Lord Antares

I understand appeal to authority cannot be used in actual science. That is not what I was talking about. I was talking from the perspective of a layman who may not be able to tell what is true on their own.

No, I didn't say he would never tell you something that is incorrect. I said it is very unlikely that he would say something that stupid. Both laymen and experts alike can say stuff that is outright wrong, but the chance of the latter saying it is lower than the former saying it. Besides, it's very different if they are talking about what their expertise covers and what it doesn't cover. For example, if they talk about established science which they studied a lot, they are most likely to be correct. But, for example, when Stephen Hawking talks about wormholes and time travel, that is not to be taken seriously, as it is not his (or anyone's) area of expertise. So I would consider an appeal to authority only valid if they are talking about the field they are expert in. No one knows what goes on inside of a black hole, so any appeal to authority there is fallacious.

While it is obvious that an appeal to authority in itself as an argument is a fallacy, you are making a caricature of the issue. An expert of a subject is (much) more likely to be right in a discussion about said subject than a layman. While an appeal to authority is largely useless between two people of similar ''authority'', it can help with laymen. For example, if I am reading a thread about a subject I don't understand well (let's say chemistry) and I see an argumentative conflict between a resident expert in chemistry and a newer member (who maybe has a few net neg rep points if it helps the case), I can conclude that the probability that the expert is right is significantly higher than the other member being right. I am esentially using an appeal to authority there, but would I be wrong to use it? Of course, this depends on the subject and on my expertise. If I understood the subject well, I wouldn't have to resort to this. A renowned astrophycists would never tell you the moon is made of cheese because he knows better, so that's not really an appropriate example. Whatever he says has a higher likelihood of being right than whatever most other people say. My point is, appeal to authority is not always a bad thing.

But we do! I also thought there was a mistake somewhere, but is only because I forgot to count your zeroes. Where I gave 10/16, I was comparing it to your 11/16, whereas I had to compare it with my 22/32, which is in unison. So, my sequence is above, yours below: 1/2 2/4 5/8 10/16 22/32 44/64 91/128 1/2 1/2 5/8 5/8 11/16 11/16 23/32 But wait, there is an error in the last step. I think I know what it is, but I'm in a hurry to leave for work, so I don't have time to check it. I think I should add +1, +2, +4, +8 etc. and not +1, +2, +3, +4... If we use this new formula, I get 92/128 on the last step, which corresponds with your 23/32.

This doesn't make sense to me. If they know they are buying placebo (i.e. nothing at all) and it actually makes them feel better, then isn't this the same as just wanting to feel better? What would be the difference between what they know to be placebo and eating an apple which they believe will make them feel better? If it can work this way (and it is strange if it does), then why spend the money at all on fake pills? Why not concentrate on feeling better? Or on believing you will feel better? Thar hardly makes sense.

Ah, yes. I was doing a different thing. I was giving odds for flips UP TO n. That is also why they didn't change for an even number of flips (that is, both the numerator and the denominator were multiplied by two, so it stays the same). So there wasn't an error as such, but I did a calculation for the wrong thing. Yes, this helps as you gave the odds for the exact n, which is what we were talking about. Of course, I knew I was giving them for up to n, but that was just a misunderstanding. Yes, exactly. That's why I was looking for a mathematical answer. Did you count them manually or did I miss something?

The Solar system is our System, one which includes the earth and the other planets. A general name for these systems is a planetary system, not star system. A star system is another thing alltogether; it's a group of stars orbiting one another. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

I decided to click on one of these politicial threads to see if I was right for avoiding them. I was. Seriously, war with Mexico? How is this different from crakpottery? As I understand it, the others members somehow think he will destroy the world (or the U.S.) in some way or another as well. 4 years will pass, nothing important will happen, there will be a new president and 60% of threads on SFN will die down. Seriously, the world isn't as interesting as these conspiracy theories claim it to be. Trump somehow violently strikes a nerve with SFN users. Also, how is it appropriate that a mod gives modnotes for his subjective, biased opinions? So only a disgruntled asshole could disagree with you and give you a downvote? I would be offended if I were the person downvoting. Sorry Phi, but this is an objective observation.

He seems to have suspiciously lost interest after I challenged him. I prefer that the bets be donated to the winner I just logged in my 7 year old chess.com account to check out his profile. His current blitz rating is 884 and rapid rating 1223. ROFL. Now why would you state that your chess rating is 1700 and then link to your chess.com profile where everyone can verify that it, in fact, isn't? What was your thought process when you did this, Tom? Hey MigL, bet large.

It is impossible that he won just by using the same openings. It can't be. OK, you made me look it up, I'm going to do it now. Yes, you are correct. It was a long time ago. The one he won against was actually a weak player and he played a genuine game of chess against him, so that's how he managed an above 50% score. https://youtu.be/rIAXIubSTkc?t=7m27s Here's the explanation, starting from the timestamp. EDIT: Crosspost with the two of you. So that has been resolved

No, if I remember correctly, he lost that odd game miserably. I believe the rest of the players were GMs while the guy he was playing on his own was an IM. I am reasonaly certain of this, even though I watched it years ago. He said that he was a terrible chess player. That is understandable, as he was just relaying the GMs' moves, so no knowledge was required at all. You can find the video again and see if he lost to the IM miserably, as I'm quite sure he did, but I'm curious now.

Not sure what you mean by this, but everyone can technically do it. Even someone who doesn't know the rules of chess. Everyone is appalling at chess if they don't study it. This is not unique to you or John Cuthber.

But only chess-related memory. That's how you can conclude that memory doesn't play a substantial role in chess.

I don't play on chess.com. I play on Lichess. I can play later during the day (it's 2 A.M. here right now). State your time control preferences. Was the sole purpose of opening this thread to challenge someone to a chess game? We already have a thread for that: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/102312-the-chess-thread/ But the bit about memory and it being improved the better you get at chess is the point. Win or draw*, not stalemate, but you know full well that is not a legitimate chess match, as they would esentially be playing amongst themselves

No. It's different. There is no contradiction. First I will give you evidence, then I'll explain why so you will be more attentive The evidence is that all those strong players did not remember the games well until they became masters. I myself couldn't remember a single move when I started out, now I can remember about half the game. It is like this for everyone I've talked to. So it's clear that their playing strength isn't due to memory. Maybe this isn't prevalent in other areas of life, but it is very pronounced in chess. The stronger you are, the more the moves make sense to you. The more you start to understand the deep ideas and strategies, the less effort it takes to remember the moves. You get involved in the game at a higher level and you start anticipating the opponent's moves several moves ahead, so you think more about the game. This is akin to my example about learning in school or in general. Think of one time you studied something and understood it really, really well and it was very interesting to you. You will note that you still remember it to some degree today. That's about the best way I could explain it to you. It's a bit different from that in chess, but the important thing is that you get the point EDIT: Also,amateur players can rarely play blindfolded chess, which they can do after they get really good, so that is more evidence. World champions can easily play multiple simultaneous blindfolded games, something I couldn't dream of. That is because of their skill, not memory.

Counterintuitively, good memory is not an absolute must in chess. Even the legend A. Alekhine said so. While you need memory mostly to remember openings, the way you would go about solving that problem (having instant access to past games vs. not having it) is understanding it instead of memorizing it. Think of school. Sometimes you really understand the matter deeply and will remember it for the rest of your life. Sometimes you learn it just to pass the test and forget it a few days afterwards. If you learned it in the latter way, you would need good memory, but you actually need to learn it in the former way so that no memorization is required, only your built-on understanding. I hope that answers your question. To further prove that this is the case, did you know that Garry Kasparov (one of the best players in history, if not the single best) remembers every serious game of chess he ever played? Not only him, but more or less every grandmaster can easilly recall any game in at least the recent months he was playing. Club players and below almost invariably can't. I can't even recall how the game went after a certain point after just having played it as is the case with most people. This skill is linear. The higher rated you are, the more you can recall about the game. I think this is adequate evidence that memory is not vital in chess. Similarly, (probably?) every grandmaster can play blindfolded chess. That is, they can play without looking at the board at any point and having to remember where all their pieces are at every turn. You would think that this requires a great memory, but nope. Every grandmaster can do it, it comes with deep understanding of the game. So all in all, I don't think he was good because of his memory. He was either naturally talented at chess or he had spent more time on it than the others from school. Experience and time spent playing/studying is, on average, by far the most important factor which dictates how well a person plays.

You both must be chess grandmasters!!!!!!!111

I explained that here. While there is a correlation between intelligence and chess, there is a correlation between intelligence and everything. A highly intelligent person has a higher chance of being better in many different jobs and games. This is obvious. However, he is using his chess rating as if it were an IQ score. Chess is mostly experience and study. A person rated 2000 has spent more time studying chess than a person rated 1700 in a vast majority of cases. Similiarly, you can't claim that a GM is a super genious just because he has a high rating in chess. It doesn't work that way. And again, if he wants to use his mediocre 1700 rating to prove his supposed high intelligence, it doesn't help his case.

good job ignoring my points about chess and intelligence. If I beat you in chess, will you shut up about your imaginary connection of chess and intelligence?

This is utterly hilarious. First of all, I could beat you at chess. Secondly, a 1700 rating in chess is not impressive at all. It's a typical, average chess club player's rating. Magnus Carlsen is currently rated 2840 IIRC. By your logic, how much more intelligent than you is he? You're not exactly doing yourself a favor by claiming high intelligence with a 1700 rating. Thirdly and most importantly, higher rating in chess does not equal higher intelligence. Not by a longshot. While it is true that with a higher IQ, you definitely have a better predisposition to play good chess (Kasparov and Fischer were said to have a 190 and 180 IQs respectively, and them two are usually considered the best players in history), practise, experience and studying are considerably more important. A stupid person with more experience could easily beat you. This is true of any game and a vast number of jobs in life. People with higher IQs have a better predisposition to be good at those jobs, but it's far from certain they will be any good. You cannot challenge someone who doesn't play chess and beat him to prove that you have a higher IQ. This logic of yours would, if anything, indicate the opposite of what you're claiming to be. I personally know a GM and his FM wife. They must be geniuses compared to you then, right?

Hey Mantra, I want to let you know that I've had the exact same theory up to the end of the quote, although more in-depth. It makes sense to us both and it would explain the behavior of black holes and some other things. It could also explain why there must be a singularity in a black hole without it causing problems in physics, which is why I stuck to this theory for some time (but eventually let it go). But the major problem and reason I've never talked about it is because I don't have evidence or any sort of quantifiable model. I don't share your beliefs about the atomic level of interaction for this, though. I just want to let you know that I fully understand what you mean, but it is senseless to expect that anyone can be engaged in conversation about this if you cannot provide any models or evidence. It remains a belief until then. That is why you should refrain from posting theories if you know you cannot answer the questions of peer review.

Oh, that. Well, obviously as there always needs to be 1 more tails than heads to reach zero. If there is one more tails than heads, the resulting number of flips always has to be odd. So do you think my original question is too hard to answer if I don't have the preliminary knowledge of mathematics? I will be honest and say that I don't know most symbols used in long equations.

Tell me you rooted for Croatia and I will excuse you for liking American football

Wow, really? Did you watch the Euro last year? Lol yeah. I used to think that those 2 are the same sport when I was a kid. I think the solution is to delete American football And it's not really a ball either. I think it should be called Handegg.

I'm not sure why you're making that point. No one thinks that is respectable and sportsmanlike behavior. Hockey players fistfight all the time like a bunch of cretinous neanderthals and I don't think that's appealing for the sport at all. Let's not even mention sports (particularly football/soccer) fans. They would kill another human being for cheering for another team. Pretty much every sport is like that at the highest level. Chess suffers from this the most I've witnessed. Games are played very, very carefully with focus on caution rather than attack.