What do Games Reveal About the Universe?

It seems that human nature involves the playing of games. They can be a lot of fun, but they are so much more than that.  Is there something inherent in nature that games reveal to us?

 

Two games in particular have been the subject of much computer study, and while they are complex, this commentary is simple.  Readers of this forum are very thoughtful and intelligent, but even they, need not be chess masters to appreciate how games, including chess, teach us about the grand scheme of cosmology.

 

Because they have been studied extensively by computer programmers, the two games we will discuss (and we could have discussed others instead, even tic-tac-toe) are chess and Go.  The game of Go is wildly popular in the orient.

 

When I first was exposed to chess, I actually thought (please don’t laugh) that I could master the game.

 

Now, why would I think such a thing?  But look at it.  The game of chess is played on a small board, eight squares by eight.  It has only a few pieces on each side.  The types of moves are narrowly restricted.  To win the game, one needs only capture (checkmate) the opponent king.  The rules can be learned by a child, in just a few minutes.

 

There is no guessing in chess.  All the pieces are kept in plain view of both players.  One never has to wonder what the opponent can do.

 

What could possibly be difficult?  Chess is not rocket science.

 

Actually, rocket science is easier.  Chess has never been solved.  A game is considered solved when one can prove a winning or tying strategy, one that always works.  Tic-tac-toe is a solved game, because it can be shown that X can always win or tie the game, no matter what O does.

Computer programmers have pitted their chess-playing programs against the very best world class grandmasters, and beaten them.  But, they still have not solved the game.  It has been estimated that, to prove a solution to chess, it would require a computer the size of a galaxy.

How can this be?

The game of Go has only nine rules, which an adolescent can quickly learn.  It is a very different game from chess, and computer programmers had to devise an entirely different type of strategy before they could finally beat a Go master.  Whereas chess has been called a game of linear analysis, Go is holistic.  The game board is larger, 19 by 19 spaces. but there is only one kind of piece, called a stone.  Victory in Go is achieved not by attacking an opponent king, but rather, by surrounding more territory than the opponent does. 

 

My first foray into the game, against an average player, resulted in my getting trounced very early into the game.  There are many more nuances to this seemingly simple game than I imagined could be the case.  Whereas in chess one must think ahead at least a few moves, in Go this strategy is futile.  Instead, one must develop a “feel,” an intuitive sense of what are considered to be unseen forces in the game.  Go masters themselves do not claim to take into account every possible move of their opponent, but instead, to just somehow know when a particular line of play will improve their position.

 

Again, while computer programs have been able to beat the best human Go players (but not always), the game of Go remains unsolved.  The programmers are not even trying to solve it.  The task would be too massive.

 

Now then, where have these comments got us?

 

Scientists and philosophers are attempting to solve a game called by such names as cosmology, life, metaphysics and so forth.  Unlike in chess and Go, the rules remain unknown.  We have developed strategies to try to unravel those rules, but we cannot even be sure whether those strategies are the best, or will even work.  JBS Haldane pointed out that our science can be neurologically correct, but that correctness could be illusory, a feature of how our brains work, not how the universe works.  We could be totally wrong and not know it.

 

I no longer believe that I can ever master chess.  I play it for fun.  Of course, the stakes in the game of life are much higher, but even so, while playing it (I have no choice but to do so), I make sure not to take myself too seriously.  If I do, then no one else will.

 

Have fun.

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