2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

T HE SUPPLEMENT
bers of ~C and AB. 4 Both these aspects must be shown to be irrelevant to the game of chess
as it really is, or to the myths as they really are, if total closure is to be achieved. In short,
the game of chess as embodied in a search-space is totally self-contained only if the three
sets are equivalent: A=B=C.
The crucial issue, it will have been reckoned already, is represented by the relationship
between C, the “real game,” and AB, the game interpreted as the product of the rules. No
one can deny that, prima facie, the elements contained in the two sets are quite different:
wiping out the pieces on the chessboard in a fit of anger can happen in real life but not on
a computer screen: humans have “fun” playing the game of chess, and sometimes get mad
at it, while computers do not seem to. The issue is whether the superficial differences hide
a substantial identity to be retrieved at a deeper level, so that the fits of anger of a frustrated
player or the expressions of delight generated by an “elegant combination” can be shown
to be either irrelevant to the game of chess or considered an epiphenomenon indirectly gen-
erated by the rules themselves. To put it differently, the issue is to determine whether the
portion we have labelled C and ~ AB can be shown to be, at a deeper level than phenomenal
reality, to be empty or producible as a result of the rules contained in AB. The fate of AI and
Structuralism as successful (non-)philosophies hangs on this point, as I will show.
Notice, however, that the violation of one of these constraints, in itself, does not nec-
essarily condemn search-spaces (or structures) as a viable explanatory device to understand
some significant portion of games (or, respectively, of myths). A good deal, and perhaps
most, of what is relevant to playing the game of chess can be understood in terms of navi-
gating a search-space with the appropriate heuristics rules. Proof of this fact is that we can
actually build automatic chess-players that can perform at an excellent level. At the episte-
mological level, then, the lack of self-containment would not be all that bad, since it would
result in a partial but nonetheless still useful—that is, explanatory—theory. Things stand
differently at the philosophical level. We have seen that Artificial Intelligence is not just af-
ter a “good explanation” of certain aspects of cognitive activity when considered from a
4. For a discussion of the first class of examples see Alan Aycock, “Finite Reason: A Construction of
Desperate play,” Play and Culture, 5, 2, (1992) 182-208.
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