Chess will never be solved, here's why

The start position cannot possibly be a win for black. If you don't understand the reasons why it cannot be possible, perhaps you should more profitably get to grips with basic principles, because it's bound to be affecting your judgement.

Btw that position cannot be reached by best play by both sides, so it doesn't come into consideration.

If you can't (even) sketch a formal proof of this, you need to recognise you are not aware of the correct status of your belief. It is conceivable (and can't be proven false) that the initial position is a zugzwang with a win for the second player.

@Optimissed

I'll ignore those for obvious reasons.

Other logical errors include the idea that any side which is losing cannot blunder further and yet the game won't be concluded quickly. If one side plays randomly and the other doesn't win quickly as a result, the winning side isn't playing to win. In such circumstances, all resulting positions become irrelevant.

You are confusing a side not playing to win although it's winning with one which takes expedient measures to win .... that is, doesn't play to win in the minimum number of moves. A human plays ro win in the easiest and least risky manner, unless s'he's showing off. The least risky manner of winning is usually NOT the quickest manner regarding the number of moves. Your criticisms are irrelevant to the normal situation where the winning side intends to actually win. Thus they are irrelevant to this thread.

That's your belief. Don't forget, I can ask the same. Can you formally prove that I need to prove it formally? Of course you can't. It's an assumption only.

@Optimissed 

And that.

Incidentally, I did sketch such a proof in Ponz's thread and I really don't see any advantage to searching for that thread, searching through it and reproducing it here OR taking the time and effort to reconstruct it here, to satisfy some dubious point of honour. I might say though, that if you can't see it yourself, then why are we talking?

Forever and where does that leave us? Actually, a formal proof that black cannot win is impossible if the proof is to be deductive; whilst an inductive proof is nothing more than a general rule, which may not hold for some specific cases and which cannot be deductively proven to hold. Such a proof must be, by its very nature, inductive. It involves the extreme unlikelihood of the possibility, in a game of chess, of a Singularity, such that a first move advantage for white which decreases proportionally to the number of moves played can be transformed into a winning advantage for black.

In any case, if one side can lose a move, so can the other ad infinitum. It's impossible.

@Optimissed

Not necessarily forever. You could try taking notice of the advice I gave in #504.

(My post was meant to relate to #538, but you'd managed to insert #539 before I'd posted it - though I think I can profitably ignore that one too.)

It is conceivable that Fred exists as an entity which is such and has properties that are such that it cannot be proven not to exist.

Therefore Fred may exist.

One of the properties of Fred is that it exceeds the capability of any other entity.

Therefore, if Fred may exist then Fred does exist.

Therefore, Fred exists.

Same mistake, though.

In any case, if one side can lose a move, so can the other ad infinitum. It's impossible.

No, again. There are many positions where one side can lose a move, but the other can't.

Here for example.>>>


No. You ought to know that the general case can't be circumvented in general by finding specific cases. Lose a move earlier.

I think that if you'd disagreed with one, you might have attracted more credulity. It's clear that you didn't understand the arguments I made and misrepresented them. The chance I am wrong in all of those points is zero. Laughable. Each one, you systematically misrepresent.

A general assertion can be disproved by finding at least one counterexample. 

If you meant that the existence of such positions doesn't imply the starting position is one such, I agree. But how does it actually apply to the starting position? Perhaps you could give an example of the kind of moves you have in mind.

If that is not what you meant maybe you can explain further. 

I didn't understand the significance of the last sentence. Perhaps  you could explain that too.

I would have put it closer to 1.

But you're right. I didn't understand the arguments you made. (What were the misrepresentations?)

You represent yourself as honest?

No, that's my statement of understanding of what is necessary for certainty about a combinatorial question. Do you know what combinatorial means?

Elsewhere you do refer to deduction (the logical steps in valid proofs) and induction (the modification of uncertain beliefs in response to samples of evidence).

However, the use of the phrase "inductive proof" indicates you should read the contents of the last bracket. [The only way in which this term is correctly used is by describing an infinite process where the limit of the process is certainty (an example would be the belief that all the marbles in a jar are white. Taking out any finite number of marbles with replacement can only provide a belief that the marbles are all white. Taking out an infinite number of marbles with replacement can reduce the probability of being wrong to zero (but is not practical )].

You appear to be calling inductive proofs impractical, unless I misunderstood that slightly convoluted explanation. Yet they may be the only ones available.

At least you seem to be playing the game. That is, you realise this is a game where either side attempts to impose its rules on the other, with more or less reason, or find reasons to rebut rules imposed by the other. At least it's possible to "do business".