Is Chess just a philosophical experiment?

No need, you're right it's beautiful and harrowing much like the complexities of life. Very good. 

who is doing the experiment

As Alexander the Great did when meeting the Gordian knot, he cut right through.

THIS is the pychological experiment and if you reply you LOSE.

(...darn!  lost again...)

also the OP wants to see how many people talk to photographs of people how are WAY too far back in antiquity to have a protograph

consider that something like a BS detector.

Maybe I'm kinda confuzing experiment w/ experience. Tho' I'm not sure if there's a difference in most cross-applications of the words. Neither seem to be in the now.

Life in & of itself is your very own little lab experiment. Therefore, chess, being a subset of, would be too....I guess.

As an experiment, you're seeking an outcome conducive to funneled reason. Tho' I can't stand some experiments that actively seek a solution. Sometimes when I paint, I just start painting without anything in mind prior. And that can be exhilarating....kinda like Destination Unknown ! So many experiments have produced results that noone expected....like Q's responses to criticism....just teezing u Q !! Anyone in suspenders is gonna get teezed now & again........

It seems to me that experience is something you look back upon. Where an experiment is something you look forward for. Live games are in the present & you'll hardly ever hear me complain about being in the now. 

Experiment & Experience. Aren't we subconsciously doing both with chess ?

Very introspective, thank you. 

Isn't everything we do just a philosophical experiment?

It's a board game that attracts pseudo intellectuals wearing smoking jackets, smoking a pipe and spewing out oft repeated but seldom understood psycho babble.

Just have fun!

to chess or not to chess ?

whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the constant checks of outrageous opening strategy or to push pawns against a sea of attacks...

ty Batgirl for Morphy's quote, Q2 for pic', and everybody on this essential existential thread.

concerning psy- philo- debate, in the middle age they were both the same, including mathematics too, logic etc ...; because ppl thought that all knowledge should help in the struggle for life.

Then they split up, philo- deals with general ideas and application , pycho- with various particuliar situations and individual unnumerous cases and experiences most of the time.  There is one philosophy, there are as psy- situations as the number of pple, each one is different. each behaviour, except for clones, is different;

But today a new trend is to see them merging again;

back to chess , psy- experiment too, philo- experiment certainly, leading to pleasure first, happiness at the end. 

Who among the GMs excel in philosophy? I hope there is/ are. Patzers and wannabe GMs do not count.

Probably Peter Svidler. I've watched his banter blitzes before, and he seems like the type of man who would enjoy many topics including philosophy. 

He likes cricket...that kinda ruins it.

http://yorkshirechess.org/interview-with-peter-svidler/

Maybe for you. It's a sport for the intellectual mind, might be too complicated for some. 

Well cricket is not at all the worst sport ever. There is one thing called Baseball. 

Who would start a thread called DUMBEST SPORTS or Sports for Dummies? You can count me in for comments