Two Opposite Chess Cultures......

[lech]

Authors of chess engines, unintentionally, getting artists like each who want to find an ideal form for own works.
Unfortunately, engines, without detection of good sacrifices, “look like” a horse without tail.
Maybe such a horse is a bit faster too.
Sting is only a try (thread) to show that it is possible to change it, saving a good form and functionality.

It is not easy to sell such sensitive and unwanted theme.

I am a FIDE International Master of Chess Composition and my works are original.
I respect artists and their works, Stockfish first of all.

[Don]

Thanks for that line about aristocracy, but I am just an humble user with scarce if at all knowledge of programming.

In this post you never once address the points you are presumably responding to. If I GPL a program I obvious CARE that there be certain protections, so are you ok with going against the wishes of the authors who worked so hard at the code?

Nevertheless, in spite of my obvious shortcomings, I have clear in mind that you cannot compare the case of a technological thing made of many parts developed long ago and finally supported by the full history of sciences and a work of art, or that at least pretend to be one.
EVERY technological thing is made out of previous parts, developments, etc.
EVERY work of art is valid by itself, though is is equally inspired by previous art works.

The term "Art" is just a club used to beat people over the head with. You use the term when you want to put something in a special category as being more important that more "mundane" things.

I did some research on art and found that Journalism and writing is not art. In modern times some people have expanded the definition of art to include more creative things, but the only thing in common between them is creativity. So many people believe that anything that involves the creative process and can be appreciated is art, but this does not conform to the classic definition. It certainly doesn't apply to writing political articles. The reason most people are eager to call what they do "art" is because they think it's adds to their prestige.

So we can just stop using that term since it doesn't apply to either of us anyway. Here is the crux of the issue. You say that technology is just a big box full of parts, but that this other "thing" (which I'm not calling art) stands on it's own, presumably because it is more about how something is put together than what it is made out of. It's obviously made out of the same stuff however, I can write a note using a canvas and paint and it's just a note, you can paint a portrait of Mona Lisa with the same tools and it's just a bunch of paint on a canvas.

Ahhh, but you say it's all about how the paint is applied to the canvas that makes it special! Well as I have tried to communicate many times before on this forum, a chess program is not a box of randomly assembled "good" parts, it's ALL ABOUT how they are put together, and the composer of a chess program has all kinds of latitude and creativity in how these are arranged. So regardless of how YOU define things, it's just semantics, it doesn't change anything. Writing is a creative process using a randomly assorted collection of parts (words and phrases and idioms) and chess programming is a creative process using a randomly assorted collection of parts (ideas and code idioms.)

And despite your ignorance of the subject, writing DOES build on the works of others that came before you, as does all "ART", such as music and such. Do you know of any musical composition that came out of nowhere, with no influence whatsoever from any other piece? It's the same with literature too. It's hard to believe you are ignorant of this too. I know your are not qualified to talk about computer chess, and yet you continue to presume to understand how it relates to other crafts. I guess to you it loses it's "coolness factor" if is tainted by the the use of words like "science" or "technology." I guess we can imagine that the great historical works of art would lose their appeal if we discovered that their creators used some sort of technology beyond their day, it just wouldn't be cool.

I can imagine some time in the future when digital computers are abandoned in favor of something much more advanced that we cannot currently comprehend, and the snobs of those day calling our stuff "works of art" and them marveling at how we did so much with so little.

Of course you can say, as Don does, that an engine is kind of a work of art, a crafty thing with same rights as a novel to be untouchable.

No, obvious writing books like you do is a far more noble thing. We can never hope to be as smart or worldly as you nor have as much artistic ability as you do in your pinky. Should we bow down to you now or later after you produce an untouchable work?

I cannot accept that point. You can feel that your way of developing something has an artistic aspect.

Your ego would make this impossible, to actually equate someone as lowly as us with you.

As you know, in math many times it is said that such demonstration is "elegant". But you know well that one thing is a tech artifact and the other the feeling you can have developing it. Arts and technology are ruled by different rules.
So my point has been always the same: in a work of art you cannot take nothing, in a work of technology you cannot NOT to do it.
Besides, this is moot as much many of the supposed clones discussed here are different to the supposed original engines; they have lot of added work and are better.
If you show me an engine ta is the exact copy of another or almost, then I am with you, but only then.

You see, even being a lazy guy i wrote a good piece of writing. and free
saludos
Fernando

[fern]

I am honored to merit such long post as you write to me every time I, badly advised by myself, write again about this stuff.
Let put clear a couple of things, first:
a) I do not feel superior to none because I write, neither I consider my stuff as art or look down your work
b) You insist in the "this is not a box of tools" argument, which is not essential to me.

For a last time:
And object of art -good or bad- is art as much as its value is centered in himself and not in the performing of a task, as a tool is, or as a part of a general development, as science is.
The chess engines are trying since the very first talking about AI to accomplish a purpose: to imitate human brain -at first- and/or to do a task as good or better than a human being, as playing chess, or just to play chess in the most perfect form. There is a GOAL. Nobody ever created a chess engine for the sake of it alone, for how much beautifully his code was written: they were made and are made to be the best, to get more Elo points, to defeat GM's, etc. In other words, they are tools for a goal.
As tools, they take profit of anything previous as art does of course, but in each occasion a painter take lesson of his predecessors, his is not doing so for an external goal to the painting, but to produce the painting itself. So if he goes too far, he is plagiarizing. In fact, it was from this field of human endeavor that the concept arose.
So we can compare old chess engines with current ones and say with all reasons "the current one are best, stronger, etc". But you cannot take a Picasso painting and say "it is best that that by Rembrandt".
That's the point. And that make some difference with respect to the use of previous stuff.

And please, hold your horses....

Fern

[Don]

I am honored to merit such long post as you write to me every time I, badly advised by myself, write again about this stuff.
Let put clear a couple of things, first:
a) I do not feel superior to none because I write, neither I consider my stuff as art or look down your work
b) You insist in the "this is not a box of tools" argument, which is not essential to me.

For a last time:
And object of art -good or bad- is art as much as its value is centered in himself and not in the performing of a task, as a tool is, or as a part of a general development, as science is.
The chess engines are trying since the very first talking about AI to accomplish a purpose: to imitate human brain -at first- and/or to do a task as good or better than a human being, as playing chess, or just to play chess in the most perfect form. There is a GOAL. Nobody ever created a chess engine for the sake of it alone, for how much beautifully his code was written: they were made and are made to be the best, to get more Elo points, to defeat GM's, etc. In other words, they are tools for a goal.
As tools, they take profit of anything previous as art does of course, but in each occasion a painter take lesson of his predecessors, his is not doing so for an external goal to the painting, but to produce the painting itself. So if he goes too far, he is plagiarizing. In fact, it was from this field of human endeavor that the concept arose.
So we can compare old chess engines with current ones and say with all reasons "the current one are best, stronger, etc". But you cannot take a Picasso painting and say "it is best that that by Rembrandt".
That's the point. And that make some difference with respect to the use of previous stuff.

And what does that have to do with anything? You take that idea and somehow take the giant leap that there is no plagiarism in science, which is ridiculously absurd.

So I did a google search on the term "plagiarism in science" and was referred to a lot of articles on academic papers. It is clearly considered wrong to copy the works of other even in science.

I really think you need to completely re-examine your belief system, perhaps rebuilding it from scratch and making some adjustments in thinking. It is widely accepted that software has all the rights of protections as any book, despite your contempt for the rights of software authors and GPL and software freedom. And as the google search shows, the fact that it might be science has NO bearing on this whatsoever.

Now it's ok if you feel differently, but don't try to portray your point of view as one that is widely accepted.

And please, hold your horses....

Fern

[fern]

Did I say there is not plagiarism in sciences?
Of course there is. Every year some scholars are hanged because of that.
What I say is that the concept work differently according the field. In sciences you are a guy that plagiarizes if you COPY something else with no changes. As if I write again The Origen of Species.
BUT if I take many concepts by Darwin and use them , as he did with Buffon, then you have a very different matter. But
If I take even some few elements from the Quixote, I would be hanged. Note, besides, that what you can take from a work of art is not a concept by an specific modus operandi.

OK Don, we do not understand our points of view and you tend too much to make of this a very personal affair, with lot of adrenaline. So I will not answer anything you write about this, if you does.
I appreciate you very much, nothing personal, just a way to save time for both.

My best
Fern

[Don]

Did I say there is not plagiarism in sciences?
Of course there is. Every year some scholars are hanged because of that.
What I say is that the concept work differently according the field. In sciences you are a guy that plagiarizes if you COPY something else with no changes. As if I write again The Origen of Species.
BUT if I take many concepts by Darwin and use them , as he did with Buffon, then you have a very different matter. But
If I take even some few elements from the Quixote, I would be hanged. Note, besides, that what you can take from a work of art is not a concept by an specific modus operandi.

OK Don, we do not understand our points of view and you tend too much to make of this a very personal affair, with lot of adrenaline. So I will not answer anything you write about this, if you does.

I do take it personally because of the way you look down on others while pretending to be above it. That is more harmful than a direct personal attack.

But I understand, it's better that we refrain from interactions.

I appreciate you very much, nothing personal, just a way to save time for both.

My best
Fern