Author: Albert Silver
Date: 15:00:11 05/20/02
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>Your argument has more flaws. You write: Thats how WE advance. Fine! But a
>computer program has not won the status yet to become like US.
Status? They must gain our _status_ to be allowed to use the same theory I learn
but had no part in building?
>Your report about the Marshall has a top flaw. THe idea that the 30 years had
>anything to do with - comparable to science - a necessary advancing of chess
>knowledge. This however is false! It had nothing to do with such aspects. What
>it took was simply a player or analyst who was willing to put enough heart blood
>into the material. The whole analysis isn't complex enough to explain the 30
>years!
It just shows what clods humans can be. Not only did it take 30 years for
someone to get the idea of ...c6 but it was only because the fantastic idea of
9...d5! had already been show to them. Your theory that no one serious looked at
it for 30 years is one I do not believe in.
>It's more so, that chessplayers often are like other human beings, they
>follow the mainstream. Real researchers are not so typical!
You'd be surprised. There are games that have been analyzed and re-analyzed and
then re-analyzed yet again that contain the most appalling flaws at a basic
level. All by very serious analysts. I.E. to err IS human.
Here is an ironic example for you, though I'll grant is a much older one. One of
my favorite chess books of all time, and one that I use consistently when
teaching chess is Richard Reti's masterpiece "Masters of the Chessboard". In an
early chapter he is showing a beautiful game by Adolf Anderssen (I could be
wrong about the spelling) but when he comes to the combination he seethingly
notes that all the commentators until then insisted on raving about the
perfection of the combination, when in fact there is a solution taking one less
move as he proceeded to show. One or two games later he shows another lovely
combination by the same player announcing a mate in 4. The deep irony is that I
found a shorter mate in 3. Mind you, although I found it on my own, it's quite
probable others found it too.
>Now, after that having said, where is your argument pro books in computers? Do
>you want to doubt that computers won't find certain solutions? Or do you want
>to reclaim that perhaps in 30 years they could find it, so we should assume that
>the were able - in principal??? Here would follow a clear nay. Today there is
>still a very principal horizon problem. Period.
As I said, I contend that had they known nothing about the openings they play,
there are MANY moves and lines top players would most likely not find on their
own. They are using and building on the knowledge of others.
>>They don't compete, they are not animate. Competition is a concept of living
>>creatures. If I (and this is still ALL from those previous posts BTW) propose a
>>footrace between myself and an automatic motorcycle (just to remove the human
>>element), am I *competing* against it. On my end, perhaps, but the bike is
>>certainly not *competing* against me. It gets turned on and then shut off.
>>Computers are the same.
>But here I fully agree. Well said. So, would you reject my ideas of a
>partication of comps in human tournaments?
Like I said, computers don't compete, and human tournaments are human
*competitions*. A chess program can *perform* at a certain ELO level dictated by
its hardware and software, just as a motorcycle can achieve a speed in km/h much
like we can, but it will never be a competition, it will be a measurement. If
you wish to organize an event in order to evaluate that performance, that's
fine, but in a word, yes, I'm against the general participation of machines in
human competitions. You can take out its opening book, its tables, and make it
as weak as a kitten in chess, and it would change nothing. Computers don't
*compete*, and human tournaments are human *competitions*.
Albert
P.S. I said I won't redebate the other points, and I won't. I prefer debates
that don't remind me of a merry-go-round.
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