fair to say that in the first two cases the term is being misused by the person concerned.

Your example falls into the middle category.

Incidentally, everyone who has an understanding of how machine learning, reinforcement learning and AlphaZero work also knows that the "knowledge" acquired by AlphaZero and referred to in the paper title is inductive in origin and uncertain in character. Indeed, it is explicitly uncertain, in that AlphaZero expresses its knowledge about positions in the form of an array of probabilities.

     Exactly the kind of "knowledge", "belief" and "certainty" that permeates a lot of the arguments here. Human history is replete with examples from every field of inquiry of consensus (or even unanimity) of authoritative "knowledge" that has upon discovery of new facts proved to be hilariously mistaken. 

     Reliance on the many millions of existing chess games, opinions of world champions, results from the best machines currently existing and the like will never yield a definitive solution. My contention is that only an examination of every possible line of play from the opening position, and every possible reply at every move can lead to an unassailable conclusion.

     And saying such an endeavor is forever impossible because we do not presently possess the means to conclude it within a time frame humans can comprehend also relies too greatly on our present understanding being all-encompassing.

     Of course this is true. To quote the Firesign Theater--"How do we know? How can we ever REALLY know for SURE?" But a certain amount of agreement between people on the nature of "reality" is necessary for there to be any discussion of any subject.

Not the ones I actually made rather than you misremember! I guarantee you will not be able to find an example and post it here.

I hope everyone realizes that my post 5985 was irony.....making a serious point, but not in a serious way. No, I don't believe chess is a matter of faith!

That's exactly how I see it. 

@5992

"Reliance on the many millions of existing chess games, opinions of world champions, results from the best machines currently existing and the like will never yield a definitive solution."
++ But you cannot discard all that knowledge either and make foolish claims like 1 a4 wins, 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6 wins, 1 d4 loses etc.

"only an examination of every possible line of play from the opening position, and every possible reply at every move can lead to an unassailable conclusion"
++ That would be strongly solving chess.
Literature recognises weakly solving. Checkers, Losing Chess, Connect Four, Nine Men's Morris have all be weakly solved. You cannot impose more stringent criteria on Chess.
Literature also recognises it beneficial to incorporate knowledge in weakly solving a game.

     Accepted wisdom has been proved to be incorrect too often for it to be relied on to be foolproof. A strong solution is more thorough than a weak solution. I have made no "foolish claims" such as you posit. I just insist that claims made on a less substantial basis are more open to question.

     That's my opinion on this topic. My belief is that chess is very probably inherently a draw, but my opinion (or yours, or any other contributor here, or Kasparov's, or Capablanca's, or a team of GMs with a lot of computer aid, or even Steinitz--who claimed a greater knowledge of chess than God himself) cannot be taken as ultimate truth.

@5999

"A strong solution is more thorough than a weak solution."
++ Yes, a strong solution is stronger than a weak solution, hence its name.
However, a strong solution of Chess must consider all 10^44 legal positions,
and thus prohibitively takes 10^44 nanoseconds of time and 10^44 bits of storage.

Checkers, Losing Chess, Connect Four, and Nine Men's Morris have been weakly solved only.
Thus when we talk of solving Chess the only meaningful is weakly solving.
That requires only the 10^17 relevant positions and can be done in 5 years.

@5998

"But you cannot discard all that knowledge either"

I don't think anyone wants to discard that knowledge. We're just saying it falls short of a mathematical solution. I find it quite compelling and I believe it, but to me, it's not a proof. 

@6002
"I don't think anyone wants to discard that knowledge."
++ There are people here who doubt that 1 a4, 1 Nh3, 1 g4? 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? cannot win.
They thus discard the accumulated knowledge.

"We're just saying it falls short of a mathematical solution."
++ In solving games it is beneficial to incorporate knowledge.
Allis solved Connect Four with 9 knowledge rules. That is accepted mathematical proof.
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~fernau/DSL0607/Masterthesis-Viergewinnt.pdf 

@6003

"I don't think anyone wants to discard that knowledge."
++ There are people here who doubt that 1 a4, 1 Nh3, 1 g4? 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? cannot win.

I should have just spoken for myself. 

@6004
++ But then a weak solution that dismisses 1 a4, 1 Nh3, 1 g4? 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? based on knowledge instead of calculating those to a draw or loss is valid proof.