01 Feb '09 19:03>
Originally posted by diskamylI don't think we have any indication of that. -it could easily turn out everything we now think we 'know' about opening theory is wrong. to pick a single random example, it might turn out that for some oscure geometrical reason 1.a3 lines hold all forced wins there are, and everything else loses. but as we've covered only the very beginning of any lines in any kind of rigour, we don't really know what lies beyond. we're just assuming things will continue working like they work in the first few moves, but we have absolutely no guarantee they will. it might turn out that everything we ever thought we knew about chess changes completely beyond some specific move.
I think opening theory could serve as a good reference point for comparison, I know there's no necessity or scientific laws yet, but it seems to me that a large portion of theory is close to perfection.
I'm not saying that's a probable scenario, but it is possible, and we simply have no grounds to rule it out. everything beyond endgame tablebases might be wrong.
if you think of how huge difference it makes to look at different parts of a mandelbrot fractal, it's not a long stretch to think something similar might happen within the hypothetical solved multidimensional tree of possible lines. big areas might be simply barren (no wins nor draws), some areas won, and yet some others weaving an incredibly complex and beautiful pattern of wins, draws & losses intertwined. oh, and then there is the tree of illegal positions which can't be reached at all, sort of like a black void surrounding all legal lines.
you can probably tell I haven't slept much last night. 🙂