True or false? Chess will never be solved! why?

There's a good example of this concept involving horse manure - "In the 1890s the key environmental concern was horse manure. London had 11,000 cabs and several thousand buses, each using 12 horses per day - more than 50,000 horses in public transport alone. Each horse produces 15-35 pounds of manure per day; New York had 2.5 million pounds per day to shift, and in 1894 The Times predicted that every street in London would be 9ft deep in dung within 50 years."

The flaw here is not so much disregarding the invention of other means of transportation, but assuming that the dung will be taken care of exclusively by putting it in the street without any removal.

There is a point of diminishing returns - where exhaustive research - yields repeatable results to a point of certainty.  We aren't there in chess - yet, but we will be within 10 years.  Do you you think any GM would have a plus result against the best computers at that point?  

We also are there in this argument.  I don't have to accurately count the number of atoms in the universe or know the number of moves theoretically possible to know that a board with finite pieces and moves has a solution.

You can argue otherwise if it makes you feel smarter.  This argument probably won't end before a solution acceptable to your standard is achieved, but one acceptable to me already has.

I don't think you understand what diminishing returns are either.

Diminishing returns is when it begins to take exponentially more work to make continued progress.  Getting from 90%-99% is much, much easier than getting from 99% to 99.9% etc.

Remember that a solution to chess is a proof, you can't just get to 99.9% and call it good enough.  It must be 100% certain.

lol great answer

Yes it needs to be 100% to call it solved - this isn't the Ivanov thread

Umm, no, I don't think that's what he said at all.  When did calculus come into this exactly anyway?

This problem is one of a connected graph of almost unfathomable complexity.

Yes, chess engines can beat humans, and yes, chess is a finite game... wait, what?  You're done?  Don't quit now, you've almost established enough of a basis to start thinking about the original topic!  To think you'd just let your off topic posts go to waste

Do we have to prove calculus to your satisfaction now?  To make a point, it is convenient to be able to be the arbiter of all definitions, acceptable and unacceptable scientific procedures, things that must be proven and things that can be theorized while also having foreknowledge of the future technological capabilities of human existence.  

Amazing - all that and an 1187 live chess rating.  You're a bad man!

Thread is going down a rather stupid rabbit hole.

Yes, my live chess rating (one loss to the computer while testing something) has a direct bearing on my credibility.

I've provided more than enough information about why it will never be possible.  I'm not going to rehash it all for your benefit (in part because something as benign a spelling mistake might undermine my crediblity in your eyes), it's all in this thread if you care to actually understand the problem and it's complexity.

Going?

You certainly found it useful to use your own unique definitions to arrive at a trivial answer to a question no one asked while simultaneously claiming the topic under dicussion was dumb.

i like rabbit holes, but level is sinking now for sure.

I think a fairly strong player once said, the beauty of chess is that on his best day even the greatest patzer can play a game that is worthy of beauty price.

ok that is a bit far fetched but we shouldnt discriminate people because of their rating.

Well, it's a new rabbit hole.  We've had the rabbit hole where everyone refuses to accept fairly simple non-negotiable definitions, now we have the one where that happens and people start acting snooty over online chess ratings.

Chess is finite by math therms, so it's theoratically solveable. But a computer has to look for every possible line, and must store it. A complete overlook of all possibilities is necessary for a proof (brute force). And this is the question: will a computer be able to do this? Today it seems not: physic limitations, i.e. a too huge number of positions.

Will you even admit that 1. Nc3 ... 2. Nb1 is provable to not be best play?

I will categorically state that those first two moves for White are not going to "bust" the game of Chess.  It's inherently obvious before you even start to formulate an actual proof.  So, prove me wrong (I can play the "burden of proof is on you" game, too).

If you admit that, then you admit to the concept of eliminating moves without brute force calculations, and admit to the existence of a solution that does not build your 32 piece tablebase.

Someone else mentioned a3.  I think there are a number of ways to prove that a3 is not the solution to winning as white without bringing every atom of the universe into the situation.

Someone made an assertion that the people on the solvable side of the argument are just dreaming of being right and have no idea what they are talking about (I've been designing computer-based systems since 1986, thanks, which allows me to at least comment in this thread ;)...).  This goes both ways easily enough.  Being fixated on a single exponential number and a single method of assertaining an answer...

I suspect several of you would be arguing against DNA evidence in court cases if you were lawyers.  After all, it has a margin of error.

Definitions.  Page 82 is fine and well.  That's your submission, and is a widely held definition.  The original post, however, specifies no such definition in posing the question:

"I'm speaking about a strategical game plan to solve chess."

So, it can be argued that your position is addressing a completely different question.  The thing about human language is that it is inherently inaccurate...so maybe it's not your fault you misunderstood the nature of the discussion ;)...you didn't ask what was meant by "solved", and rather than ask, you injected your own definition and worked on making that stick.

I could argue your position just as well, but I am finding it amusing to poke at the complete inflexibility of the "Chess will never be solved!" camp.

Indeed, it makes the Grand Canyon seem like a hairline fracture... only a billion times more so... at least!

Let's not forget the rabbit hole where we acknowlege the sheer immensity of the problem, but insist that advancements in technology will overcome the limits or physics.

I said this earlier, but remembering that the Shannon number is 10^123, and the upper bound estimate for the number of atoms in the universe is 10^80, if we could harness one atom to represent each possible game we'd need one additional known universe for every two atoms present in the current one.