Will computers ever solve chess?

"I think therefore I am" refers to individual sentience more than the physical laws of existence.  It clearly cannot be "sorted out" since 100 years ago...since Theoretical Physicists are still throwing out theories of the Universe being a Matrix-like simulation, and it cannot be proven one way or the other at present. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227126-neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation

The vast majority of grandmasters are just guessing. They guess that because of their personal experience with so many draws. But they make mistakes all the time, even the best computers make mistakes. No person and no machine is yet near perfection. If someone is sure chess is a draw with best play they are just as right as the person who is sure it's always a win for white with best play. Neither one knows, but both can be sure.

For a long time the consensus among grandmasters has been that a perfectly played game will end in a draw. I don't think they're guessing. I think the evaluation is based on knowledge and experience. White's first move is an advantage and that's why white's winning percentage is higher. Especially at the highest level, one would expect the side with even a slight advantage at the beginning to have a higher winning percentage over time. But I think most grandmasters agree that a slight advantage in and of itself is not enough to win. Obviously the advantage must be decisive. I can't imagine that moving first is a decisive advantage. I think a perfectly played game ends in a draw. White has a slight advantage but needs help from black in order to turn that into a decisive advantage.

The result of perfect play isn't found be opinions, experience, consensus, or guesswork. It's a game-theoretic concept (a type of mathematics). Even the best chess engines don't know perfect play - if they did then nobody would hold chess engine tournaments. It would be the same game over and over again.

That (FB’s post) sounds logical and practical.

And yet, who’s to tell that one day a machine won’t prove that White wins no matter what? Or Black for that matter. Which means the GMs are just guessing, just as they are guessing each move they make. It’s all a matter of beliefs. The point is to realize that and not make a big deal out of a good move: it was still a matter of belief. And some, like Kasparov, recognize it and embrace it as a fact, even though ‘belief’ and ‘logical chess’ sound contradictory, and chess players like to view themselves as rational human beings. 

They’re not.

Before you have a forced mate in three you have already played according to your particular system of beliefs. So don’t forget how you got to the forced mate. Sometimes you just open the position with, say, an energetic ...f5, without any particular reason: you open it because you...must open it—that’s a belief, held by, say, Kasparov but not Karpov, whose belief would tell him to keep the position closed, or if he opened it it would create great discomfort in him and so he would likely lose against a high-class opponent.

 Like I said, smart people like Kasparov would realize that chess is largely a matter of beliefs—including openings—which is a great feature coming from someone who could calculate pretty deep. As for GMs in daily life, oh boy, they’re full of beliefs, just like any scientist is, just 

Ike anybody else is.

 It’s funny, but I knew he would do it, Kasparov tried to apply the logic in chess to everyday life. Of course, he failed, because life is much more complex, but at least he admitted it, and it is that honesty which made him not hide the facts that made him who he is as a chess player. Lesser players try to defend their image, instead of doing the hard work. So he tried to calculate in life many moves ahead, but obviously it is almost impossible to predict all the answers, because in life, unlike chess, others are not playing their best move. They’re playing compulsively, and hope to get away if it happened to be a mistake, which is exactly how the newbies are playing—just like in life! Moreover, in life Kasparov is, like anybody else, clueless as to what the best move is, so here belief plays a most important role in choosing his best move.

  As for the game itself, it’s practical advice to go by what FB said: White has a slight advantage, but it’s not decisive in order for him to win. 

   But at the moment it’s not a fact, it’s a belief—a practical belief, but still a belief—there’s nothing better at the moment. 

  But in a hundred years, the computer might show White or Black wins no matter what. We don’t know that yet. Until all the options will be exhausted, chess is largely a matter of beliefs, and sometimes logic! As opposed to the popular belief that it is ‘pure logic’.

  And since ‘exhausting all the options’ is highly unlikely to happen, we will remain with a bunch of beliefs and some logic...

@troy7915: Your original comment was, "Which means the GMs are just guessing, just as they are guessing each move they make." But now you qualify that by saying, "Before you have a forced mate in three you have already played according to your particular system of beliefs." You didn't have much luck with "guess" so you replaced it with "belief."

I'm not sure what your point is. Originally you said grandmasters are guessing about each move they make and that suggests you don't understand the meaning of the word. Just because a player lacks complete information because he cannot possibly calculate all the possible positions that could arise from every alternative move, doesn't mean he has to guess. If he has enough knowledge and experience, he knows which move or moves are most likely the best. That's not guessing. That's using one's judgment, which comes from knowledge and experience, in making a decision based on the available information.

You also seem to not understand what logic means. Chess is not a matter of beliefs. Religion is a matter of beliefs. You believe that until chess has been solved, it is based on beliefs instead of logic. That's silly. In your world logic cannot be used unless complete knowledge is available - and that is almost never available in life. Great discoveries in science have been made by using logic and we're not even close to solving the mysteries of the universe.

You might consider yourself a profound thinker but you're just talking nonsense.

troy7915 is posting using his poor understanding of chess. Stronger players know better.

In fact, the stronger a player--the more likely he will access chess as a draw with best play.

  You missed the whole point: it has nothing to do with the strength of a player, but with simple logic, in which the ego of being a strong player has no place.

  You also missed the fact that Kasparov, to go by what appeals to you, a strong player, stated that chess is largely based on beliefs. Which is obvious if you push your understanding and calculations to the limit—then you will see that the decision is based on belief, not logic. 

  As for draw or win, from move one, again, what you call a strong player now may prove to be an infantile player in a hundred years from now, or more. After all, Kasparov himself was embarrassed with some of his earlier ‘improvements’, which were easily refuted even by the earlier computers.

Besides, I said that FB’s advice was practical. But since we don’t have all the variables exhausted, whatever we can say now is not a fact. Ultimately, who knows?

 Read his biography, you’ll see just that. What, do you think I’m making things up? He was relieved that he didn’t have a chance to show many of his earlier ‘improvements ‘. The only good thing they gave him, was an inflated sense of confidence, which helped him win many a match. But objectively speaking, he admits they were quite childish.

Forget Morphy, we are talking of huge technological leaps, from now on, or no leaps, in which case we are still not dealing with facts, until a computer will exhaust all the variants. 

 After all, there is little logic, objectively, to play 1.e4 c5 2. d6, as opposed to 2...Nc6. It is just that 2...d6 gives one more chances to play an aggressive game/opening. And if one is aggressive, then bingo. But an aggressive style and logic are two separate things. An aggressive person will display  an aggressive style, so they will choose an aggressive opening. But that choice is not based on the logic of the best move.

And I said, when you reach the limits of experience and calculations, or they are useless in a closed position, more or less, then the decision to open a position or not, to name just one instance, is largely a matter of belief in one’s style, not logic.

 The stronger you are as a player, the better you realize it’s ultimately a matter of beliefs.

Chess is mainly about truth, not beliefs.

Well, with the advent of AlphaZero trashing stockfish and totally revolutionizing chess theory in some aspects, I'd say that a solution to the game is right around the corner. It's Go that may never be solved for hundreds of years. That is the most complex game ever invented, position number wise.

  Haha! That’s what most chess players want to believe. But the fact is that the player pursues the truth with a chain of beliefs, which is how he plays. But there will always be the sucker who will think in formulas such as ‘the pursuit of truth’, while not being aware of the actual way he plays the game—just like the same player acting in his daily life: moving from one belief to another, from one unfinished action to another, from one partial action to another, never being aware of the whole thing.

 He plays chess just like he lives his life: swimming in the river of beliefs, while pretending to chase the truth.

   Playing according to your style, before you achieve a forced mate, is a matter of belief, not logic. The same position can have 3 different moves considered solutions, yet you make the move most suitable to your style, believing in the strength of that style, and believing your style is superior to another’s. 

   Forget ‘religious beliefs’, beliefs in general function in the same way in any field: you believe the plane will arrive on time and its pilot will not crash it, but those are not facts, since they hadn’t happened when you booked the flight. We live with many beliefs in daily life and most don’t cause too much trouble.

 Then we believe in god, which is the same thing as believing in ourselves, assuming we know who or what we are when we really don’t, and that creates a lot of misery and destruction in the world.

  As for ‘most likely’ the best move, that was the point: ‘most likely’ means it is a belief. Unless it is 100% the best move, it remains a belief that it is the best move. If there is any amount of doubt about a move, then there is a belief that it is the best move. This is how belief works. The computer I’m writing on is not a belief—it is a fact and there is no doubt about it, therefore no belief. If something is 100% present there is no need to believe in its existence. It is only when I assume something must exist, based on crooked logic and misinterpreted experience, that I believe in something. Something that I cannot see in its entirety produces a belief. Seeing something partially is not seeing at all. 

 It happens in life, it happens in chess. After all, it is the blind person in life that plays chess. That daily blindness doesn’t magically go away during a game of chess. Thus, chess is but a distraction from this blindness. Partial seeing in life, partial seeing in chess. At least until the game will be completely solved. Until then, it is a game of technique and mental toughness, which is resistance and belief in one’s style and experience over another.

 Like I said above, the stronger the player the more honest he tends to be, and more likely he is to understand that chess is ultimately, with the partial information that we have now, a game of beliefs. Kudos to Kasparov for understanding that, rather than pounding his chest boasting his iron logic, which would have inflated his ego, but instead he didn’t mind spelling the truth about beliefs in chess.

  But weaker players will always insist it’s about logic only. 

There can be a consensus among grandmasters that a perfectly played game will end in a draw. Doesnt mean it's true. There could have been a time where a consensus said the earth was flat. Doesnt mean it's true. It just means more people are guessing one thing rather than guessing another. They are guessing because they dont know. They can be sure, just as the person who thinks white always wins can be sure. Both can be sure, but neither knows. If either one knew, this topic wouldn't exist. If chess ever does get solved by a computer, or person, my guess is that it would come down to an incredibly small advantage by one side that always leads to a win. An advantage like going first.