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Parable of Alien Chess

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Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#131

Post by mannykannot »

leto_ii wrote: post #19

I suspect the metaphor is inspired by Feynman's one about gods playing chess [1]. As it's almost always the case, Feynman manages to immediately inspire and illuminate. On the other hand, the present article seems to me to get some important things wrong. For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. More importantly though, if somebody is interested in investigating chess, they wi…

My impression is that the author is taking aim at a rather simple, outdated and largely superseded philosophical notion of what science is. While there are probably cases of social and institutional pressure being applied to discourage fringe theories, there seems to be a lively opposition to each of string theory, dark matter and dark energy.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#132

Post by simonh »

lmm wrote: post #111
simonh wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analogies are simply tools to facilitate discussion, they can't themselves say anything definitive about the underlying claim. That's why it's useful to interpret them generously. If I came up with a flawed analogy for time dilation would that show that time dilation is nonsense? I think a better approach on encountering a flawed analogy is to attempt to improve it, come up with a better one, or address the underlyin…

> Analogies are simply tools to facilitate discussion, they can't themselves say anything definitive about the underlying claim. That's why it's useful to interpret them generously. If I came up with a flawed analogy for time dilation would that show that time dilation is nonsense? That's a bizarre attitude. Thought experiments were a major and important tool in developing the theory of relativity, precisely because…

>It's nonsense, top-to-bottom.

This isn't a formal physical theory, just a heuristic for evaluating lines of investigation. Richard Feynman gave a good explanation of the principle, which he said he found helpful in his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dgrvlWML4

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#133

Post by karmakaze »

praestigiare wrote: post #115

The central thesis of the article is supported mostly by the argument "Yeah, it is dude." Ignoring the weakness of the analogy, there is a reason science is "about models" and not about truth: We can measure and test models, and we cannot measure and test truth. A theory that is more complex and fits the data worse is a less good theory because it is easier to get stuck in. If I have two new theories with this proper…

This was the only part of an otherwise great post I objected to. Science may have a side effect of uncovering truth but it shouldn't be the driving force. We should be striving for better predictive ability that doesn't go against our observations. Arguing which is more real is not science.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#134

Post by edgarvaldes »

seisvelas wrote: post #34
leto_ii wrote: post #19

I suspect the metaphor is inspired by Feynman's one about gods playing chess [1]. As it's almost always the case, Feynman manages to immediately inspire and illuminate. On the other hand, the present article seems to me to get some important things wrong. For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. More importantly though, if somebody is interested in investigating chess, they wi…

>For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. He addresses that (first-move advantage from white moving first) in the parenthesis after that same sentence: "After extensive experimentation, they realize this: 50% of the time, the white player wins and 50% of the time, the black player wins (we'll ignore draws and any first-move advantage for the example). "

>50% of the time, the white player wins... we'll ignore... any first-move advantage for the example

Really hard to parse the meaning. ¿White wins 50% of the time if we ignore that occasions where white wins because it has the first move? But white always has the first move.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#135

Post by leto_ii »

mannykannot wrote: post #131
leto_ii wrote: post #19

I suspect the metaphor is inspired by Feynman's one about gods playing chess [1]. As it's almost always the case, Feynman manages to immediately inspire and illuminate. On the other hand, the present article seems to me to get some important things wrong. For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. More importantly though, if somebody is interested in investigating chess, they wi…

My impression is that the author is taking aim at a rather simple, outdated and largely superseded philosophical notion of what science is. While there are probably cases of social and institutional pressure being applied to discourage fringe theories, there seems to be a lively opposition to each of string theory, dark matter and dark energy.

> a rather simple, outdated and largely superseded philosophical notion of what science is

To me the idea of treating the chess game as a random process somehow felt like an anti-realist position [1]. I'm not sure how this kind of thinking is currently perceived by philosophers of science, it's possible it's an outdated view.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#136

Post by adlpz »

qsort wrote: post #61
adlpz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the point being made here is that, indeed, scientific method is based on accuracy of prediction. However, in order to reach a good accuracy, a great deal of fine-tuning and tweaking is required. E.g. high energy physics. The standard model has something like 18 free parameters. A new theory, which could be "more correct" and provide, in the long term, better predictions, might require time and manpower for…

> We need to be able to dedicate resources to theories that do not provide better predictions, but that provide new perspectives. You are talking as if this isn't the case already, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Mo... I don't think that the usefulness of alternative viewpoints is contested by anyone, the problematic part of the article is the vague, ill-informed critique of 's…

I agree, this is the case already to some extent. And yes, the article is quite vague in general. I believe it's intended as thought-provoking and not really a proper argumentation. I think in that sense it's an interesting piece. We must remember to not be too myopic when knees-deep into our over-fitted math frameworks.

I'd only add that, in my opinion, the vehement rejection of non-mainstream ideas is actually more common in non-professional circles. While a physicist may find interesting considering a new idea, a physics enthusiast, in my personal experience, is much more likely to acuse of pseudoscience and crackpottery. It's sort of a validating and gregarious warm and fuzzy feeling. Look at those people with their clearly energy-conservation-violating nonsense. Hey, I've done it before.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#137

Post by Patient0 »

bencollier49 wrote: post #116
Patient0 wrote: post #83

I thought this was a quite insightful article - and was surprised to find so much criticism in the comments. e.g. those who are attacking his parable on the grounds that "actually the odds aren't actual 50-50 in chess" or "an alien would have to wonder why some people win more than others"... these objections seem like nit-picking to me and miss the opportunity to broaden our perspectives. The example is to help illu…

People are attacking this article because logical positivism gives them peace of mind. It's nice to think that the universe is well ordered and that the answers are out there. It can give you a sense of superiority, too. In this sense, a belief in logical positivism has the same psychological basis as a belief in a conspiracy theory.

ah and I get it now - the author has associations with the alt-right. For those who had heard of him (I had not), they were already inclined to view his statements uncharitably, even though I think this particular essay does not have any real "alt-right" themes.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#138

Post by seanhunter »

seisvelas wrote: post #34
leto_ii wrote: post #19

I suspect the metaphor is inspired by Feynman's one about gods playing chess [1]. As it's almost always the case, Feynman manages to immediately inspire and illuminate. On the other hand, the present article seems to me to get some important things wrong. For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. More importantly though, if somebody is interested in investigating chess, they wi…

>For one, it's not the case that overall white and black win 50% of the time each. He addresses that (first-move advantage from white moving first) in the parenthesis after that same sentence: "After extensive experimentation, they realize this: 50% of the time, the white player wins and 50% of the time, the black player wins (we'll ignore draws and any first-move advantage for the example). "

When I look at a master database, White wins about 33% of the time, black wins about 25% and the rest of the games are draws. The aliens would have to be pretty terrible at statistics to ignore draws and first mover advantage when they are clearly extremely important.

It is difficult to relate to an analogy which is so divergent from the basic facts.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#139

Post by subroutine »

tiborsaas wrote: post #106
subroutine wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure they would be able to infer the board has 64 squares. They can't see the board, and can only see the locations of the starting pieces and location of the first move. The center of the board could be anything - 300 hexagons, a spin-wheel, series of mouse traps, etc. Here's my interpretation of what they see pre- and post- opening move... PRE: https://i.ibb.co/s6WnPNV/Chess.png POST: https://i.ibb.co/7pg7G…

This is a fun one, thanks for the illustration. If you analyse 5000 board configurations you can deduce with a high certainty that there are 64 fields the pieces can be on. The pressing question is then why can some pieces move only diagonally or only in one direction or any. In the case of chess, going after the why question is pointless, but obviously that wouldn't satisfy any scientist: It works because someone de…

In keeping with the original authors description, the aliens can only see the opening move. I'm confused - how could they determine there are 64 fields (nb: I only know the very basics of chess)?

If they could view entire matches, it seems a trivial task to acquire a complete understanding of the underlying game, no?

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#140

Post by seanhunter »

The whole article starts with a straw man about aliens making incorrect deductions based on a version of chess that doesn't correspond to actual chess. This is used to illustrate a very obvious point about local maxima that is in turn extrapolated in an entirely unsupported way to try to draw some conclusions about science and allow the author to make some strange and entirely unnecessarily edgy statements like "Logical positivism is kind of theoretical lobotomy"... "tweaking equations like an oblivious autist is Science" etc.

It's very disappointing to see this on HN

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