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Comment by selfsimilar | Hacker News Reader

I don't play chess regularly but the stalemate was obvious to me immediately and the mate after about 3 minutes. Kinda clever but I'd be surprised if a chess AI couldn't see this. Penrose is notorious for thinking that consciousness depends on some spooky quantum effects that machines cannot capture (See Emperor's New Mind).

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To emphasise this point, he believes that consciousness is provided by a non-physical unmeasurable substance that has some kind of complex structure, in order to contain the complex consciousness. Could you build a human molecule by molecule to match another that was naturally born, then it wouldn't be conscious as you wouldn't have the means to build a consciousness to go with it.

Once I'd got this far with the book, I put it down.

Isn't it already a stalemate? As long as the king never leaves white squares, he will never be in danger, and thus the game will be a draw by the 50 move rule.

I don't see how mate is possible. In order to mate, you need to advance the white pawn to promotion, but it's impossible to advance the white pawn without one of the 3 bishops killing it.

His rules seem to require only that the move was legally possible, not necessarily likely. Maybe after moving around the board for a while, the bishops aren't readily able to strike at the pawn.

Technically, a stalemate is a draw and the 50 move rule is a different way to get a draw.

Black can offer his bishops to the white king for free, in order to delay the draw (it's 50 moves without pawn moves and without captures [1]). However, if black offers all 3 bishops, then white could help promote the pawn.

[1] https://gameknot.com/help-answer.pl?question=44

That's not what stalemate means. Stalemate means the current player has no legal moves but isn't in checkmate. White has legal moves. It's a drawn position with good play by both sides but not a stalemate.

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