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Vadim244
Guest
Is logic similar to chess?
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Rawb
Guest
Not in my mind. Chess is similar to strategy. Strategy isn’t always equivalent to logic.
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Z_Ninja
Guest
I logically concur.
Chess certainly is strategy. A lot of the times, the way I play is not too logical especially when I am putting some of my most valuable pieces (queen) in a potentially not too safe position, even to the point of sacrifice. But most times the outcome is in my favor.
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itullian
Guest
maybe the illogical move has logic to it?
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Razanir
Guest
Logic can be involved in strategy… Like if I’m playing someone who’s not very good at chess, I’ll willingly sacrifice my queen to take theirs. Why? Because I know I can function perfectly well without my queen, but to someone not as good, it’s the cornerstone of their ability
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Taestron
Guest
I would actually say that Chess is more a game of logic than strategy. If it were the other way around, it is hard to see how even the best computers could beat a human grandmaster. As it is, humans haven’t been able to compete against the computers in decades.
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Nimzovik
Guest
In it’s bare bones, speaking strictly in the concrete, chess is pure logic. It is simply math. It is a closed system. It has a beginning and it has an end. One day the correct algorithim will be understood. Chess one day will, like checkers already, be ‘solved.’
That said, when *Humans *play chess, they rely a lot on intuition and so - called ‘strategy.’
Trust me. I am Nimzovik.
I have spoken and you have heard. Go forth and teach.
That said, when *Humans *play chess, they rely a lot on intuition and so - called ‘strategy.’
Trust me. I am Nimzovik.
I have spoken and you have heard. Go forth and teach.
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Rawb
Guest
Oooh, persuasive argument. I might have to change my vote.
What would Spock say?
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Vadim244
Guest
So do you agree that logic and math is similar to chess?
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Vadim244
Guest
Logic (the branch of science) is similar to chess, because:
Hermann Weyl, Mind and Nature: Selected Writings on Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics (Princeton University Press, 2009), 76-78:
As D. Hilbert recognized, mathematics may be saved without diminishing its classical content only by a radically new interpretation through a formalization which, in principle, transforms it from a system of knowledge into a game with signs and formulas played according to fixed rules. By extending the symbolic representation customary in mathematics to the logical operations “and,” “or,” “there exists,” and so forth, every mathematical proposition is transformed into a meaningless formula composed of signs, and mathematics itself into a game of formulas regulated by certain conventions — comparable indeed to the game of chess. To the men in the chess game corresponds a limited — or unlimited — supply of signs in mathematics; to an arbitrary position of the men on the board, the combination of the signs into a formula. One formula or several formulas are considered as axioms; their counterpart in the game of chess is the prescribed position of the men at the beginning of the game. And as in chess a new position is produced from the preceding one by a move that has to satisfy certain rules, so in the case of mathematics, formal rules of conclusion are set down according to which new formulas can be obtained, i.e., “deduced” from given ones. Certain formulas of intuitively described characteristics are branded as contradictions; in the chess game we may consider as a “contradiction” any position in which, for example, more than eight white pawns occur. So far all is game and not cognition. But in “metamathematics,” as Hilbert says, the game itself becomes the object of cognition: we want to know that a contradiction can never occur as the terminal formula of a proof. This consistency of classical analysis and not its truth is what Hilbert wishes to insure; the truth we have renounced, of course, by abandoning its interpretation as a system of significant propositions. Analogously it is no longer game but cognition, when one proves that in a correctly played chess game more than eight white pawns are impossible. This is done in the following way. At the beginning there are eight pawns; by a move corresponding to the rules, the number of pawns can never be increased; ergo… This ergo stands for a conclusion by complete induction which follows the moves of the given game step by step to the final position. Hilbert needs significative thinking only to obtain this one cognition; his consistency proof, in principle, is conducted like the one just carried through for the chess game, although of course it is much more complicated. It is clear that in these considerations the limitations set by Brouwer for significative thinking are respected.
From this formalistic standpoint the question as to a deeper reason for the adopted axioms and rules of operation is as meaningless as it is in the chess game. It even remains obscure why it is of concern to us that the game shall be consistent. All objections are obviated, since nothing is asserted; rejection could only take the form of the declaration: I will not join in the game. If mathematics would seriously retire to this status of pure game for the sake of its safety, it would no longer be a determining factor in the history of the mind. De facto it has not performed this abdication and will not perform it. Hence we must after all attempt to reassign to mathematics some function in the service of knowledge.
Hermann Weyl, Mind and Nature: Selected Writings on Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics (Princeton University Press, 2009), 76-78:
As D. Hilbert recognized, mathematics may be saved without diminishing its classical content only by a radically new interpretation through a formalization which, in principle, transforms it from a system of knowledge into a game with signs and formulas played according to fixed rules. By extending the symbolic representation customary in mathematics to the logical operations “and,” “or,” “there exists,” and so forth, every mathematical proposition is transformed into a meaningless formula composed of signs, and mathematics itself into a game of formulas regulated by certain conventions — comparable indeed to the game of chess. To the men in the chess game corresponds a limited — or unlimited — supply of signs in mathematics; to an arbitrary position of the men on the board, the combination of the signs into a formula. One formula or several formulas are considered as axioms; their counterpart in the game of chess is the prescribed position of the men at the beginning of the game. And as in chess a new position is produced from the preceding one by a move that has to satisfy certain rules, so in the case of mathematics, formal rules of conclusion are set down according to which new formulas can be obtained, i.e., “deduced” from given ones. Certain formulas of intuitively described characteristics are branded as contradictions; in the chess game we may consider as a “contradiction” any position in which, for example, more than eight white pawns occur. So far all is game and not cognition. But in “metamathematics,” as Hilbert says, the game itself becomes the object of cognition: we want to know that a contradiction can never occur as the terminal formula of a proof. This consistency of classical analysis and not its truth is what Hilbert wishes to insure; the truth we have renounced, of course, by abandoning its interpretation as a system of significant propositions. Analogously it is no longer game but cognition, when one proves that in a correctly played chess game more than eight white pawns are impossible. This is done in the following way. At the beginning there are eight pawns; by a move corresponding to the rules, the number of pawns can never be increased; ergo… This ergo stands for a conclusion by complete induction which follows the moves of the given game step by step to the final position. Hilbert needs significative thinking only to obtain this one cognition; his consistency proof, in principle, is conducted like the one just carried through for the chess game, although of course it is much more complicated. It is clear that in these considerations the limitations set by Brouwer for significative thinking are respected.
From this formalistic standpoint the question as to a deeper reason for the adopted axioms and rules of operation is as meaningless as it is in the chess game. It even remains obscure why it is of concern to us that the game shall be consistent. All objections are obviated, since nothing is asserted; rejection could only take the form of the declaration: I will not join in the game. If mathematics would seriously retire to this status of pure game for the sake of its safety, it would no longer be a determining factor in the history of the mind. De facto it has not performed this abdication and will not perform it. Hence we must after all attempt to reassign to mathematics some function in the service of knowledge.
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Nimzovik
Guest
Yep. Chess is not the quantum world. 
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Nine_Two
Guest
But does the ability to turn something into an algorithm make a game logic based if the algorithm is too complex to use?In it’s bare bones, speaking strictly in the concrete, chess is pure logic. It is simply math. It is a closed system. It has a beginning and it has an end. One day the correct algorithim will be understood. Chess one day will, like checkers already, be ‘solved.’
That said, when *Humans *play chess, they rely a lot on intuition and so - called ‘strategy.’
Trust me. I am Nimzovik.
I have spoken and you have heard. Go forth and teach.
While I might utilize logic when playing a game such as tic-tac-toe (where the algorithm is easy to remember), I wouldn’t for something like checkers and chess - though I might remember some good opening moves.
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benjohnson
Guest
There’s also games like Go - that are intuitively easy to humans that are mathematically very difficult for computers to play. Even now, computers have trouble playing decently.
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Nimzovik
Guest
Indeed - the best chess computers have trouble recognizing a ‘fortress’ in chess -(locked pawn chains etc.)
However that aside, chess is ultimately logic and is a visual representation of matematics.
However in terms of human to human contests and human to ‘current state of the art computer chess program’ there is indeed a certain degree of “luck” in chess as a Human (and often the program - for it can not think abstractly) can not always compute the complete sequence of moves to a beneficial end.
Just ask ‘Pablo’ at the “talkchess” forum.
However that aside, chess is ultimately logic and is a visual representation of matematics.
However in terms of human to human contests and human to ‘current state of the art computer chess program’ there is indeed a certain degree of “luck” in chess as a Human (and often the program - for it can not think abstractly) can not always compute the complete sequence of moves to a beneficial end.
Just ask ‘Pablo’ at the “talkchess” forum.
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jen_fla
Guest
this is an interesting thread, but i’m not sure why it’s in non-Catholic religions. maybe it should move to philosophy.
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Vadim244
Guest
Because overuse of logic by the Roman Catholic Church is one of main reasons of the schism between Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church. Understanding that the real nature of logic is quite simple and comparable to chess, helps not to overestimate logic and scholastic writings which in fact too extensively use logic.
LOGIC, SYMBOLIC (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8, pp. 752-753.)
Symbolic logicians attempt to deduce logical laws from the smallest possible number of principles, i.e., axioms and rules of inference, and to do this with no hidden assumptions or unexpressed steps in the deductive process (see AXIOMATIC SYSTEM). <…> Historians of symbolic logic, mainly of the Polish school (J. Lukasiewicz, J. Salamucha, I. M. Bochenski), have pointed out that the principal concepts utilized in the new logic are to be found in the works of ARISTOTLE, who introduced variables and the idea of the deductive system. Similarly, they have shown that the logic of propositions was extensively treated by the Stoics and by the later scholastics, and that even some aspects of the problem of antinomies had their counterparts in the medieval concern with insolubilia.
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