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Subject: The WHY and HOW of Computer Chess

Author: Duncan Stanley

Date: 03:21:31 04/21/01



I am personally grateful to Oliver Roese's answer below to the question "What is
is Objective of Computer Chess". The question has been posed in several threads
and posts and *no* computer chess expert has seen fit to answer it, until now.

Oliver Roese argues that in Computer Chess the doctrine of "End justifies the
Means" has been taken to its full, absurd and logical conclusion. All that
matters is the WIN - the "how" of the "win-result" becomes immaterial; all
morality, all fairness, all human-ness is removed from the "means".

Can he really be right? How far does his cultural imperative extend? Is all
discourse a mere manoeuvre towards a win position by any means? Isn't his view
too intolerable to accept?




==============================================================
>The human player, even if he has a limited "computing" power, is allowed to be
>as creative as possible. Why would the programmer be forbidden to be?

You can be as creative as you want. But not at the last minute with the effect
of confusing the human.
===


the height of absurdity.  the whole idea is to confuse the human.  that is how
the machine will win.

do not try to divorce the programmer from his creation when it is their time to
prepare for battle.  as long as machines require an operators, there will only
be a SYSTEM, not just a software.  the competitive system is
software/hardware/operator... one "polymorphing" SYNTHESIS.... this is
everything to understand the current debate.

if i am operator in such a system, it is my job to serve the other parts in this
system to maximize their chances for performing optimally agaist OUR foes.

it is self-evident that in chess matches, as in war and streetfights, the
element of SURPRIZE is everything.  chess is virtually defined as the attempt to
surprize your opponant.  to say, "no fair, you confused the human at the crucial
moment" is a COMPLIMENT to any operator worthy of the title.

read up on your sun tzu: win the battle before it starts, your opponant is
trying to.  chess is a war game, leave the moralists outside the gate when the
question is how to crush your foe.  this is a game, but it is a serious game.
WIN IT.




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