Re: the Mathematics of Chess

From: Jon Slaughter (Jon_Slaughter_at_Hotmail.com)
Date: 10/11/04 

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:40:34 -0500

"David Bandel" <dwb1729@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a88af92f.0410101821.6e298d38@posting.google.com...
> Chess is frequently described as a very mathematical game. I've always
> ignored this assuming that it's described this way by morons who put
> anything that takes brains in the same category. Is there anything
> mathematical about it? This question is posed to mathematicians
> because I'm a chess player.

if you are a chess player, do you suck? if you are good, why? what makes
you good? do you just make random choices? Do you not analyze what
consequences your next move has? Anything that has patterns is mathematics.
Mathematics, in its most general scope, covers everything that has
intelligence... Mathematics is basic on logic, and if something isn't
logical, its not really math. But if it is, then one could possibly study
it under a "mathematical microscope". Just cause you don't understand math
doesn't me it doesn't exist. Some people say music is not math... why? cause
most musicians are not that great at math(and those that aren't usually
cause they haven't tried or cause they are not really that great of a
musician). Supposedly Beethoven couldn't do much beyond basic arithmetic,
but does that mean he wasn't mathematical? math is more than just numbers...
its about patterns and there relationships... music is all about patterns
and there relationships... music is math.

The best way I can what your brain is doing in a game is it trying to
analyze the probabilities of the outcome of your next move... and you try to
choose a probability that gets you closer to winning(if thats your goal).
Now, wouldn't you agree? Now, what are probabilities???????????? ITS MATH
YOU FREAKEN IDIOT!!!!!!!! ;) Just because you are not consciously crunching
numbers doesn't mean your brain isn't working behind the seens in a
"mathematical" way... it may not be using numbers directly, but there it is
the same thing. It remembers, from experience and from the rules of the
game, that certain moves are better than others and decides(how??? one can
decide in only 2(we hope) ways... randomly and not randomly)... So, great
chess players are able to do this very well and very quickly over a wide
variety of moves. One can describe what a brain is doing in some detail
using math, but its not perfect since we do not exactly know how the brain
is doing what it does. Already, computers can beat humans fairly well...
only a matter of time before a human can never beat a computer. Basicaly,
as one understands more and more how the brain works mathematically, we can
implement that math in a computer to simulate the brain... but the brain is
extremely complex and so the models are very weak. But if there were no
logic to the game, how would the brain handle it? logic = math... Just
because math tends to be refered in the context of numbers doesn't mean that
you have to have numbers to have math...

The biggest problem is, that even some "simple" games for the brain are
extremly complicated to implement in a computer to test some of the
mathematical formulations for that game... One could, say, have a game that
has a few rules and you could write how to beat anyone on a 1/2 *** of
paper... but to have a computer or a human follow those rules would be
impossible, since it would take forever to follow them...

This site should help you understand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue

And, remember, that if a game is not mathematical, it can't be implemented
by a computer.. and so theres no way a computer can play the game.... So,
if you still thing chess isn't math, then you really don't understand math
and shouldn't talk about it as if you did... go read some math book, then
make your decision. (Uninformed decisions are the worst kind)

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