A game of chess, even in the 3d world, takes part on a 2d plane

9 points

I prefer 5d chess, myself

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46 points

It’s because 3d chess is a sci-fi trope. There are a few versions, but it probably became most famous from the Star Trek version. 3d chess is ostensibly more complex, although the precise rules are usually not described in fiction, and the people who are very good at 3d chess are demonstrated to be extremely smart and tactical. Having a sci-fi character win at 3d chess is itself a trope to demonstrate that the character is a genius. In those examples, often the opponent will be overconfident and derisive of the character’s strategy, only to be humbled by the loss moments later. It’s a way to showing the character is cool headed, gracious in victory, and leagues ahead of his opponents.

The 4d chess meme was an escalation of a sarcastic exaggerations of the trope, like a way of saying a moron is just doing something obviously stupid is really enacting a super-strategy that you just don’t understand.

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6 points

In before someone links a tv-trope page about it

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34 points

3d chess is a thing. It’s annoying to play.

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6 points

If you think this is annoying to play, try simulating 4D chess by lining up four of these 3D chess sets

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6 points

But 5D chess is really fun

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8 points

That does not look fun to play.

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7 points

Isn’t one of those dimensions time? There do be time in chess

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9 points

In normal chess, time doesn’t really exist in the normal way that a dimension works. Using one or more time dimensions in a game means you need to be able to control some movement along that axis. In normal chess, every piece moves one “space” (for lack of a better word) forward in time with each move.

If you want to actually see time dimensions being used in a game, try playing 5d chess with multiverse time travel

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4 points

The same can be said for real life. Time is a temporal dimension, not a spatial one, so everything must only move through it in one direction, and usually does so at a constant rate. (Taking relativity into account things move more slowly through time at high velocities but that’s not applicable to most of our world).

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I don’t know about that. In speed chess, you can lose a game just buy running out of time. Outside of speed chess the state of the board is largely dependent on a sequence of events made over time; even if movement in the 2 directions is always instantaneous, each move is a tick of the clock. Like the 2D board space, most (unique) pieces can move in multiple directions, but like time, games only move forward. Take your hand off the piece, and its irreversible: games move only one direction in time.

I’d say time is definitely a component of the game.

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2 points

Time is the fourth dimension, humans do not have the ability to perceive time, we only experience the passage of time

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1 point

Humans perceive time…

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1 point

No we don’t, we perceive the present. We perceive length width and height, and have the ability to traverse that space. We don’t have currently have the ability to experience anything other than the current moment. Have you seen the movie Arrival? That’s an attempt to show what truly perceiving time would be like.

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4 points

3D Chess is easy, first player always wins just move your white bishop across the 3D board until the king is mated, 4D Chess is probably the same way, who can say but it is at least harder to conceptualize.

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