Parable of Alien Chess
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Parable of Alien Chess
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Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#2> 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).
But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate.
If chess really did consistently just have a 50% outcome, then it really would be equivalent to an overcomplicated coinflip. So I don't find this parable at all convincing, and remain a logical positivist.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#3> 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). But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate. If chess really did consistently just have a 50% out…
The aliens can’t see the players, other than that one is playing as “white” and the other “black”. They don’t have access to information about a particular player going from game to game.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#4The conclusion, about the need for half-crazy people, reminds me of https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GuEsfTpSDSbXFiseH/make-an-ex...
Anyone who can muster their willpower for thirty seconds, can make a desperate effort to lift more weight than they usually could. But what if the weight that needs lifting is a truck? Then desperate efforts won't suffice; you'll have to do something out of the ordinary to succeed. You may have to do something that you weren't taught to do in school. Something that others aren't expecting you to do, and might not understand. You may have to go outside your comfortable routine, take on difficulties you don't have an existing mental program for handling, and bypass the System.
[...]
Are they really under the impression that humanity can survive if every single person does everything the ordinary, normal, default way?
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#5> 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). But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate. If chess really did consistently just have a 50% out…
The aliens can’t see the players, other than that one is playing as “white” and the other “black”. They don’t have access to information about a particular player going from game to game.
That's not how I read the article's introduction. But under that interpretation, it would be meaningless for the aliens to try to understand the game in any more detail until they understood that kind of basic information.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#6As a parable it’s just about interesting.
As for the story it’s not very good and has to many holes which detracts from the meaning.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#7> 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). But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate. If chess really did consistently just have a 50% out…
There are so many unreasonable assumptions baked into this parable that make it difficult to take seriously. Any amount of meaningful investigation by the aliens would yield more insights into the fact that the game is in fact not a random coin flip. Even recognizing that white has a slightly higher win rate [0] would demonstrate some asymmetry that suggests the existence of a deeper structure or symmetry-breaking.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#8This text mainly shows that author either misunderstands chess, probability and science, likely at the same time, or just wants to critique for critique’s sake.
Of course while it’s good to search for alternative models/theories/explanations, unless you can provide something with better with more predictive power than the existing/widely accepted ones, it’s a good idea to hold the critique.
EDIT: To clarify: by less predictive power I mean that it neither explains new effects or predicts new unknown ones, nor explains known phenomena or generates existing theories as special examples. I didn’t mean theories such as for example string theory, that has little predictive power at the moment, but has current theories as special cases and holds the promise of explaining things that current theories cannot. /EDIT
Physicists are “stuck” with existing theories not because they like them, but because they work so well it’s hard to invent something that even works equally well (not to mention something that works better). There a lot of smart that are brave in thinking and propose wild explanations. Yet, in most cases they don’t stand up the test of time.
Einstein couldn’t deal with randomness of Quantum Mechanics, put forward a hidden variable theory and it was (and still is) seriously considered, but he (and many others) weren’t able to put forward better-working theory. We stick to QM despite its weirdness/randomness because it works extremely well, not because we like it or think things must be this way and require no further study/“it is the most efficient and parsimonious possible model“.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#9> 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). But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate. If chess really did consistently just have a 50% out…
There are so many unreasonable assumptions baked into this parable that make it difficult to take seriously. Any amount of meaningful investigation by the aliens would yield more insights into the fact that the game is in fact not a random coin flip. Even recognizing that white has a slightly higher win rate [0] would demonstrate some asymmetry that suggests the existence of a deeper structure or symmetry-breaking. […
Have they had individuals play the game enough times so that they can see this first mover advantage with a good p value?
Maybe they only know that the win chance for white is between 0.4 and 0.6.
Re: Parable of Alien Chess
#10> 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). But this is empirically false. It fails to explain that, for example, some players consistently beat other players, or at least have a much higher than 50% winrate. If chess really did consistently just have a 50% out…
It's not _players_ here that matter, just the color. If I play a grand master (or indeed just any moderately competent player) 10 times, I will lose all 10. But assuming we share who starts, white will win 5 times and black will win 5 times.
Further, for some random chess tournament, I'm guessing the win ratio for black/white is close to 50/50 (perhaps white is a bit ahead for having first mover advantage - which is stipulated as ignored in the article)
It turns out the result of the game has lots to do with the player, and Little to do with the color, which makes the alien first model simple, accurate, and completely wrong.