Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 19:05:42 01/18/05
Go up one level in this thread
On January 18, 2005 at 20:38:32, Dann Corbit wrote: >On January 18, 2005 at 20:27:48, Uri Blass wrote: > >>On January 18, 2005 at 20:18:32, Dann Corbit wrote: >> >>>On January 18, 2005 at 20:01:21, Uri Blass wrote: >>> >>>>On January 18, 2005 at 19:45:36, Anthony Cozzie wrote: >>>> >>>>>Chandler, your statement "chess cannot be solved by computers" is patently >>>>>WRONG. Zappa on my opteron can solve chess, it would just take a VERY long time >>>>>to do so. TSCP on a PDA can solve chess, it would just take even longer. >>>> >>>>I know nothing about zappa but I am sure that tscp cannot solve chess. >>>> >>>>It has limited depth of 32 plies based on my memory so it will never search >>>>lines that are longer than 32 plies. >>>> >>>>I believe that zappa also cannot solve chess. >>>> >>>>possible reasons except the reason of maximal depth are: >>>>1)zappa use null move pruning that is not correct so it may miss some zugzwang. >>>>2)zappa has some bug that will cause it to crash after 12345678910111213 nodes >>>>It never search that number of nodes so you never found that bug. >>>>3)There is no hardware that live forever and you will get an hardware crash >>>>after 1234 years of search regardless of the hardware that you use. >>>>4)God decided that this world has only 123456789 years to live and zappa needs >>>>more time to solve chess so it simply not fast enough. >>> >>>What if there is a forced checkmate and it is 40 plies away from the root? >>> >>>You cannot know that the universe will end before Zappa finds it, even >>>pragmatically. >> >>I only said :"I believe that zappa cannot solve chess" >> >>> >>>Turning off null move will halve the search depth, but going to proof search >>>instead of evaluation may double it. So even the loss of null move may not >>>matter. Besides, even if it is still halved, you just double the time. >>> >>>It is a mistake to say that something cannot happen, no matter how absurd. >>>IMO-YMMV. >> >>I did not say that it cannot happen but only that I believe that it cannot >>happen. >>> >>>I believe that many smart people at one time believed that a computer would >>>never beat a GM. And probably after that, many believed that a computer could >>>never beat the strongest player in the world. >>> >>>We do not know how hard it is to solve chess, except for the worst case. It is >>>possible to stumble onto a solution tomorrow. >> >>Everything is possible but I believe that it will not be solved in the near >>future and that it will not solved by a program that exist today. > >This is (of course) something that is a highly reasonable position, and not at >all like "Chess cannot be solved." > >Of course, you know that very well. I am only pointing out that the two >statements are nearly opposite: >"Chess cannot be solved" >"Chess might not be solved" >even though they sound very similar. I thought of another important distinction: "Chess cannot be solved" is clearly incorrect, because it is a finite game and therefore has a solution. Note that this is not "possibly" incorrect -- it IS incorrect by its very nature. "Chess will not be solved" is a very different matter and entirely possible. In fact, even if at some point in the future we know for certain that we are able to solve it and solve it in less than one second, that does not mean we will think it interesting enough at the time to bother doing it.
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