Alpine valley or pawn to queen four?

I was talking last post about two different kinds of computer chess players.  The one that ran all the possible moves say ten ahead, and the AI computer that as it played games learned from its mistakes and rewrote its rules, much as a human being does.  The thing is any idiot off the street could play the way the first computer plays, all he has to do is make a move as white, counter that move with all eighteen possible responses of black on eighteen boards, take the first of the eighteen boards and make one of his approximately eighteen moves on eighteen more boards, then do the same thing for the remaining boards, which will take us to three hundred and twenty-four boards.  For the next round I believe we will have about six thousand boards, which only takes us two moves ahead, the number of chessboards grows exponentially, like the thing with the king and one grain of wheat on one square of the chessboard, two on the second, four on the third and so on until presently the kingdom is bankrupt.

So the problem with the idiot is that he is probably not going to live to make his second move, but say he could, say he could plot these moves really fast, like a computer, and played a good game and kicked our ass.  We still wouldn't think much of him.  Any idiot could do that if they could move fast enough, so what?

But the computer that rewrites its algorithms, well that is something more.  We all respect the grandmaster (or canny duck hunter who does not fall out of his canoe), what is going on behind those heavy-browed eyes as he strokes his chin?  In the movies I guess we would see cartoon chess pieces floating across boards, classical music, some of it atonal because it is a bit of a scary place, he and his ex-wife who he spurned to take up the game, holding hands and skipping through wildflowers on some Alpine plain, because this is, remember, a movie.  Will he upend the board and fly back to her arms, or will he move pawn to queen four?

What do we imagine has been going on in this grandmaster's mind, as he pored over the chessboard, ignoring his beautiful bride who ate bon bons and stared at him with despair?  What do we do when we think?  I'm guessing the chessboard at first is just a bunch of stuff, and you have to sort it out, you have to find some things that are similar, put them in a pile, find other things that are similar in a different way and put them in their pile.  It seems like the first thing you do is make generalizations, and them maybe you make distinctions within those generalizations, and then you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around and dash the box of bon bons to the floor and take the hand of your beloved and head for the nearest flower-strewn Alpine valley.


You remember how I was saying when you write you have some ideas in the pipeline but  you don't have words for them yet, but you're pretty sure you will have some for them when you get to them, but not always and that has happened to me today.  I'll try to pick up the pieces tomorrow.