Chess Time Loop

[Elliot]

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://curi.us/2588-chess-time-loop

[ActiveMind]

Sports fans […] don’t even try to discuss which team objectively merits the win more or how that could be determined.

Do you mean “objectively” as in their discussion aren’t objective and impartial? Because I think sports fans do discuss who actually merited the win quite a lot. Although usually only when their team lost and their arguments are ad hoc in favor of their team. But sometimes I hear “yeah, we didn’t deserve that one”.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

First, as a minor point, the vast majority of people participating in this discussion don’t know enough about chess to have an informed opinion. It’s viral among regular people, not just chess players. Yet people who are ignorant about chess seem to like arguing over this scenario about chess. CF says to consider what prerequisites you need in order to realistically and effectively accomplish your goals (like figuring out the correct conclusion to a scenario), not to ignore the concept of prerequisites.

So you’re saying that knowledge of chess is a pre-requisite for this conversation? Like a deep knowledge? Or are you saying people should think of the pre-requisites and deep knowledge of chess is one of them? The article you shared says that most people are familiar with just the basics in its presentation of the scenario. Hmm. I guess the point I’m trying to figure out here is whether you’re stressing that people should think of pre-requisites more or that chess is a pre-requisite.

Hmm.

@Elliot

One of the main reasons people disagree about the chess time loop scenario is they interpret it in different ways. Each person bases their conclusions on their interpretation.

That makes sense. I feel like this happens with a lot of hypotheticals people discuss. Idk what to call them but I’ve had various conversations based off a hypothetical where we just start making up stuff.

@Elliot

I’ve also seen people say basically that determinism implies he’d always play the same moves in the same position. This is false and careless. Determinism (with some standard assumptions like no multiverse) implies he’d always take the same actions in the identical situation. But the current position on the chess board is not the full situation. Even under determinism, he could play different moves, in the same position, depending on your demeanor and how long you spend on your moves. If you played particularly quickly or slowly, or seemed especially nervous or calm, any of those (and many more subtle things) could cause Kasparov to go down a different train of thought in his head and therefore end up playing a different move, even under determinism.

Hmm. Huh. I never thought of that when it came to determinist scenarios. Though I guess this is a special case compared to the average determinist stuff I hear. Only one person in this scenario is determinist not the other. Hmm. Is that why people got confused with what Gary would do under determinism? Most people, when thinking of determinism (including myself), are very used to thinking of something along the lines of everything is determined and can’t be changed. So many people would have trouble integrating in a factor that is able to move/make choices in their view of deterministic scenarios.

@Elliot

But I suspect deep down they feel safe because it’s silly and they can’t really be wrong because the scenario is impossible and ambiguous.

Hmm. Yeah. I think so. Emphasis on the sillyness part of it. Growing up these kinds of conversations were fun to just make stuff on and not take seriously. I’ve had less of these conversations as I’ve gotten older, just cause I felt like some people took their scenarios too seriously and I got confused how they could come to any conclusion. I enjoyed them for their sillyness, for joking around, and creating absurd scenarios. I never enjoyed taking it seriously and I realized some people around me did.

@Elliot

The scenario wording is ambiguous and the scenario also violates the laws of physics.

Could the wording being ambiguous affect context and stuff? Idk. Something that came to mind when reading this is when people give out of reality scenarios for you to analysize. I think a popular one is the trolly problem. Usually when I hear it being talked about you’re suddenly, out of nowhere, in front of two train tracks with a level and you have to choose who to kill or let the trolly take its natural course. One thing that always bothered me about this scenario is: how’d we even get here? People want to discuss the morality of flipping or not flipping the lever and having someone die. But why aren’t we talking about who tied them there? Also, I feel like in reality I have more than the lever option. Idk call the cops? the railroad company? i heard derailing a train is actually quite simple (maybe not idk), why not just do that (though I guess people may be on it). Idk. I hate discussing the trolly problem. I could be wrong here though.

[LMD]

@Elliot

Sports fans will strongly take sides in favor of their team even though it doesn’t really matter who wins the sports game and they don’t even try to discuss which team objectively merits the win more or how that could be determined.

For the major popular sport where I am, once someone has a team, they generally go for that team for life (perhaps switching once when they’re in their teens) regardless of who is on the team, running the team, or anything. It’s about the clubs colours and the club name. Their team’s coach, staff, and all their team’s players can change and they will still go for that clubs team. They wouldn’t go for a team consisting of the same group of players and coach etc if they all moved to a different club. When deciding on a team, they don’t do anything like trying to figure out which one is the best one to go for. I’m quite sure that for over 99% of fans, these things don’t occur to them as strange and arbitrary.

[LMD]

@LMD

Their team’s coach, staff, and all their team’s players can change and they will still go for that clubs team. They wouldn’t go for a team consisting of the same group of players and coach etc if they all moved to a different club.

Afaik, the league the teams play in make it mandatory for teams to exchange some players each season and there are limits to clubs ability to spend on buying players. So after a few seasons the teams can be quite different.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

So you’re saying that knowledge of chess is a pre-requisite for this conversation? Like a deep knowledge? Or are you saying people should think of the pre-requisites and deep knowledge of chess is one of them? The article you shared says that most people are familiar with just the basics in its presentation of the scenario. Hmm. I guess the point I’m trying to figure out here is whether you’re stressing that people should think of pre-requisites more or that chess is a pre-requisite.

You don’t need to know much about chess to be the person stuck in the time loop.

You need to know a lot about chess to do good analysis of the time loop scenario. You need an understanding of how hard it is to beat one of the best chess players and how much learning that would take. Lots of other understanding of chess is relevant too.

What if it were a timeloop with poker, go or monopoly instead of chess? If you don’t really know anything about those games, you might view all of those timeloop scenarios as pretty much the same, but they aren’t.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

Hmm. Huh. I never thought of that when it came to determinist scenarios. Though I guess this is a special case compared to the average determinist stuff I hear. Only one person in this scenario is determinist not the other. Hmm. Is that why people got confused with what Gary would do under determinism? Most people, when thinking of determinism (including myself), are very used to thinking of something along the lines of everything is determined and can’t be changed. So many people would have trouble integrating in a factor that is able to move/make choices in their view of deterministic scenarios.

You have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Above, I wasn’t making a fancy philosophical point about prerequisites; I just thought knowing about chess is relevant to analyze a chess time loop. That is a simple point.

Here, you’re bringing up complex analysis about who is determinist in the scenario and who isn’t. I think simple analysis would be more effective than advanced analysis, at least to start with.

Not overcomplicating things is advocated by Goldratt in particular. If your analysis is a complex mess, it often means your analysis is bad and you should try to come up with some simpler points.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

Something that came to mind when reading this is when people give out of reality scenarios for you to analysize. I think a popular one is the trolly problem. Usually when I hear it being talked about you’re suddenly, out of nowhere, in front of two train tracks with a level and you have to choose who to kill or let the trolly take its natural course. One thing that always bothered me about this scenario is: how’d we even get here? People want to discuss the morality of flipping or not flipping the lever and having someone die. But why aren’t we talking about who tied them there? Also, I feel like in reality I have more than the lever option. Idk call the cops? the railroad company? i heard derailing a train is actually quite simple (maybe not idk), why not just do that (though I guess people may be on it). Idk. I hate discussing the trolly problem. I could be wrong here though.

The trolly problem could be analyzed well but usually isn’t. It can be OK to make a simplified scenario with limited context so analysis can focus on just a few key factors because everything else was removed from the scenario.

[LMD]

@Eternity

One thing that always bothered me about this scenario is: how’d we even get here? People want to discuss the morality of flipping or not flipping the lever and having someone die. But why aren’t we talking about who tied them there? Also, I feel like in reality I have more than the lever option. Idk call the cops? the railroad company? i heard derailing a train is actually quite simple (maybe not idk), why not just do that (though I guess people may be on it).

Yeah I always found the trolley problem artificial in the same ways. I thought of those same objections to the problem you did (maybe we both picked them up from the same place, but they seem like kinda obvious objections). Like who is responsible for this situation to begin with seems important. And thinking of new options generally is always an option, right? If not that seems too artificial to learn anything from.

In Star Trek TNG I remember there being multiple scenarios like this where Captain Picard was told by others there was basically a trolley style problem where he had to sacrifice some to save others, and I always liked that he was always like “those options are unacceptable, we’ll think of a new way”. I think that’s the right attitude to the trolley problem.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

You have a tendency to overcomplicate things

Sure. I’d agree with that. I do agree with the point made about the prerequisite point you made. I’m a little confused about the comment on the determinist stuff. You said I brought in complex analysis of who is determinist and who isn’t. Maybe I wrote it in a complicated manner? You shared that:

@Elliot

I’ve also seen people say basically that determinism implies he’d always play the same moves in the same position. This is false and careless. Determinism (with some standard assumptions like no multiverse) implies he’d always take the same actions in the identical situation. But the current position on the chess board is not the full situation. Even under determinism, he could play different moves, in the same position, depending on your demeanor and how long you spend on your moves.

You said people think him playing the same moves all the time is false and careless. I understand why you said that. I was trying to think of why people think that way. I used determinist to just refer to that Gary’s action were deterministic versus the plays wasn’t. Is this complicating things? I’m not sure. Gary’s actions were always going to be the same. The players actions did not have to be. I think people made false and careless claims because its not normal to have a volitional character in a deterministic analysis. At least at a very low level “fun” kind of analysis. Idk maybe I’m wrong on that. I can’t comment on “higher level” intellectual stuff.

@Elliot

Not overcomplicating things is advocated by Goldratt in particular. If your analysis is a complex mess, it often means your analysis is bad and you should try to come up with some simpler points.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

You said I brought in complex analysis of who is determinist and who isn’t. Maybe I wrote it in a complicated manner?

No it wasn’t how you wrote it. Determinism is a complex topic and determinism affecting some people but not others is even more complex.

I was making a simple point which I thought other people failed to take into account in their attempts at complex analysis. The scenario involves more than chess moves. Even if the moves are the same, other stuff like move timing and demeanor could differ.