Author: Stephen A. Boak
Date: 10:20:37 11/16/03
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>On November 16, 2003 at 02:32:24, Uri Blass wrote: > >Another point is that the fact that you prune moves does not mean that your >pruning is wrong and it is possible that a program will solve chess by correct >rules to prune moves and the fact that moves are possible does not say that >there are no correct rules to say that they are not logical. > >I do not expect it to happen in my life but >you cannot prove that it is impossible. > > >Uri Interesting philosophical comments. As usual, with the unsolved anything is conceptually possible. Because when you don't know, you truly don't know. But that doesn't automatically make a concept potentially true. There is a famous saying, 'You can never prove a negative.' Because you can never exhaust all the infinite hypothetical possibilities to close the proof. Example: Hypothesis: Tom cheated. Tom says he did not cheat. How can Tom absolutely prove he did not cheat? For every scheme he postulates and proves he could not have used, there are literally millions of schemes he may have used but did not prove he didn't/couldn't have used. The realm of conceptual possibility is pretty big. The realm of conceptual impossibilty is also pretty big. :) Don't bother to discuss *practicalities*. I am discussing your notion of absolute truth (conceptual proof or disproof). If you do not examine *all* the move possibilities, how can you ever say you *solved* chess by a pruning method that ignores certain moves & followups. What if there is an error in the pruning method or evaluation? I know, I know ... you will reply that there may be a mathematical method that can prove .... But that is exactly my point. *May* is not the same as *Is*. You can't *prove* that it is possible. You can only conceptually postulate it as possible, but not prove it. Because the method does not yet exist (is not known to exist). --Steve
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