On 5/16/22 3:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Are you sure that creativity is anything but imitation, method (algorithms), and noise?

I am absolutely NOT sure of that, but expect many hairs to be split amongst the nature of imitation, method and noise before such is demonstrated.

I think it is notable that you separate noise from method and imitation rather than treating it as a combination of the others since "random number generators" are algorithms which "imitate" noise, no?

*From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Monday, May 16, 2022 2:39 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] quotes and questions

On 5/15/22 10:42 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

    If you are right then deep fakes, online or in meat space, will fail.

    /you don't have to fool all of the people all of the time... /

I find Gabriel's poetry rather deficient (not that I am an expert, so perhaps it is mere taste) and Inkwell's even moreso, though in response to this thread I read a number from his collection "100 Poems Imitating 100 Translations" which are described as "responses" to 100 classic Japanese poems which is a tradition in poetry (to write poem in response or homage to another poem) and found them quite pleasing and insightful.  It felt that his poems were *inspired* by the originals, though without the originals at-hand I'm not sure how much he was inspired and how much was in fact "imitation" as advertised.   If it was the latter then I suppose I'm much more impressed with what the original did than what Gabriel did by "imitating" the originals without breaking them.

I am not sure that automatic * generation tools can do anything *but* imitate and emulate, by their very construction?  Gabriel's title invoking "imitating" suggests to me that his Inkwell (at least) aspires to do no more than imitate.  It is a fun parlor trick to create an imitation that "can pass" in polite company.  The "creative process" is subjectively something different from imitation or emulation.   It is an entirely different thing to have a uniquely awesome experience and to express it in a mode that evokes something similar in another.

Glen harps at us from time to time that "communication is an illusion" (which he will likely demonstrate by correcting my understanding of whatever he actually has said on the topic).   To the extent this assertion is true, then I am more sympathetic with the idea of deep-fakes, etc.   Maybe the only difference between an imitation and an inspiration has to do with the level of abstraction of the language being used. Perhaps a poetry generator that actually generates strings of complex abstractions which perhaps also is constrained by poetic form, rhyme, alliteration, etc. IS doing the same thing as a poet?

I ingest natural language generators more like an Oracle than a source of information much less wisdom or insight.



        On May 15, 2022, at 9:32 AM, Prof David West
        <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> wrote:

        

        Richard Gabriel developed a program, */Inkwell/*, that writes
        poetry. It can produce poems in any mode—haiku to free
        verse—and in any author's style. He presented some of the
        poems to the annual Warren Wilson (where he earned his MFA in
        poetry) conference and they went through the usual criticism
        process. He did not reveal that the author of the poems was
        his software until the last day. Because none of the
        participants at the conference—professional poets, professors,
        other graduate students—twigged on the fact that the poems
        were composed by a computer instead of a human, he asks if
        */Inkwell/* passed the Turing Test.

        Richard's last work at IBM was a DOD project that involved
        detecting "threats" in social media postings, then composing
        posts to deflect that threat. He repurposed some of the
        natural language, machine learning, capabilities of Inkwell
        for that project.

        The next time you go on social media to generate a flash mob
        to protest at the home of a supreme court justice, don't be
        surprised if new posts, indistinguishable in any and every
        way, from your own, appear setting a new time or location for
        the mob.

        As impressive as Richard's work may be (is); no, I do not
        think it resolves the fundamental issue. I still maintain that
        the "languages" of math, algorithms, logic, and similar
        formalisms are _inadequate_ for communication of most human
        knowledge and experience. Metaphorically speaking, they simply
        lack the bandwidth.

        Note that I am making no claim with regard the experiences or
        the ability to communicate—in some language—those experiences.
        I am simply making a claim of inadequacy/insufficiency for a
        particular set of "languages." I am suggesting that it might
        be possible to develop/evolve a language sufficient for the task.

        davew

        On Sat, May 14, 2022, at 9:13 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

            Ok, happy robots in hot tubs doesn’t do it for you.  How
            about some machine learning generated poems?

            https://sites.research.google/versebyverse/

                On May 14, 2022, at 4:27 PM, Prof David West
                <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
                wrote:

                

                Thank you Marcus for the insightful comments.

                I agree with you that the issue is one of
                communication, and in some sense, one of language. I
                would depart from your response with regard the
                assertion that the language must be precise; and
                further, the implication that equations, computer
                programs, or a simulacrum could constitute a "language."

                I would claim that a language with perfect and
                complete syntax and precise denotation will,
                necessarily be insufficient to express and communicate
                the vast majority of human experiences and
                knowledge/awareness/understanding. [This is a more
                nuanced version of my frequently made claim that,
                "science and math are only useful for the simplest of
                problems."]

                Humans can, with reasonable efficacy, communicate by
                means other than a precisely defined language.
                Evocative and connotative poetry, imagery, allusion,
                and metaphor, within a rich body of context is far
                more powerful than any formal language.

                Consider this alternative means of communication as a
                "language," RBL (Right-brain language). It seems
                reasonable to expect that RBL might be improved and
                extended, with added rigor, while avoiding the
                reductionism that exemplifies formal, precisely
                defined languages of math and science (left-brained
                all). I can imagine a RBL-grounded metaphysics and
                epistemology.

                A robust RBL might provide the communication channel
                essential to communicate the ineffable, the mystical,
                the psychedelic—with one big caveat, the lack of
                shared experience. RBL would be an evocative language,
                and that which is invoked in each individual must have
                sufficient experiential overlap with others that "that
                which is invoked" provides sufficient common context.

                Or one might assume Indra's Net where all
                contextualizes all.

                davew

                On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 5:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

                    If one wants to translate subjective experience
                    into a narrative, or compare & contrast
                    experiences, then negotiating some language is
                    necessary.   If one wants to carefully compare
                    experiences, then one must be prepared to make the
                    language precise.   The language could be
                    “equations”, or some computer program or some
                    careful use of the English language, or it could
                    be some use of a well-modelled physical system to
                    mimic another physical system, etc.  But it is
                    must to be possible to create experiments and
                    evaluate the results in an objective, reasoned way
                    using a shared, deconstructable language.    This
                    says nothing about the Big Picture of the diverse
                    things that happen in the universe by itself, of
                    course.   But the (presumably) narrow window we
                    have on the whole universe can be categorized into
                    knowledge we share – objective language, and
                    private experiences we don’t know how to share, or
                    are too large and complicated to compress into a
                    readable academic paper (e.g. some massive
                    generative learning system).   If one wants to go
                    further and say there are some experiences that
                    can’t, in principle, be shared, that’s fine, but
                    then shut up about it already!   There’s nothing
                    to **talk** about because it is private **and**
                    subjective **and** opaque.

                    *From:* Friam <[email protected]>
                    <mailto:[email protected]> *On Behalf Of
                    *Prof David West

                    *Sent:* Friday, May 13, 2022 4:51 PM

                    *To:* [email protected]

                    *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] quotes and questions

                    I will channel McGilchrist here, not assert my own
                    opinions/reasoning:

                    The argument you have posited is an example of
                    left-brain arrogance *(NOT MARCUS ARROGANCE)* in
                    assuming that the left-brain perception and
                    apprehension, a totally reductionist and
                    representationalist one, of the universe is the
                    only truth.  All that holism, connectedness,
                    empathy, stochastic dynamism, etc. that the
                    right-brain believes to be truth is woo-woo
                    nonsense and it can be ignored.

                    There is also the purely pragmatic problem, ala
                    the 19th century physics of Mach, that if you had
                    perfect knowledge of every particle in the
                    universe at time 1 you could predict with perfect
                    accuracy its state at time 2. Replicating the
                    totality of sensors and the variable range of
                    sensitivity in context (e.g. changes in pressure
                    as the water cools as a function of distance from
                    jet), plus the variability in the pattern of
                    sensors that are simultaneously reporting, and,
                    and, and

                    Even if true in principle, it is pragmatically
                    impossible.

                    davew

                    On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 3:47 PM, Marcus Daniels
                    wrote:

                    > I am sure I have said it dozens of times
                    before:   Create a robot

                    > covered in sensors of similar pressure and
                    temperature sensitivity.

                    > Have it sit in the tub and use some algorithm to
                    learn the distribution

                    > of the sensors and how relates to the performance
                    of its own motor

                    > system.

>
                    >> On May 13, 2022, at 3:36 PM, Prof David West
                    <[email protected]> wrote:

>>
                    >> On 5/12/22 13:56, Jon Zingale wrote:

                    >>> An interesting property of turbulence is that it
                    need not be a statement about fluids, but rather a
                    property entailed by a system of equations.

>>
                    >> McGilchrist would assert that the "reality" that
                    is apprehended by the left-brain is precisely that
                    set of abstract equations. However, the
                    right-brain apprehension of "reality" is the
                    totality of the experience of sitting in the spa
                    and feeling the bubbles and jets caress your body.

>>
                    >> The latter is not expressible in equations.

>>
                    >> davew

>> >> >> >>
                    >>> On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 1:47 PM, glen wrote:

                    >>>> On 5/12/22 10:32, Steve Smith wrote:

                    >>>> I personally don't think "Turbulent Flow" is an
                    oxymoron.

>>>
                    >>> Exactly! That's the point. By denouncing
                    negation, I'm ultimately

                    >>> denouncing contradiction in all it's horrifying
                    forms. It's judo, not

                    >>> karate.

>>>
                    >>>> On 5/12/22 13:56, Jon Zingale wrote:

                    >>>> An interesting property of turbulence is that it
                    need not be a statement about fluids, but rather a
                    property entailed by a system of equations.

>>>
                    >>> I'm a bit worried about all the meaning packed
                    into "property",

                    >>> "entailed", and "system of equations". But as
                    long as we read

                    >>> "equations" *very* generously, then I'm down.

>>>
                    >>>> On 5/12/22 19:54, Marcus Daniels wrote:

                    >>>> Unitary operators are needed.  Apply a Trumping
                    operator you get a Biden and apply another one to
                    get a Trump back.    To make this work a bunch of
                    ancillary bits are needed to record all the wisdom
                    that Trump destroys. I am afraid we are dealing
                    with a dissipative system, though.

>>>
                    >>> IDK. The allowance of unitary operators seems to
                    be a restatement of

                    >>> orthogonality. In a world where no 2
                    variates/objects can be perfectly

                    >>> separated, there can be no unitary operators.
                    (Or, perhaps every

                    >>> operator has an error term. f(x) → y ∪ε) I
                    haven't done the work. But

                    >>> it seems further that we can define logics
                    without negation and logics

                    >>> without currying. Can we define logics with
                    neither? What's the

                    >>> expressive power of such a persnickety thing? Is
                    it that such a thing

                    >>> can't exist? Or merely that our language is
                    incapable of talking about

                    >>> that thing with complete faith? Biden is clearly
                    not not(Trump), at

                    >>> least if the object of interest is "too damned
                    {old, white, male}". If

                    >>> that's the object, clearly Biden ≡ Trump and
                    ∀x|x(Trump) = x(Biden) ∪

                    >>> ε, where |ε| >> |x(Trump)-x(Biden)|.

>>>
                    >>> --

                    >>> Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙

>>>
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