Chess vs Time

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Chess vs Time

Try and solve all the possible moves in a game of chess mathematically. To challenging to attempt even for a computer. That is if you could create a computer program that can calculate these possible moves. The number of moves changes based upon the game. It is usually a finite number, but difficult to figure.

To further explain, a player starts out with ten moves (8 ponds and 2 knights). Then it is the other players turn. He now has the same amount of moves, but as the game progresses the move of the opposing player will help determine what moves are possible.

So even if the number of moves in the game is finite and the possible moves is usually finite, determining the number of possible moves that any piece will move on either players side is impossible to calculate.

Each move creates a new set of possibilities, but what if someone were to calculate every possibility for each of the different possibilities? That would lead to a huge number but still be finite. (usually???)

So what does this matter. Most games that we play are set up this way. Take any card game and find not only the possibility of a card being dealt, but try to calculate the outcome of the entire hand during the game. But what is important to note here is not just the probability and determining the outcome, but how the events occur.

The chess board is a good analogy for time. Meaning that certain segments of a chess game show what happens as a person moves through time. What you have at any time during the game is a set of given moves. The player makes an thought out decision on which move he is to make. Imagine a player making a wrong move. If he were allowed to reset the chess board moving each piece in reverse order of how they were placed, this would represent going back in time. He now can change the placement of certain key moves. But there is no guarantee that this will change the overall outcome of the game. He might change certain smaller events that effect the result in different placements of the pieces. Or, he may change only one move that results in a major change in the game. We know there are only so many moves but each move has its own different possible moves and outcomes. It would be impossible for any person to calculate.

So we make these moves or decisions everyday. We experience them linearly. But what if there were key events, special moves, mathematical patterns, geometric relationships, new dimensions, or anything else imaginable. Remember this next time someone challenges you to a game of chess.