LizR wrote:
On 23 April 2015 at 13:24, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
So is chess real?
No, chess is an agreed-upon set of conventions invented by the human
mind. It didn't exist before people, and it has rules which can be
changed without it kicking back (Castling, the pawn's two-square
starting move - and hence en passant - were introduced to speed up the
game).
So how do you respond to this paragraph from Pigliucci:
The obvious example that is most close to mathematics (and logic?)
itself is provided by board games: “When a game like chess is invented a
whole bundle of facts become demonstrable, some of which indeed are
theorems that become provable through straightforward mathematical
reasoning. As we do not believe in timeless Platonic realities, we do
not want to say that chess always existed — in our view of the world,
chess came into existence at the moment the rules were codified. This
means we have to say that all the facts about it became not only
demonstrable, but true, at that moment as well … Once evoked, the facts
about chess are objective, in that if any one person can demonstrate
one, anyone can. And they are independent of time or particular context:
they will be the same facts no matter who considers them or when they
are considered” (p. 423).
And how does chess, once defined, differ from mathematics?
Bruce
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