Re: How long would it take a computer to completely "solve" chess?

From: Guy Macon (http://www.guymacon.com)
Date: 09/13/04 

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 21:00:59 -0700

Ed Seedhouse <eseedhouse@shaw.ca> says...
>
>Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:
>
>>Get out your "good calculator or spread***", do your calculations
>>with the assumption that a working Quantum computer capable of solving
>>chess will be invented in less time than it would take for a conventional
>>computer to do the job, and post the numbers. Actual calculations are far
>>more convincing than childish namecalling.
>
>(Just responding to a particularly silly part of an overall silly
>posting - I won't do it again as this guy is going in my "ignore file"
>right after I post)
>
>There is at present no evidence at all that a working quantum computer
>"capable of solving chess" will ever be available. Just to make one
>rather elementary point, the writer has provided no evidence that
>there exists an algorithm for solving chess that would even run on a
>quantum computer, assuming one could be built, and if there were such
>an algorythm that it would run substantially faster than the usual
>kind of computer. This being so there is no basis for making any
>computations about how long such a thing would take.
>
>All Macon is doing is waving his hands and crying "quantum computer"
>without displaying the slightest evidence that he even knows what a
>quantum computer is or what algorithms it might or might not run
>faster than a Von Neuman machine. In other words, he's obviously just
>another troll, so shame on me for even taking the bait once. I won't
>do it again.

As I suspected, Seedhouse has failed to provide the calculations,
prefering to once again engage in personal attacks. Like i said,
Actual calculations are far more convincing than childish namecalling.

I also note that Seedhouse is using the argument "there is no
evidence that X will ever be available" as an argument supporting
his assertion that X will never be available. This is, of course,
a logical fallacy big enough to drive a truck through. There are
many, many things in our future that we have no evidence of at
present, just as there are many things in existance now that there
was no evidence for a thousand years ago.

We do not know how long it will take to solve chess. It cannot be
calculated - too many unknowns. We know we can't solve it today,
and we are pretty sure that we won't solve it soon, but to predict
that we won't be able to solve it before the end of the universe is
just plain silly.