Chess will never be solved, here's why

@5966
"prove that chess is a draw if one of the givens is "Chess is a draw". "
++ No. Chess is a draw follows from 6 pieces of evidence:

1. Expert opinions of World Champions.
2. TCEC: 63 draws in 100 games despite imposed slightly unbalanced openings
3. ICCF WC: 136 games = 127 draws + 6 white wins + 3 black wins
4. AlphaZero autoplay: 97.7% draws, more with more time / move, even if stalemate = win
5. Human top matches and tournaments with more draws and more at higher ratings
6. A tempo up in the initial position is not enough to win. A pawn can queen, a tempo cannot.

This is clearly some new meaning of the word "follows" with which I am not familiar.  Is it a synonym of "transubstantiates"?

@5968
to follow = to result from

So, cause and effect?  Computers drawing 63 out of 100 games causes the result to become a draw?

To be frank, your repetitive nonsense is getting boring.

@5960

Wait......so "follows" means "to result from"?   So "chess is a draw" results from the opinions of world champions?   What if there were no tournaments and no world champions? Would this mean chess was not a draw? What if chess were just invented and all you had to go on was the rules and none of your 6 points existed? Would this change your belief about chess being a draw?

Yes, you can call it instinct if you wish, although I think it's learned. I also think that instinct, in its fullest sense, can be learned. It needn't be innate.

@5971
"What if chess were just invented and all you had to go on was the rules and none of your 6 points existed?" ++ Then we would not know. In the previous century Rauzer believed 1 e4 wins and Berliner believed 1 d4 wins. Thanks to all the accumulated evidence from humans and computers we now know chess is a draw.

If chess were just invented and I hadn't played any games, I might assume it is probably a draw by best play by looking at the rules, the innate complexity and the symmetricality of the layout but I couldn't know it.

I think people underestimate the effect that hundreds of thousands of top class players have imposed, when they analyse the opening position to the best of their ability. I fully believe that their combined efforts is sufficient to fully confirm my belief that it's drawn by best play. Computers haven't done anything to alter that impression. Since I don't think that chess ever CAN be fully solved, where anything approaching a strong solution is implied, I think therefore that we do know it's drawn to a similar degree of certainty to our certainty that death would ensue from jumping off a 300 foot cliff onto sharp rocks below. We can consider ourselves as knowing that. Note that if we land by chance on an albatross's back on the way down, tthen we didn't jump onto the sharp rocks from 300 feet.

@tygxc "knows" chess is a draw.

Steinitz "knew" he could beat God even if he gave him pawn and move.

"Knowing" is a state of mind, NOT a state of fact.

Ah, good try but that's mistaken, because the word "know" diverges in meaning. English is a flexible and often ambiguous language. They accept the belief that astrology works in order to facilitate their competence in using astrology to do whatever it is they try do with it. Their assumed competence comes along with the belief that it works and it isn't founded on such incontrovertible evidence as jumping off a 300 foot cliff onto sharp rocks is. Or knowing chess is drawn, which I submit is knowledge that can never, ever, be improved upon by any means we will have at our disposal, which is why I call it knowledge in the most direct sense of the word.

Yes good, we're agreed.

All draws, just like the second batch of games I posted, which start from a theoretically won position.

I suppose you would say the first batch, again from a theoretically won position is unbalanced because only eleven of the twelve were drawn.

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

@5975
"Knowing is a state of mind, NOT a state of fact."
++ Believing is a state of mind, knowing is objective.

Knowledge = understanding gained by actual experience; range of information;
clear perception of truth; something learned and kept in the mind.

Chess is a draw results inductively from millions of human and engine games and deductively from equal material and position in the initial position and from 1 tempo = 1/3 pawn being unable to queen.

This peer reviewed paper has knowledge in its title:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.09259 

@5974

I think people underestimate the effect that hundreds of thousands of top class players have imposed, when they analyse the opening position to the best of their ability. I fully believe that their combined efforts is sufficient to fully confirm my belief that it's drawn by best play. 

I accept that you "fully believe..." but I do not accept that all these top class players have any effect on the solvability of the game, nor that their opinions do anything other than convince other humans. When chess was invented and the rules were agreed on, at that moment it was either solvable or not. No human knew then whether it was solvable, and despite the strong opinions that exist, we are debating whether any human knows now.  

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

Definition of proof
 (Entry 1 of 3)
1a: the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact
b: the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning>>

Much as I prefer Merriam-Webster to Oxford, I don't think that either of these explanations of the meaning of proof are sufficient. "Cogent" really just means "clear and convincing" and principles of reasoning might be of inductive reasoning.

@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 ...