Re: [FRIAM] Writing and Civilization and AI, oh my!
But this seems to me like the challenge of all qualia-talk. How to try to say this…: By the time you say anything to me, about anything, what you are handing me is some construct within the bounds of some formal system. If it is within math, maybe it is a formal system whose origin and construction we can somewhat retrace. If it is in common language, it is no less a formal system; just one that has come from an antiquity we can’t witness, an origin we don’t have access to, and thus a reason for being whatever it is, through whatever combination of necessity of human nature and arbitrariness of history, that we cannot given an account of. The fact that we use such constructs to say things to one another adds, to whatever is the architecture of formal things like language, the sector of experience that encompasses “use” or “adoption” of language. Taking on the habit that one or another formal locution “stands for” something in lived acts and experiences, or has an “interpretation” in the sense that somewhat-regular acts or responses from experience are given in answer to receiving that token from the formal system. I take all those bindings of lived acts and experiences, to the more systematic but tiny things in the formal realms, to be the epitome of “knowing-how” in Brandom’s account of Pragmatism. But if all you have is a knowing-how that binds some feeling, or maybe thought, in you to receiving some sentence about qualia, out of which you send some sentence to somebody else, what do you even have to work with? You said that the experience you are (quite literally) “invoking” is a thing about you, and not a thing realized within the formal system. Okay; quite plausible. And you use a language formulation of it, the origin or reason for which you don’t have access to, and the way you came into “using” you also don’t have an account of. So how can you say that any one-or-another thing “is or isn’t” equally-rightly referred to with this language-token qualia? It seems you have already denied yourself the structures that would be needed to make any claims one way or another. This same umbrella seems to give protective shade to talk about qualia or talk about God. The interesting thing is: I have been steeped enough in some parts of English and academic whatever-it-is, that I somehow imagine I am tracking you when you say stuff about qualia. If you start in about God, I will be equally convinced I have no idea what you think you are saying or why you think there is a reason to say it. But in fact, the role of speech in the two cases is indistinguishable, I think. So it lets me know that I am also an unreliable analyst of any of this, in that for one case, I recognize plainly that I have no idea why the speech even exists, whereas in the other case I imagine I am tracking it. Bad me. Eric > On Jul 27, 2024, at 7:34 AM, Russ Abbott wrote: > > From a consciousness perspective, what (so-far) cannot be encoded digitally > by a robot are qualia. A robot can encode light frequencies, but not, for > example, what red looks like. I can't think of a way to put > what-red-looks-like into words. From a subjective experience perspective, it > seems like a sort of primitive. How would you do it? What words would you use > to express what red looks like? > > -- Russ Abbott > Professor Emeritus, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > > > On Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 12:13 PM Marcus Daniels wrote: > Which of this cannot be encoded digitally by a robot? > > -Original Message- > From: Friam On Behalf Of Prof David West > Sent: Friday, July 26, 2024 12:12 PM > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Writing and Civilization and AI, oh my! > > I agree with one small caveat. Artifacts; tangible, written, stigmergic, ... > are but a small part of what is "cooperatively constructed and kneaded." The > vast majority of what an individual "knows" and the vast majority of what the > 'collective' "knows" is tacit, 'in-the-mind' and transmitted orally and/or by > non-formal means. > > davew > > > On Fri, Jul 26, 2024, at 12:18 PM, glen wrote: >> Similarly, but a bit larger in scope, humans (and other animals) are >> merely small parts of a larger system. The extent to which any one >> person actually knows anything (much less is wise about anything) is >> negligible, on the same order as that which a chimpanzee knows or is >> wise about something. What's *valuable*, worth preserving, are the >> cooperatively constructed and kneaded stigmergic cultural artifacts. >> >> But unlike Plato's straw man, suggesting the artifacts are somehow >> fixed and repetitive, what's interesting about them is a) their >> re-interpretation through successive generations and b) the >> derivations spawned from them. Decay and derivation are more >> informative than preservation. No single artifact
Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
I think your earlier, bad-faith account, was in the right direction, though each of your last three notes has had a structure I like and take seriously. (Hard to decide what I think of, or whether I agree with, anything at this point.) But if I look at the 3-way dialogue among Thomas, the Federalists, and Cannon, the structure I think I see is this: 1. One of the very useful things Shubik commented to me early in our working relationship — obvious in hindsight, but there are all sorts of obvious things I never think of until somebody tells me — is that laws are inevitably finite and thus inescapably coarse-grained. This is the problem of induction, control systems with finite variety, etc. Meanwhile, experiences are extendable without limit and indefinitely variegated. So the essential and unavoidable work needed from judges and litigators is, for each case, to get to some decision of how it can be categorized within and responded to from laws, more or less in their spirit. 2. Thomas’s gambit is the equivalent of one of my nieces when she was young — a child who knew she could drive any person past all limits of patience, and did so at every chance — putting her fingers into hear ears and saying loudly blah-blah-blah-I-can’t-hear-you. Thomas’s rulings (when they arrive at one of the insurrectionist positions he wants to support) have the structure that any law can be ignored if one can find some detail of the particular case that was not written explicitly into the text of that law. This is a general-purpose deconstructionist tactic that has nothing to do with any specific law or any specific case, and can just be used to ignore any law in any case if that is the wanted outcome. 2a. 2 is flatly a nonsense position. But the only thing that can assert that it is a nonsense position is a notion of “legitimacy”. Because all this is in the non-robotic dimension of human social behavior. Hence if legitimacy is jettisoned, all subsequent discussion is just performative, while the substance is in the fight over who can be holding power at the end. 3. The Federalist Society supports these warrens of little legals and paralegals to come up with Gish Gallops of footnotes or other details that can be slotted into Thomas-like arguments. I figure GPT could be programmed to do this — a job it is perfectly suited to — and put them all out of business on the spot. But for now it is people doing it. Those Gallops get sent to various judges for “notarizing” — aka delivered as “the judge’s” “ruling”. 4. I would like the investigative journalists to find where the rulings Cannon is notarizing came from. They look so fine-grained and frivolous, it seems unlikely that just she and her staff could have come up with them. Seems like it would require a bigger factory. But all this is then within the category of the “anything from an absurdity”. Since the Thomas Gambit can be used to nullify any law, all the action then goes to whether the ones using it happen to want to nullify the applicability of law to some case, or whether it serves their ends to apply the law in something like the normal way. But that then becomes sort of the Russian system, or Duterte’s system, or any dictator's. Back to the Roberts court, the things I have seen written that seem most cogent to me argue that their one consistent tack is to aggregate power to their specific selves. There are these nonsense rulings, which are vague or inconsistent, and honest lower courts often cannot figure out whether or how to comply with them. (There was just one of these, I think the Domestic Abuser with a Gun case, along exactly this line, a month or two ago. Rahimi?) And once it is a mess of appeals in the lower courts, it can get back to SC, who can then make up whatever outcome they want for that case. It gets very close to trolling for Roberts to write condescendingly that the lower courts were “confused” by the SC’s ruling; in fact they had it dead to rights, and Roberts surely isn’t so dumb he doesn’t know that. So to act as if they have made the mistake is to put out loud what the game is. It’s like Gaetz’s text about “Cannon for Supreme Court” or whatever it was. Trolls gonna troll. @The cruelty is the point. It’s about the assertion of domination, once you think you have enough of a lock that your advantage is to get out of the “hiding” phase and go into the “demoralizing” phase. So I don’t know that there really is new “law” power in the Monarchical Executive. There may or may not be, but the SC would like to make itself indispensible in operating that machinery. But I don’t know. I don’t do this for a living. Eric > On Jul 18, 2024, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote: > > Not really. What's happened is the law has now been refined/redefined to > require actions be categorized as official and unofficial. So actions that > are deemed official are not against the law.
Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
I have always assumed that is an exercise in asserting dominance. Who is boss? Might it be me? Many years ago, when I was curious about blue Weimaraners, having bumped into a pair in Santa Fe, I went to read “The Weim Page” (not the AKC breed page, but in that direction). I remember a nicely written line on who should consider getting one: “Weimaraners have a `someone must lead’ mentality. Make sure you are living under your rules, because you won’t like his.” Eric > On Jul 17, 2024, at 1:51 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > > Ok, here’s another example. My dog paws at me when I’m sitting on the > couch. At first it appeared to be an expression of affection. Then I > realized what she really wanted: Move and give her the space.She did the > same thing with her male sibling (a dog), and he would get rattled and walk > away. > > From: Friam On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson > Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2024 9:43 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We > Thought > > Hi, All, > > Some;body on this thread suggested that I read the recent article on whale > communication research in Hah-Vud Mag. It was interesting, but it left me > screaming and beating the magazine with my fists in many places. > > If anybody would like to chat about it, I am here for that. Two comments to > poke the fire a bit: > > If this is to be the first time we communicate with another species, what on > earth have i been doing with my dog, all these years? > > If you want to understand an alien intelligence, you sure as hell don't > start with human based categories. You start with a broader perspective and > place both the human and the alien within it. Ethology got started because > its predecessor, comparative psychology, was obsessed with imposing human > categories on animals. Finding out what birdsong is actually doing has been > slowed up for generations by the twin metaphors of music and language. > > Beware lure of charismatic science. Just remember, charisma is a transaction > between an individual and an audience in which the individual engages > unspoken needs of the audience and the audience rewards him/her with > notoriety Most humans are desperate to have their preconceptions confirmed. > > ARGH! > > n > > > On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm wrote: > I don't get Philip Goff: first we send our children 20 years to school, from > Kindergarten to college and university, to teach them all kinds of languages, > and then we wonder how they can be conscious. It will be the same for AI: > first we spend millions and millions to train them all available knowledge, > and then we wonder how they can develop understanding of language and > consciousness... > https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/ > > -J. > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > -- > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology > Clark University > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,-eJuDS2hXsAnkjjtXiHCesGtVzhMLZaSFuwdhV2Bp9CBE_n9KvQtdOsLoT_ImWVASB5ONb3u-SnDlwQziIJ6Z_1NpkZ2I5y_7UI0aLkZt6RwjJYD8_eM=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,7aRKdGR9FCKmeBJoXADIde9hwWf18guLu8ZiSJR6NVCNGgkynLIa_G54Nd81xbDcE2D1EJaZSYvJrFZ6CPa23GRTl_Iy4CWzxa3qRzFtPgLdV1_auA,,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,aCqylRKeli29uqEkK9QAW4ZWpSvaS97xCM10_6PyOADSyDrBRk7gwUwAZU6As71zC4Mu-WGib5dqEYFTyGnRIWJSved6AjV-H7648Dj75r3NsuY9M4173tc,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,3yCQ_K9ojJxchJYXEPR8oyM1mFxs-eTYHM3ErubCZ3PCc1Nt2PVgkTJqUMyhn58r9-wPg09LPjPeW_up5b4D26IDqZRxx8mBF4t2v6Zkkigg-F8oj4v1nruEyA,,=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC
Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T
Yeah; wish it were possible to say something interesting. The aspect of, or within, the field of experience, that “consciousness” and other related words are somehow “about", should be general among all of us who are made of about the same stuff. (So, the vertebrates, the mammals, the social mammals, the hunting-social mammals; etc.) I say that as an assertion within the network of scientific representations, in the kind of way we normally walk around that network by extrapolation, like spiders along threads in a web. So should have many of the familiar successes; surely has all the recognized hazards. But [consciousness]-the-term is a word in a language. So it has formal aspects. What is it doing as we use it? Maybe it is putting up “an object” toward which attention can be directed. One would glibly say “making consciousness available as an object of attention”, but I don’t want to say that. The aspect of, or within, the field of experience is whatever it is. When the capacity for, and use of, a language brings objects into that formal world which can be targets for attention, we don’t have any promises for how good the objects are as proxies for whatever they are meant to be proxies for. Or even what is the nature of such “objects”, a thing that has to be made more clear, along with whatever those objects are proxies for, and whatever is the associational relation of the two. I am aware, while speaking, that what I would like is to go one step further than the logical positivists in characterizing formal systems as opposed to characterizing all of life. I would like to say that, when something is really a formal system, it has been made an object in the world. So one can mechanise it. What Hilbert imagined maybe mathematics could be, and which we seem to be pretty sure mathematics cannot _only_ be, though it can have parts of that nature. That means we can say things about the mechanistic relations among tokens in formal systems. The positivists seemed to me (in my ignorance of almost-everything historical) to have the tastes of logicians; they wanted to work out technical things. They were willing to put to the side the questions of how that logical edifice ever “stands for” “something” in the broader field of life. If they made an important mistake, it was to go beyond putting them to the side, to dismissing them entirely. Their notion of “pseudo-questions” is generally apt where I can find concrete applications of it; but in dismissing what was driving people to make those unsatisfactory attempts, they threw out much of what is interesting to try to do. That is the more-literal landscape to which my metaphor of the spider in the web alluded. Anyway, whatever its form, which varied among people and changed over time on into the modern era, that separation left what they were doing very limited, but within that, I feel like they made category distinctions that remain useful. They get even more useful when one is very clear about how limited they are, and tries to put them in a Pragmatist frame. Even better when we apply Pragmatism to itself. This is where we try to deal, for real, with the way everything formal hangs in mid-air, as its very nature. Back from that digression: The things that we can’t export into machinery in the world (formal systems with the definition written in the language of the formalism), may remain actually still formal systems, but they become like a computer program that can only run on a certain kind of hardware, which is us, and as we don’t understand that hardware very well, we can’t make very good proxies of it (or know whether we have done so), leaving us unsure what formal systems can run on which hardware. With all those caveats and hedges in all the over-interpretations I don’t want for wording, if I were to suggest what is different about us with language from dogs that are not using this particular kind of formal layer (I strongly suspect, again said like the spider walking along the web), it is this “making consciousness an object of attention”. It seems to me that, if we promised to remain constantly alert to the fact that all those terms are placeholder terms in placeholder usage conventions, we could ask why it matters and what it does to “make consciousness an object of attention”, while also “inhabiting” it (or whatever word), as contrasted with mostly-just inhabiting, and letting attention do all the other things it is already also doing. Eric > On Jul 10, 2024, at 7:37 AM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > Frank > > What you laid out is an abduction,,isn't it?; I don[t think I am doing that > in either of my syllogisms. But I am no logician; > > An induction is a valid inference, although a probabilistic one, at least on > Peirce's account. > > David, > > If humans are conscious, I am pretty sure that animals are conscious, . > > I am just not sure
Re: [FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T
You think you are taking baby steps from a clean (un-prejudicial) start. I think you are massively prejudicing the frame in a way that may not go anywhere. (Or maybe it does; I can’t say. It just seems like the one everybody has been adopting forever, re-asserted one more time.) You treat the “how we know it when we see it” as a sine qua non for ascribing a meaning to a term; making it a proper “it" (a behaviorist thing to say, said in all innocence as if this were not massively prejudicial; just the “facts” ma’am, says Mr. Bacon). But there are other frames, and some of them may be even blanker. Or also prejudiced, but in other terms, and blanker from the angle in which the behaviorist style of speaking is not blank. (Or am I wrong to think that?) We can ask: Why are we using this word? Where did it come from? Why does it “take” with us as we develop as participants in our language? And in our language-scaffolded “theory of mind” development? What are we doing with it when we use it? What are we doing with ourselves or with each other through the use of it? The one thing in that list that I did _not_ do is ask “what does this word _mean_?”; that to me would have been the prejudice that would let a gorilla walk among us and not be seen. I think Pieter’s reply yesterday — something along the lines of “not having a route to ever know if your cat (or another person, for that matter) is conscious or aware” — is probably a good starting point. It’s good both because it says let’s take this “ `knowing' this-or-that about somebody else” off the table as a prop, and ask whether systematic investigation remains possible, and also because it exposes the way that all of our “knowing” hangs in mid-air, and the sooner we reckon with that as its nature, the better we can talk about it. All that will only be of any worth, of course, if it leads to a way of using these terms that goes somewhere…. Eric > On Jul 10, 2024, at 4:54 AM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > While I find all the ancillary considerations raised on the original thread > extremely interesting, I would like to reopen the discussion of Conscious as > a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the question of what > consciousness is and how we know it when we see it. Baby Steps. > > Where were we? I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and anybody > else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware of their > own awareness) what basis they had in experience for thinking that.. One > offering for such an experience is the absence of language in animals. > Because my cat cannot describe his experience in words, he cannot be > conscious. This requires the following syllogism: > > Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious. > Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ > languages. > Ergo, Animals are not conscious. > > But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise. How do we know > that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious. I hope we > could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic", both in its > strictly tautological or merely circular form. > > There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore: > > All language using beings are conscious. > George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being. > George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious. > > Both are valid syllogisms. But where do the premises come from. > > Nick > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,rYecoVtZ79UuCBoFzIBbx9Ehc2VjqZnDoG8Di7GA9TAfF31xUz4lvf4frOtwMM6rtT3BK_8qTHu7jKG28A4wfvAmBAL8dUj0e3xBiM7R54jG=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,T_QK7er9FF5mNdkdKr71i9shQdGzrg7k49StOsE8hIPiteH-keU7ppn_n_ulVelvGAtra9Wlo3S9fo5qYh7eTTsmKez6XBAVRLs-2OyTD-dAl-AKo48,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,5XzQSFn4T1ktMf5Bs7ur6n1ShaoqdBWo7mRb0xkhkpkL50hWj1_CE9vrerw0hdvMPAKABQ_sPjTaaDPO1mCj6-GcVMlIsa0ILoMVdJ755VYsc25cplY,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,NuW5VnoXtmjr6UZlRjtrv5CGuWrT9zYKzgdo8MaGOjHx0V-tfNplPCCRjjq3VJByyeeIvwlNlVIf6uYYJETqvmUkPSv5j6RU3ruCK_rwhw,,=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC
Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
I have wondered, Dave, why you say no words: I think of cave art as being ~40kA ago. Similarly for preserved footprints that have been interpreted as dance. Mitochondrial modernity probably ~250kA, and Y-chromosome ~100kA, with considerable errors. European cave art presumably followed out-of-Africa migrations that had gone in many directions for a very long time, and those were all fully genetically-modern people, even if there was some local out-crossing once they were around Asia and maybe into some of the island chains that led to a little gene flow into less-than-the-whole-world clades of people. My default would have been that everybody since both male and female lineages (and presumably most of the autosomes) arrived at the coalescent we can see was using pretty fully-developed human language. But if whatever adjustments are referred to in achieving Y-chromosome modernity (or just a coalescent by reconstruction?) isn’t particularly relevant to whatever enables full normal-human language skills, I would push my default to much earlier times than 100kA. Is there a widely-circulated argument for the position that the cave art we know about precedes languages? (Of course, we aren’t anywhere close to doing comparative reconstructions of languages to that depth. _Maybe_ if we got very lucky, we might see something we could take to coastal migrations at ~60kA. But I think the oldest groups that anybody reasonable is trying to propose are no older than ~20kA, and most of them no older than ~11-14kA, and probably associated with bottlenecking at the end of the Younger Dryas. But those are problems of signal loss, both from change and from lack of surviving diversity that can be used to feed comparative analysis. I don’t think the timing of those coalescents makes any claims about a lessening of language capabiliity at the root of what we might be able to reconstruct.) Interested in sources on this. Thanks, Eric > On Jul 9, 2024, at 9:15 AM, Prof David West wrote: > > I must respectively disagree. Our ancestors—before they had 'words' > communicated multiple worlds, of "reality" like last weeks hunt and > "alt-reality" gods and demons and spirits, o my! (allusion to wizard of Oz). > All with song and cave art, no words. I am pretty certain they were > conscious and self aware. > > davew > > > On Mon, Jul 8, 2024, at 3:48 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: >> IMHO it is not one language which is necessary, but more than one. Languages >> can be used to create worlds, to move around it them, and to share these >> wolds with others. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling have created whole universes. >> The interesting things happen if worlds collide, if they merge and melt, or >> if they drift apart. >> >> Cervantes in Spain, Goethe in Germany and Dante in Italy helped to create >> new languages - Spanish, German and Italian, respectively. They also >> examined in their most famous books what happens if worlds collide. >> >> Cervantes describes in "Don Quixote" >> what happens when imaginary and real worlds collide and are so out of sync >> that the actors are getting lost. >> >> Goethe decribes in his "Faust" what happens when collective and individual >> worlds collide, i.e. when egoistic individuals exploit the world selfishly >> for their own benefit (in his first book "The sorrows of young Werther" >> Goethe focused like Fontane and Freud on the opposite). >> >> Dante describes in his "Divine Comedy" >> what happens when worlds diverge and people are excluded and expelled from >> the world. >> >> Language is necessary for self awareness because it provides the building >> blocks for a new world which is connected but also independent from the old >> one. This allows new dimensions of interactions. The connections between >> worlds matter. A label is a simple connection between a word in one world >> and an class of objects in another. A metaphor is a more complex connection >> between an abstract idea and a composition of objects, etc. >> >> -J. >> >> >> Original message >> From: Nicholas Thompson >> Date: 7/7/24 5:13 PM (GMT+01:00) >> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We >> Thought >> >> I think of large language models as the most embodied things on the planet, >> but let that go for a moment. Back to baby steps. >> >> Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is essential to >> self-awareness. Does that believe arise from ideology, authority, or some >> set of facts I need to take account of. To be honest here, I should say >> where I am coming from. A lot of my so-called career was spent railing >> against circular reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology. So, if >> language is essential to self-awareness, and animals do not have language, >> then it indeed follows that animals do not have
Re: [FRIAM] An Open Letter to Joe Biden
Ah! A smart contract! I’ll bet there is some blockchain maven coding it up right now. Very nice. Offload the incentive onto them. > On Jul 4, 2024, at 1:56 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote: > > My Phellow Phriammers, > I am frantic about the last week’s events. In a fit of absurd geriatric > arrogance, I have concluded that the attached document contains a good idea > that nobody else has thought of. Beset by this illusion, I asking you-all to > forward this letter to anybody for whom it might make a difference. > Attachment and/ or in line text below. Suggestions, calming comments, etc., > welcome. > Nick > ++ > Dear Joe Biden, > I write to offer some thoughts concerning your decision to continue your run > for a second term. These thoughts come in two forms: (1), A description of > what it is like to live from 81 to 86, something that I have done, and you > have not. And (2), a way to leverage your power as presumptive nominee to > guarantee the best possible solution for all of us. > • A Guide The Early Eighties > I was born in ’38, you, in ’43, back in the good old days when two numbers > and an apostrophe were sufficient to identify a year. We both were raised > during World War II. We have other things in common, a life-long > disability, yours a stammer, mine a devastating hip infection as an infant. > We both had heart attacks, yours at an early age, mine much later. I say > all this to claim some standing with you as a spokesman for the early > eighties. I certainly have not suffered the awful human losses that you > have endured in your long life. > The problem of the early eighties is not what a younger person thinks it is > going to be. When I was younger, I worried about the dramatic event that > killed me or left me totally incapacitated, the stroke or the heart attack. > Mind you, these sorts of endings are possible, and the more stress a body is > under, the more likely they are to happen. And mind you, also, such sudden > deaths are devastating to the people you love. > But rational fear of these outcomes is not the hardest part of living > through the early eighties. The most terrifying feature is the vice-like > squeeze between the time available to do ordinary things and the time it > takes to do them. Please consider a simple example. Once upon a time, I > could spring from behind a desk like a scalded cat, stride quickly across a > room, and plop myself down in a couch, while not losing a beat in the > conversation. Now, such a move requires preparation. Arthritis in my hips, > knees and back makes me stiff after a prolonged period of sitting. Am I > going to lift with my legs, or with my hands on the surface of the desk. > Once up, before I take my first step, I must be sure of my balance and > footing. Is that a fold in rug between me and my destination? My path must > be adjusted to take account of it. When I get to the couch, I must plan my > sitting. I need to sit at the end, so to have the arm of the couch to let > myself down gently lest I collapse on to the cushions like a pile of old > bones. And if I was talking when I decided to make this voyage, I must > pause. Those to whom I am talking feel obligated to stay silent till I am > reseated, lest they endanger my progress. All of this is disconcerting > enough. I can only imagine the discomfort I might feel if my spectators > were generals, congresspersons, senators, or cabinet members. > The expansion of the time it takes to do such small acts is multiplied a > hundred times a day. Since fatigue sets in a few seconds earlier every > afternoon, this time is deleted from a day that is itself shrinking > inexorably. Sure, adjustments can be made, sure there can be naps, sure, > staff can step up, others can fill in, but each of these people is also on > their own vice-like time schedule. As this vise tightens, there is bound to > be a moment when someone’s life shatters between its jaws. And with all the > devoted people working around you, you can never be sure that the life that > shatters is your own. > • Make them put up or shut up. > Despite these dark realities, I grant that you have many good and generous > reasons to challenge the odds and hang onto the nomination you have amply > earned and won. Ezra Klein’s dream of a orgy of democracy at the convention > is bonkers. Unleashing the competitive instincts of a bunch of career > politicians (and their organizations) at this time would almost certainly > lead to Trump’s second term. > But there is a way out of this dilemma. I suggest that you go before the > nation with the following proposal. > My fellow Americans, > It has come to my attention that many of you are concerned about a > President’s ability to carry on with the job into his eighties. You should > know that most of the work of
Re: [FRIAM] [un]official disambiguation?
Yeah. Worse than that. If I look at Thomas and Alito, I’m not sure it would even be necessary to bribe them, apart from some coordination services. They are both characters of grievance. In that sense, not far removed at all from the MAGAs on the street. Mostly they want to poke somebody in the eye, and humans are very resourceful in noticing opportunities when that motive is always present. Roberts is the one I have to work harder to find words for. Not because it is hard to know what I think of him, but because it is hard to put the right terms together. It’s a kind of blandly presented disingenuousness, but so over-the-top disingenuous that that is where I run out of words. Like watching a smash-and-grab burglary and saying “nothing but routine shopping days here”. Putting up straw-men about things that aren’t happening, while explicitly refusing to acknowledge things that are. To Glen’s point about “too conspiratorial”. My sense of this is utterly ordinary. I don’t see anything especially clever, or especially strategic, in these 6-scotus rulings. There is a kind of garden-variety cowardice: not wanting to take crisp positions for which they can be pilloried, but wanting to gum up works, send frivolous things back to appellate courts, issue vague rulings where they know the interpretation will be done by hacks lower-down in the chain, who mostly are too anonymous to be pursued. But there is a chicken-hawk quality to it too, and I feel like this is coming from a group dynamic that operates over individual styles: yes their rulings have the waffling character of cowardice, but they also _take_ cases that are flatly meritless, so that they get to put a stamp on them in spite of mostly adding mud (but always biased in one direction). I guess the word I am struggling for is something like “decadence”. Occupants of an institution so long insulated from the substance of its actions that their priorities have all been drawn off into small and empty vanities. It seems utterly normal to me, but catastrophic in a country with the institutional size of the U.S., where bad choices can accumulate in vast numbers before there is enough of a selection response to address them. At which point it becomes very hard to make corrections stably. Eric > On Jul 3, 2024, at 2:20 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > > I think SCOTUS might be useful idiots too. Easily bribed like with a motor > home and free vacations. > > -Original Message- > From: Friam On Behalf Of glen > Sent: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 10:11 AM > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [un]official disambiguation? > > Right. MAGA are the useful idiots being exploited by the conservative arm of > SCOTUS to push through the Unitary Executive, which, in turn, is the "useful > idiot" being exploited by the wealthy to achieve the oligarchy as a stepping > stone. And to some extent, this is Thiel's "Straussian Moment" or Yarvin's > return to a kindasorta Monarchy. And the Pew data you pointed to demonstrate > that, like in France, *we* don't mind that lukewarm authoritarianism ... > Thiel's a bit like Plato's Philosopher King ... or maybe a better analogy is > Thiel is like our Supreme Leader while Trump is like Ebrahim Raisi. > > On 7/2/24 07:15, Marcus Daniels wrote: >> The MAGAs aren't the wealthy, they are envious of the wealthy. DJT >> included. >> >> -Original Message- >> From: Friam On Behalf Of glen >> Sent: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 6:28 AM >> To: friam@redfish.com >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [un]official disambiguation? >> >> I worry this is too conspiratorial. The only way I can see it sustaining is >> if we take selfishness as a core human trait in the same way we take >> reason/rationality as a core human trait. Both are false as crisp >> categories. But there's enough of either (and their inverses - >> self-sacrificing and embodied cognition, respectively) to wax and wane. >> Assessing whether or not, say, an oligarchy can maintain in the face of such >> a diverse and distributed system requires us to define relatively objective >> measures of selfishness (or "corruption" - but I'd argue defining that well >> is fraught). And a good measure of selfishness has to include, as you >> mention with Cannon's family, a measure of the size of the various tribes. >> My guess is the even if the wealthy recognize that other wealthies are in >> their tribe to some extent, there'll be more in-fighting amongst those >> elephants than there will be solidarity. Say what you want about capitalism, >> it encourages intra-tribal rifts and inter-tribal exchange. And that allows >> bursts of altruism or "universalist" beliefs. If the suc
Re: [FRIAM] [un]official disambiguation?
I have an impression that the pattern of this and many other decisions is an acknowledgment — front brain or mid-brain; don’t know — that a second-government that isn’t the institutional one is now fully up and running. Many years ago, when I was working with Shubik, he gave me a paper by one of his colleagues who had been active in trying to support the Aquino government in the Philippines as a realization of the constitutional system set up (whenever that was done). The paper’s theme was that having laws on the books that nominally seem to “uphold” democratic governance in one place may be worth not-much someplace else, where the whole social culture — all the skills, networks of relation, expectations — are built on generations-long histories of what we would call corruption (but for them, is just how things get done). scotus repeatedly disaggregates and ambiguously states the criteria for something, rather than taking any concrete and intelligible stand, and when there is a law that does take an intelligible stand, they make up some story that it doesn’t really say what it plainly says, and put an ambiguous dictum in its place. (Weird; like the inverse of “painting over rot”; it is taking sound wood and somehow painting rot over it). Now, if there were not a sophisticated enough system to put compliant apparatchiks in a very broad swath of lower courts, lawmaking houses, etc., that ambiguation would do limited good. But when money is very concentrated, communication very modern, and markets very very efficient in centralizing power, and there are a few decades to work, that kind of broad installation of corrupt actors can get done. There is enough machinery in place to micro-manage them if needed (amicus briefs or even individual threat and bribery), but there probably are enough collaborators that a lot of the micro-managing isn’t even needed. It’s like a system of “alternative laws" (next term for KAC to coin) that mostly don’t need to be enforced if a few occasions serve to keep the precedent live in people’s minds. So in New York or Washington the cases will be weakened by picking around the edges, but in florida cannon can just throw it all out, and know her family will remain safe (and maybe even her personal beliefs will be followed; who knows re. that). Likewise bible teaching in schools, banniing of abortifacients and eventually contraceptives through the mail within their territory, and so on. Because I have to (as the only form of employment I am for the moment holding) unfortunately do a lot of flying back and forth, I am aware what a nuisance it is to have Russian airspace unavailable. 11 time zones. I wonder when the various red-captured states will start to declare their airspace off limits to alrlines that fly between the coasts. LIke, flights from NY to CA would have to go through Canada. Given the great circle already, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. But maybe flights from Mexico or S. America to non-theocratic states would suffer some added cost. Eric p.s. I have to note how much my use of terminology has been modified by Arendt’s way of grouping things, and there are emails I sent once that I would not send now (or would have to word differently). Not that I have the ability to know whether her system is a good one, only that I can follow it and see that it is very different from the offhand one I have used and usually see used. So for instance, she would not call the Nazis “Fascists”; they were distinct at the time and stay so in her terms. She also distinguishes mere authoritarians from totalitarians, as part of a larger distinction between “parties” and “movements”. In her system, “parties” seek to control the state, on behalf of particular interests, in contrasts to “movements” which seek to destroy it. So the Fascists were fundamentally still a party-type organization; only the Nazis and the Bolsheviks were real movements. And the Nazis and Bolsheviks saw each other as true peers, and looked with contempt on the mere Fascists. Much follows from that distinction. Authoritarians have stable goals, even if not overtly admidded outside those running them; movements need not have any particular goals, save to keep the movement moving, so becoming more fluid and cult-like over time — one reads about the supervention of the SA by the SS and then the conuous invention of new inner layers within the SS, each more detached from specific skills than the ones before — until they collapse because they aren’t really organized around getting anything particular done. She argues that the parties and the movements co-travel early on, and that the parties fail to recognize the difference in what they are dealing with, until eventually they get eaten up and didn’t see it coming. When I read or hear Stuart Stevens I have a strong sense of that. All that reads very comfortably with the situation at the
Re: [FRIAM] "Weather line" on 14
A few km or even tens of km does not seem long to me on geological scales. If we have slowly formed crustal rock, it could be fairly uniform. Then if there is a bending stress on large scales from upwelling, the least-disruption fracture would be a long straightish crack along the the line perpendicular to the bending moment. Also, the material that goes into that crack is presumably pretty liquid. So while it is okay to call it “rock pressing up”, I think the image of liquid squeezing into a fracture, shoving apart the sides, and putting maximal stress on the apex which extends the fracture further, is more like the picture. And in whatever page somebody sent, they say the fracture that forms the Galisteo dike shows evidence of having formed in that way, by chaining one extension onto another, along the stress line where the faces are being pushed apart. When this happens in the sea bottom, seismometers can listen to what sounds like a zipping sound, as the crack from some new upwelling extends and extends. I forget if it was a review by Karen von Damm or by Deb Kelley in which I learned that. They have some name for it, which I am forgetting. Of course, continental crustal rock is not the same as seabed basalts (which are probably much more uniform), but even so, these are geologically fairly small features we are talking about. Eric > On Jun 23, 2024, at 12:21 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > Yes, Barry. I heard you but I had the bit in my teeth. I apologize. Your > point seemed, for me, to beg the question I was obsessed with at the moment. > Where did a straight line of such scale come from? Now, I can see why a > radar echo might be a straight line, but why a line of dirt? What > geological process produces linear dikes? I can under why a sediment > layers might be horizontal layers and I guess maybe, I can imagine that the > seam between two layers might get rotated ninety degrees and then crack and > then I imagine igneous rock might press up through that seam. Is that the > sort oft thing you had in mind? > > N > > Nick > > On Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 5:38 PM Barry MacKichan > wrote: > Several times on the Thuram Zoom call, I asked “Do you mean that volcanic > dike?” but I always seemed to say it just as someone else started up. > > I have two memories about it. > > • The president of SAR conjured up the image of 3,000 Comanches coming > through the gap (Comanche Gap) as they came to Santa Fe in the 1770s to agree > to the truce with New Mexico — the truce that I believe enabled the Spanish > to hang on for the next 50 years in NM. The image has stuck with me. > > • I thought it would be a great place to find petroglyphs, and indeed > it is. The density of the “No trespassing” signs along the road increases as > the square of the inverse of the distance from the point where the road > crosses the dike. They make it clear exactly where you should not trespass. > > —Barry > > On 21 Jun 2024, at 11:18, Stephen Guerin wrote: > > Research last night on historical geologic maps got the name of that as the > "Galisteo Dike". composition and description in attachment. There is one > further with as well. Also known as the Creston or Comanche Gap > > https://galisteo.nmarchaeology.org/sites/creston.html > > > Basic formation given this description (chatGPT): > > > The Galisteo Dike is a geological formation characterized by its composition > and physical properties, indicating its formation through volcanic activity. > Here’s a detailed interpretation of its formation based on the description > provided: > > 1. **Composition Analysis**: The Galisteo Dike consists of micro-monzonite, a > fine-grained igneous rock. It contains a mixture of minerals including > plagioclase, potassium feldspar, titan-augite, titaniferous biotite, apatite, > and opaque grains in a glass groundmass. This mineral composition suggests > that the dike formed from magma that cooled relatively quickly, preventing > the formation of large crystals. > > 2. **Physical Description**: The dike appears as a dark gray, fine-grained > rock with a salt and pepper texture. It weathers to dark brown or grayish > brown and forms a wall-like rampart. This implies that the dike is resistant > to weathering and erosion, standing out in the landscape as a prominent > feature. > > 3. **Structural Features**: The dike is described as comprising many right > echelon overlapping segments varying in length from 200 to 1200 feet and up > to 18 feet thick. This pattern of overlapping segments indicates that the > magma was injected into pre-existing fractures in the surrounding rock, > likely under significant pressure, causing the fractures to open and > propagate in an en echelon pattern. > > 4. **Geological Age**: The dike is dated to 26.55 million years ago, placing > its formation in the Oligocene epoch. This was a time of significant
Re: [FRIAM] Fridman V Rogan (V Rutt), Tolerance and Charitability
Russell Brand, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Brand I am put in mind of Joaquin Phoenix’s style of preening as Joker in whichever batman movie it was. > On Jun 15, 2024, at 7:16 AM, glen wrote: > > Sorry for not being clear. Yes, Fridman is part of the alt-right pipeline, > similar to Rogan and ... oh, what's the name of that comedy actor hippie guy > who used to be lefty but is now toxic? ... oh never mind. The point is that, > in the name of all-sidesism and trying to connect, listen, have empathy with, > the "deplorables" because they're suffering so much for having their privis > slowly stripped from them, we upregulate the vectors for their brain worms. > > We have a pub regular who is a hard righty who consistently argues against > women's rights, gay rights, democracy, etc. Musk is his hero. I've broached > that he read some Thiel. But that's too philosophical for his tastes. Anyway, > I've been asked more than once why I entertain that guy ... why not just shut > him down as soon as he starts spouting his regressive rhetoric? I'm not sure, > to be honest. It's either to remind me of who I was as a kid back in Texas > (?) or maybe to demonstrate to my lefty friends that, yes, actual people > actually believe this stuff (?) ... or maybe to help learn on-the-fly tactics > for nudging one way or the other (?) ... IDK. But I can say that his words > don't offend me. They clearly shut down almost everyone else there. But it > doesn't seem to bother me at all. Maybe I'm a psychopath? > > > On 6/14/24 14:52, steve smith wrote: >> glen wrote: >>> One of Fridman's schticks is "love" ... to entertain, say, fascists who, >>> were they to be in any sort of powerful position, would gladly destroy you >>> and all your loved ones. But as long as they're fringe enough, you can >>> listen to them with the same credulity with which you listen to, say, Sara >>> Walker. Maybe it's a form of security through obscurity? There's so much >>> traffic that nobody can separate the wheat from the chaff. So Lex can't be >>> a part of the alt-right pipeline. Obviously. >> I'm not sure if I read you right here? You are positing that Lex is part of >> the "alt-right pipeline"? Or more that his "tolerance" of the >> kushner/netanyahu/ctucker types enables the alt-right? I see his "tech >> bro" embrace of the likes of Musk/Bezos/Zuck to be it's own problem but not >> precisely as an alt-right phenomenon? > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,85cexfM1lZSaocCRnu4QjO3jQ6kfuDGP05sm4Q7gkJ-6BhENicvOjcS_ztUG00Mx9tL7S8xmrBAuVCJGHtL83U6kUhy9MNE6UrRzXn-N=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,XzHYFP1OrCTYrQ2E7WrQHjvrtzraBz6LXCNNcvhGtAnth9uWGqJm3aTsoA65_Z8MoQR1w4P2GgJPUf7OmuxDKTFcYB4nNx7pqDtVrN95L1lWkcM,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,1bC3Q8C4yZQNvR3Sy1bYZKPzkt-La-eiu5MMvL9XUOmNqS1GNqq7g6lX5bonJ89nKr2rSFHU-MmeG2RMI1Bl2Kmdhqj5Az9NsLdgb0bMe__9nvzcMtaD0jsF4CI,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,3splwgh4FwzqUMsvRNNEU8UyNANiTYv1yAoTGKZBV-YWEpt4Tq8vropzOwA_osjFR7Kla39nJJol2I74dpUaHI0C1kY6ajahQrkYLYfD9OFS1foU=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium
It’s funny. The way it came out when I wrote it was as you read, but different from the thing that brought the term to mind. I did read the Huffpost piece Frank forwarded (there; admitted it). And the sense was that there can’t be really _all_ that many foot fetishists in the world. For the Gen-Zers to somehow let their lives be dictated by the fact that some distinctive group exists on the margins, and that because they couldn’t put down the phone and never left the bedroom, they know about those people, really gives easy targets for all the tropes people level against them. I mean; really? Wagging the dog works for that too, though. I don’t know if there’s a greek root for it. > On Jun 4, 2024, at 8:31 AM, glen wrote: > > I don't think "extreme" is the right concept. I think a concept like > "insubstantial but high influence" ... something like "sensitive" or "agile". > For that, I like canard: > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.etymonline.com%2fword%2fcanard%2c=E,1,npxdZq4bwaeRH64d007qgaQ3IjXRtkPFNtPZPKvzCkMSBy7Joy8bAVWEKax5WOyVEjUoP35oB5fIWChDhX2xoNQhYspvX4L0mBUBL_Fs2dQ3fl-BWQ,,=1 > which I learned in the context of missiles. But "government by canard" seems > close to "wag the dog". So that's where I'd start my search. > > On 6/3/24 15:59, Santafe wrote: >> Is there a Greek root to build a word for Government by the Extremes? >>> On Jun 4, 2024, at 6:42 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: >>> >>> This is the article I had in mind >>> >>> https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-gen-z-wont-show-their-feet_l_64cd1b52e4b01796c06c0cc4 > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,EIZ5_axR_7HPNFv632vzL5d6-1Qs0QCctu311huMi38VEw-VwDmR0leIaGccD53hv94iA2dPSjUuAzJD-iZymegb9tZSdun6IDzFDexcrOdo8Tbl=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,1Dzpf_6qoPUJwy7bO4tpwP0SCY4JTRL-cpmKgBNA_kThAtukZ5FNaKJQfhN7WPlNqM_ipHLXXJomEIRMy2KKSjeJ2M-fGN5hHi1Xr2vByGncJCc7Yac6I_8,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,SwtIa3-BOXV9Zw-SK8oZTBazfxzk3cSx41KOesHTN2O2mml6F-37C_i86zePg8MeWimd_1LKRWPU5pjhGr_qDrTtid8qz8lKtLd6zOw-MiE-jZMv=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,VBA8jocJsVFrAgDNiYXEjvXnKgRIbi3QaOZgqAx10j8DlDlztJZ-wFUPaC_rSn4fTX6GdcnRnQB9Qr7FK1CH1q1FUm3JYhzdN5Q3HfNDryAbcslOAAD8sYEn=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium
Is there a Greek root to build a word for Government by the Extremes? > On Jun 4, 2024, at 6:42 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > This is the article I had in mind > > https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-gen-z-wont-show-their-feet_l_64cd1b52e4b01796c06c0cc4 > > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Fri, May 31, 2024, 9:34 AM Frank Wimberly wrote: > It exists in my mind. Joke. > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Fri, May 31, 2024, 8:59 AM Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > This (see below) got served up to me out of the blue this morning. The way > it's put here, Frank and Bruce might actually agree with it. Still, it's > straight Peirce. I have no idea who the author is; do any of you? > > Here's crucial passage. > > Our understanding of reality needs a complete overhaul. Rather than viewing > it as a fixed, external stage upon which events play out, we should consider > it as a dynamic interplay between observers and their environment > [experiences]. Reality, in this view, doesn’t reside out there, independent > of us. Instead, reality is our interactions with the world [one another], > shaped and defined by our observations [experiences]. Reality is nothing but > [the telos of] those interactions between subjects. > > I had to make those little changes because the author, like so many aspiring > monists, after arguing against observer independence for a hundred words, > slips up by implying that the "environment" is anything but something else > that we have to agree upon, if we are ever going to get on with life. > > By the way, I stipulate that nothing in his argument has ANYTHING to do with > quantum mechanics. The argument would be sound even if the idea of a quantum > had never been thought. However, I like the idea of physics as some kind of > language of convergent belief. > > By the way, In history there seem to have been two ways for people converge > on a common experience, charisma and democracy. In charisma, we pick some > idiot (usually a psychopath) and share his or her experience. In democracy, > we find some way to blend our experiences into a common view. Sometime in > the next few months we will decide which way we want to go. Do we want to > assign Trump the job of determining our common reality, or do we want to > continue to work it out amongst ourselves through experiment and argument. > > Weather gorgeous here in the mosquito infested swamp. Garden thriving. A > much better year. > > Watch that dry line in TX. It's truly amazing. Can it really be true that I > am the only weather fanatic on a list that is devoted to complexity? How > can that be? > > NIck > > > > https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af > > Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist: It is Time to Embrace it and Move On > The shift towards a unified, observer-dependent reality forces us to let go — > once and for all — of the idea of objective reality > medium.com > > > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,PePTnW0vcYG0wKtcXW3Swr0RwFDEB_h1FW3aw2wRG48TaIgEHghtCRajRs_mDn-zVkmr6cuNxySnBYW3TlJPG4QDNKMmWPsrAeNMwEX1-qUpGhyDm_mtBGSOF8Q,=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,RqsFZzy69OP6a9-u3qdCovAds24YjRHzwmfA9IQiKdOreuUTxpAGimBNO_ocS40peNMuMJXim4egTQ-hKMSX5HR4ggZ-BghyGzXcfL4GzgxlYWbi500oJanELohT=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,QV-_ZwpZT5N_8YQAbmN5eDv5EopMmbjtFi_Yc63S1adVUfyCGpzAHLZBAAW6YNxbhYkdNo_rR8DR3WAc3osXzeLBX5e0rTZ57C2EWAzfAA,,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,zHyi4MEtqdTVDfElCDuhCBYvneNR4Yh-Qxm7Jpygtdj_q-e9Ld07zOyR_Tagzn4ejJauXvi2bNfgxk5j9re0blNyduYlnHlPIzAWkoUBLQ_BAenzkPRF5g,,=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays
Re: [FRIAM] Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist. We’ve Known This for a Century. It’s Time to Embrace It and Move On. | by Casper Wilstrup | Machine Consciousness | Medium
I read a little way in. He should go on Joe Rogan. Also, the graphic at the front is perfectly paired with the writing. Eric (apologies for the Lashon hara; I know one should not do that) > On May 31, 2024, at 11:58 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > This (see below) got served up to me out of the blue this morning. The way > it's put here, Frank and Bruce might actually agree with it. Still, it's > straight Peirce. I have no idea who the author is; do any of you? > > Here's crucial passage. > > Our understanding of reality needs a complete overhaul. Rather than viewing > it as a fixed, external stage upon which events play out, we should consider > it as a dynamic interplay between observers and their environment > [experiences]. Reality, in this view, doesn’t reside out there, independent > of us. Instead, reality is our interactions with the world [one another], > shaped and defined by our observations [experiences]. Reality is nothing but > [the telos of] those interactions between subjects. > > I had to make those little changes because the author, like so many aspiring > monists, after arguing against observer independence for a hundred words, > slips up by implying that the "environment" is anything but something else > that we have to agree upon, if we are ever going to get on with life. > > By the way, I stipulate that nothing in his argument has ANYTHING to do with > quantum mechanics. The argument would be sound even if the idea of a quantum > had never been thought. However, I like the idea of physics as some kind of > language of convergent belief. > > By the way, In history there seem to have been two ways for people converge > on a common experience, charisma and democracy. In charisma, we pick some > idiot (usually a psychopath) and share his or her experience. In democracy, > we find some way to blend our experiences into a common view. Sometime in > the next few months we will decide which way we want to go. Do we want to > assign Trump the job of determining our common reality, or do we want to > continue to work it out amongst ourselves through experiment and argument. > > Weather gorgeous here in the mosquito infested swamp. Garden thriving. A > much better year. > > Watch that dry line in TX. It's truly amazing. Can it really be true that I > am the only weather fanatic on a list that is devoted to complexity? How > can that be? > > NIck > > > > https://medium.com/machine-cognition/objective-reality-doesnt-exist-it-is-time-to-accept-it-and-move-on-7524b494d6af > > Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist: It is Time to Embrace it and Move On > The shift towards a unified, observer-dependent reality forces us to let go — > once and for all — of the idea of objective reality > medium.com > > > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,DpegIvK8Dk8zUpXBwVjulA4Quijbv_HRZXdzNZPWVOHEUUO2-fRA68ryLdP4SrtB_eiycBMTgHdJXxHSuxaY3hSVQReQsudUC9GsDpM4rBYqYDBZX1PQC_hM4g,,=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,D9DitDGMmZFG2qT81hVZw7BhTBx-ACRy4v_QbKJiYOWO6TDmF5cy7rg9m_0RnTqu2C2i2W60bQuiwlk_ffq68v0qja1eTt61VuZ0sbDhOANjERKjE69P=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,CpqThF6FlJleoR6zc2B8M-wo3yjmzdqmEC87OyRa6Id7eA1Ps4zPVyZCElQ9KH7U-F2oizq9XlMdRlDzT29wYAikI_6i1SYsPom2xZiPLXxJ0F9hCzxp1qw,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,YAFMmwlzyCq3r0ScSXZoGagI-_oF0-Jwr2eD7vmvy28yYHiS-xQh_rDaHsEqlzt-he2atMVunLY04ugJ-cxavESHCOpJmZElKQNJoImuSNLu7MIVy0Ks=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT and William James
Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT and William James > > > > > > > > __ __ > > > > > > > > >And we humans are different? > > > > > > > > __ __ > > > > > > > > In a word, yes. > > > > > > > > --- > > > > Frank C. Wimberly > > > > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > > > > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > > > > > > > 505 670-9918 > > > > Santa Fe, NM > > > > > > > > __ __ > > > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 6, 2023, 12:14 PM Nicholas Thompson > > mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > > <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> > > <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > > <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>>>> > > wrote: > > > > > > > > */However, it's important to remember that there are > > also important differences between a large language model and human > > consciousness. While a large language model can generate text that may seem > > to flow like a stream of consciousness, it does not have the same kind of > > subjective experience that humans do, and its output is based solely on > > statistical patterns in the input it has been trained on./* > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > And we humans are different? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 4, 2023 at 11:51 AM Steve Smith > > mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com > > <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com > > <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com > > <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>>>> wrote: > > > > > > > > Also second EricS's appreciation for having > > someone else(s) maintain a coherent conversation for the myriad ideas that > > it allows me to explore without being central to the maintenance of the > > thread. I realize this may be almost pure tangent to others, so I rarely > > expect anyone to take my bait unless it is to correct any egregious > > mis-attributions or think-utational fallacies. > > > > > > > > Starting with Glen's > > assertion/suggestion/assumption that there is not mind-stuff and body > > stuff, just body stuff: I appeal to the general abstraction of Emergence > > and use Russell Standish's example in his "Theory of Nothing > > <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/967936.Theory_Of_Nothing?from_search=true_srp=true=GgXJ0ISQei=1 > > > > <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/967936.Theory_Of_Nothing?from_search=true_srp=true=GgXJ0ISQei=1> > > > > <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/967936.Theory_Of_Nothing?from_search=true_srp=true=GgXJ0ISQei=1 > > > > <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/967936.Theory_Of_Nothing?from_search=true_srp=true=GgXJ0ISQei=1>>>" > > that a water molecule is not wet... wetness is a property of aggregates of > > water molecules. I would jump a dozen layers of emergent-bootstrapping > > from there to assert that "mind stuff", if it ever makes sense, is an > > emergent property of "body stuff". But by analogy > > would not want to say that wetness (and other properties of bulk water > > molecules) is not strictly "molecular dynamics stuff". And even if one > > did that, the recursion/reduction-ad-absurdum requires that one > > acknowledge/notice/invoke that the > > > properties of any molecule is "emergent" from the elementary > > particles from which it might be composed. > > > > > > > > I think we all believe in free-electrons, > > protons, neutrons but also recognize that *most* of our observed universe > > is shaped not by *those properties* (much less the properties of quarks and > > gluons or 10d loops of abstract things we call strings) but rather by the > > properties (once again, not of molecular dyna
Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT and William James
It’s helpful to have a conversation being maintained by somebod(ies) else, to which one can be a bystander without the distraction of coming up with contributions to it. Things can suggest themselves that get pushed out of awareness when one is carrying the discourse and figuring out what to do next within it. In reading the below, about the time I got to the lines: > The mind-body problem is the philosophical question of how the mind and body > are related. One of the main issues is how mental processes such as thoughts, > emotions, and consciousness are related to physical processes in the brain > and body. I was prompted with a term to refer to these mental/physical things. First, my sense of all this is one of witnessing structures in conversation. Maybe I am more primed to that because with ChatGPT as the topic, one fronts awareness of conversation as somewhat free-floating from its semantic ground. As tokens in conversation, it is perfectly sensible to say that (thoughts, emotions, consciousness) are in a category Mental, while (weakness, hunger, itching) go into a category Physical. Not only is it okay to say they fit tolerably into “categories” (or “classes”); the reason they do so is that they are connected by all sorts of linguistic usage relations. The relations probably in no small part bring about the stability of the categorical sense of the terms. But what word do we then use to refer to such classes in speech? I would use the word “registers”. The Mental is a register of conversation about events, and the Physical is another register. Jochen’s email below has ChatGPT saying James referred to these as “aspects” of various bodily or embodied events. Sometimes I’m okay with a word like “aspects”, but it invites essentialist thinking. That the event is like a computer-language object, which has properties (the aspects) that define its interface, and not only are the properties ascribable to the object, but their status as defined elements of the interface is also a real-thing, and not merely a frame-dependent convenient compression. But using “aspects” thoughtlessly does two things: it makes essentialism a habit, which I think will often be invalid, and it neglects the communications role that “register” highlights. I would attach this to Glen’s fairly terse characterization that there is no mind-stuff contrasted with body-stuff, but just one kind of stuff, which if we have to choose a word for it we can call body-stuff. From a perspective of aspects, the terse version could be closer to or further from a more fine-grained description, depending on whether the essentialist view is more or less appropriate for one or another phemonenon we want to discuss. But I think the idea that speech provides us certain conventional registers to bound discussions of phenomena, and that these too may be better- or worse-fit to the organization of the phenomena themselves, is another fair fine-graining of the terse characterization, running somewhat parallel to the aspects or essences fine-graining (though, as always, connected to it through a kind of message-passing and filtering for structural agreement). Eric > On Feb 28, 2023, at 5:23 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > I enjoy talking with ChatGPT about famous scientists, thinkers, writers and > philosophers. Because it is trained on vast amounts of data it knows them > all: Pascal, Cervantes, Dante, Hugo, Goethe, Leibniz, Newton, Humboldt, > Shakespeare,... It can summarize almost any book which is remarkable. Today I > have asked it about William James and Anil Seth > > Me: You certainly have heard of William James, one of the fathers of > Psychology? > > ChatGPT: Yes, I'm familiar with William James. He was an American philosopher > and psychologist who is often referred to as the "father of American > psychology." He made significant contributions to the development of > psychology as a scientific discipline, and his ideas and writings continue to > influence psychology and related fields to this day. > > Some of James' most influential contributions to psychology include his > theory of functionalism, which emphasized the study of the purpose and > function of behavior and mental processes, rather than their underlying > structures; his work on consciousness, which he famously described as a > "stream" of continuously changing thoughts and perceptions; and his > exploration of the relationship between the mind and the body, which he > called the "mind-body problem." > > James also wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including religion, > philosophy, and human nature. His most famous book, "The Principles of > Psychology," was published in 1890 and is still considered a classic in the > field. > > Me: Can you summarize his book "The Principles of Psychology"? > > ChatGPT: Certainly! "The Principles of Psychology" is a comprehensive and > influential textbook
Re: [FRIAM] Magic Harry Potter mirrors or more?
This is fun. Will have to watch it when I have time. Is there a large active genre just now combining ChatGPT wiht deepfakes, to generate video of whomeever-saying-whatever? I was thinking a couple of years ago about what direction in big-AI would be the most distructive, in requiring extra cognitive load to check what was coming in through every sense channel all the time. Certainly, as much as we must live by habit, because doing everything through the prefrontal cortex all the time is exhausting (go to a strange country, wake up in the middle of the night, where are the lightswitches in this country and how do they work?), there clearly are whole sensory modalities that we have just taken for granted as long as we could. I have assumed that the audiovisual channel of watching a person say something was near the top of that list. Clearly a few years ago, deepfakes suddenly took laziness off the table for that channel. The one help was that human-generated nonsense still takes human time, on which there is some limit. But if we have machine-generated nonsense, delivered through machine-generated rendering, we can put whole servers onto it full-time. Sort of like bitcoin mining. Burn a lot of irreplaceable carbon fuel to generate something of no value and some significant social cost. So I assume there is some component of the society that is bored and already doing this (?) Eric > On Feb 28, 2023, at 9:10 PM, Gillian Densmore wrote: > > This john oliver piece might either amus, and or mortify you. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqa8Zo2XWc4_channel=LastWeekTonight > > On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 4:00 PM Gillian Densmore > wrote: > > > On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 2:06 PM Jochen Fromm wrote: > The "Transformer" movies are like the "Resident evil" movies based on a > similar idea: we take a simple, almost primitive story such as "cars that can > transform into alien robots" or "a bloody fight against a zombie apocalypse" > and throw lots of money at it. > > But maybe deep learning and large language models are the same: we take a > simple idea (gradient descent learning for deep neural networks) and throw > lots of money (and data) at it. In this sense transformer is a perfect name > of the architecture, isn't it? > > -J. > 樂 > > Original message > From: Gillian Densmore > Date: 2/28/23 1:47 AM (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Magic Harry Potter mirrors or more? > > Transformer architecture works because it's cybertronian technology. And is > so advanced as to be almost magic. > > On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 3:51 PM Jochen Fromm wrote: > Terrence Sejnowski argues that the new AI super chatbots are like a magic > Harry Potter mirror that tells the user what he wants to hear: "When people > discover the mirror, it seems to provide truth and understanding. But it does > not. It shows the deep-seated desires of anyone who stares into it". ChatGPT, > LaMDA, LLaMA and other large language models would "take in our words and > reflect them back to us". > https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/technology/ai-chatbot-information-truth.html > > It is true that large language models have absorbed unimaginably huge amount > of texts, but what if our prefrontal cortex in the brain works in the same > way? > https://direct.mit.edu/neco/article/35/3/309/114731/Large-Language-Models-and-the-Reverse-Turing-Test > > I think it is possible that the "transformer" architecture is so successful > because it is - like the cortical columns in the neocortex - a modular > solution for the problem what comes next in an unpredictable world > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_column > > -J. > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >
Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are not.
gt; and came up with a 50% chance of population collapse by 2100. This was > based on 2005 population figures. See appendix B of my book "Theory of > Nothing". I haven't bothered publishing that study elsewhere. > > Of course - the steady growth rate assumption is extreme. We know that > the population growth rate is decreasing, with the inflection point a > couple of decades ago. On current demographics, the earth's population > will peak around 2070, and then go into a bit of decline, with some > countries such as China going into reverse considerably sooner (eg I > believe 2030s is the current prediction for China to start having a > declining population). > > Natural population decline due to declining fertility is much > preferable to a hard extinction extinction, of course, particular on a > century timescale. So we should live with the fact that we may not > have any grandchildren/great grandchildren whatever your stage of life > is. I'm already comfortable with that - I doubt I'll have any > grandchildren :). > > > On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 03:10:45PM -0700, Gillian Densmore wrote: >> WTF, how are they coming up with these numbers? I know it sucks a whales >> ** >> these days to make friends. Much less a GF (or BF). But something aint >> adding >> up here. Did they ask both people in the relationship? >> >> On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 3:04 PM Steve Smith wrote: >> >> >>In a very limited and somewhat ad-hoc (latin hypercube of 10 samples of 5 >>variables) ensemble study (100,000 samples) I did with an NREL colleague >> in >>2019 using the World3 Model we found a very ad-hoc observation that among >>the various ideas of what was a "good outcome" in 2100 (like GDP/person or >>other vernacular ideas of "quality of life") that virtually *all* of them >>involved a sooner-rather-than-later population collapse. >> >>To the extent that Modeling (in general), SD modeling more particularly >> and >>the World3 model in particular I wasn't very inclined to take the >>quantitative results of any of very seriously but it was an interesting >>(but unsurprising) qualitative result? >> >>For anyone interested in an interactive web implementation to dork with >>yourself: >> >> >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2finsightmaker.com%2finsight%2f2pCL5ePy8wWgr4SN8BQ4DD%2f=E,1,waM3Y4hIAP7DIilGuyQdtxHgvgZuOYCBMUFaMVDvHa1Cocq8htqFiVTp_wL46S7NKnkFroo4JEO946Xjf2hZw6ERqbDNWbSrT2zf5GFR=1 >>The-World3-Model-Classic-World-Simulation >> >>FWIW I dorked around with it in honor of Jimmy Carter's recent admission >> to >>a hospice program... looking at what it might have meant if we'd followed >>his lead back around 1978. Worth noting, I (foolishly by hindsight) >>helped run him out of town to be replaced with Ronnie Raygun ... "drill >>baby drill, burn baby burn!" >> >>And an excerpt from a recent (2020) update synopsis of the Limits to >> Growth >>project/idea/model/results: >> >> >>[cid] >> >>Worth noting: The population drops in BAU/BAU2 (Biznezz as Usual) >>represent increased death rates rather than reduced fertility rates. >> >>The bigger (or smaller by another measure) question of what decisions >>anyone of us might make (for ourselves, our progeny, our friends, whatever >>policy-making is in our jurisdiction, in our imagination) is a much >>trickier one based on myriad principles/values that likely few of us share >>unless we choose a high dimension-reduction strategy (e.g. single-issue >>conception).My parents were overtly ZPG advocates and I have one >> sister >>which lead me to feel plenty "done" after 2 children myself. Each of my >> 2 >>have chosen to only have 1. Many of my friends have chosen to be >>childless. Most of my peers who were from large sibling groups have at >>best a replacement cohort among their children and nieces/nephews which >> are >>headed toward a NPG in the following generation. >> >>My current heuristic is that if I want my grandchildren to reproduce, I >>need to get out of the way which means unless their other grandparents >>don't have the grace of knocking off by the time they want to do that, >> then >>it is up to me... no open-ended life-extension unless I expect to leave >> the >>planet (hear my pain Elon?) I don't think the World3 has been
Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are not.
Yeah. Bill Rees and Meghan Seibert want 90% of us to die https://www.realgnd.org/people (or a position paper somewhere in their writings). On their people page, you can see what happy ecologists they are, and BIll is a friendly old grandfather with a beard. I shouldn’t be snotty. I think they are actually very tortured about their dictum that 90% of us should die. And I think in some sense they are committed, good people. But I put them up here, because somehow people collapsing under decades of frustration seem to develop a misanthropy that causes them to forget It’s Not All About You (and how tortured you are, being the only truth-teller in a lonely world). If you really care about the thing you say, then it should eclipse your own self-importance enough that you just stay focused on the task. I don’t know in how far their positions turn out to represent solid numbers. Maybe some part of it. But I have said that before. Eric > On Feb 22, 2023, at 1:06 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: > > A few really do want our species to go extinct, but many believe that we are > already overpopulated and need to level off or reduce population. I lean only > slightly toward the latter. > > On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 12:51 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: > Agreed. But if we don't construct any new ones and the existing ones all die > (they will) we will run out. Is that a reasonable goal? > > On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 10:20 AM glen wrote: > We do not need more people. We have plenty of people. Please stop > constructing people. >8^D > > On 2/22/23 09:16, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > I am worried however. I have two grandsons in their 20s. Each has a > > girlfriend. Those young women want nothing to do with babies. I assume > > they have younger siblings. I hope that as they enter their 30s their > > attitudes will change because of the realization that they are running out > > of time. > > > > --- > > Frank C. Wimberly > > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > > > 505 670-9918 > > Santa Fe, NM > > > > On Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 10:08 AM Santafe > <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote: > > > > I think the keyword was young. > > > > You can do that if the old men are all married to young women. > > > > > On Feb 22, 2023, at 12:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson > > mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > > > > Last time I checked, the average number of attached males has to > > equal the average number of attached females, unless, of course, females, > > feel attached to men who don’t feel attached. > > > > > > Sent from my Dumb Phone > > > > > > Begin forwarded message: > > > > > > From: The Hill > <mailto:theh...@email.thehill.com>> > > > Date: February 22, 2023 at 7:01:34 AM MST > > > To: nthomp...@clarku.edu <mailto:nthomp...@clarku.edu> > > > Subject: [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young > > women are not. > > > Reply-To: emailt...@thehill.com <mailto:emailt...@thehill.com> > > > > > > > > > View Online > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Most young men are single. Most young women are not. > > > More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate > > of unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, > > romantic and sexual life of the American male. > > > > > > Read the full story here. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Manage Subscriptions | Sign Up for Other Newsletters | Unsubscribe > > > > > > 1625 K Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20006 > > > > > > Copyright © 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | Privacy Policy | Terms > > of Use > > > > > > To ensure you receive these emails in the future, please add > > > theh...@email.thehill.com <mailto:theh...@email.thehill.com> to your > > address book, contacts or safe senders list. > > > If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely > > unsubscribe. > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/vir
Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are not.
I think the keyword was young. You can do that if the old men are all married to young women. > On Feb 22, 2023, at 12:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson > wrote: > > Last time I checked, the average number of attached males has to equal the > average number of attached females, unless, of course, females, feel attached > to men who don’t feel attached. > > Sent from my Dumb Phone > > Begin forwarded message: > > From: The Hill > Date: February 22, 2023 at 7:01:34 AM MST > To: nthomp...@clarku.edu > Subject: [EXT] News Alert: Most young men are single. Most young women are > not. > Reply-To: emailt...@thehill.com > > > View Online > > > > > > Most young men are single. Most young women are not. > More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate of > unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, romantic > and sexual life of the American male. > > Read the full story here. > > > > > > > Manage Subscriptions | Sign Up for Other Newsletters | Unsubscribe > > 1625 K Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20006 > > Copyright © 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use > > To ensure you receive these emails in the future, please add > theh...@email.thehill.com to your address book, contacts or safe senders list. > If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe. > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,ffC0Dfd7MZdPX_W6LzkN9KZ_quA-qBiJt_gWCzCogm1234wYXo2-crRVOoAchhkFjWuEAawUtk4LXQ8O7QO3De1g2cQSyM4l-5fJZSnkm1HMg3UFBWOTHSQ,=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,Kn67mLSA550ZZjRKhacs778e-hABd5XVgR0JmardZhqPWx8ewaxWOOmTF6J2BcWvIypoSuB4VUV07eoa5reFPIs2rzuK9Bxx8pxVPMbTKeVFvwll_xQVOyfCgA,,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,bhBGEn77cTwUsIPDUMPonRwldGeq4sy61oSO0jgY0Hp9qC_2Gsdp3t0SIQv8Sr4ZahZTyPPTGLfR_HQNMZLF-8gkg0cyRScRbvy2qNzCrCI,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,3xi5aMOcmYpd2PuRNA84IFZqOrZITgtfEXsMY9q3V5z08sZvoOmQFjopO5pFtYZk17Kvsc_qCzhPTnhx9lXbwg1psN12VsfrDlYyerEF03DV7XqzG7av1H9Q=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
> On Feb 20, 2023, at 10:46 AM, glen wrote: > > By even using the phrases "mental stuff" or "mental life", *you* are > implicitly asserting there are 2 things: mental and non-mental. There is no > such difference, in my opinion. Now, while I am often a moron, I don't deny > that people *think* there's a difference. E.g. when you finally get that snap > of understanding while running, or taking a shower or whatever, about some > concept you've been working on, it *feels* like pure mentation. The shift > just feels cognitive, not bodily. But I would maintain my stance that this is > an abstraction, a sloughing off of the bodily details. (The illusion is a > byproduct of focus and attention, which are mechanical implementations of > abstraction.) My stance is that, however cognitive such things feel, they > aren't. You wouldn't, *could not*, have arrived at that state without your > body, or if you had a different body. Why is it bad to give “mental” a term, to refer to patterns of activity in bodies that can be distinguished by some criteria? Surely there are cognitive activities I can engage in, that depend in essential ways on the particular human cortex in context, that are not produced by nerve nets in jellyfish. To say that the classes of patterns are distinguishable is not to suggest that they are non-bodily at all. The fact that all this is rendered in language, which is pervasively structured around the subject perspective (whether in relation to linguistic constructs for objects, or as a reporter of “introspection”) contextualizes “mental” references within other stuff that offers less flexibility of stance than our language for some other inter-object relations. But if we see our language as an un-fully-seen thing, and thus a place of hazards, this doesn’t seem worse than any other unfinished business. Were it not for the philosphers, I am not sure “mental” would even have got its distracting connotation of “non-corporeal”. Maybe it would, and I’m just being obtuse. Eric > > Yes, as long as your body is *similar* to others' bodies, you could arrive at > a *similar* understanding, but not the same. > > On 2/18/23 05:29, Eric Charles wrote: >> On 2/16/23 23:35, ⛧ glen wrote: >>> I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of course. >> Well... In this context, I mean whatever the "psyche" part of panpsychism >> entails. >> Given that I don't believe in disembodied minds, I'm with you 100% on >> everything you do being "body stuff". Which, presumably, leads to the >> empirical question of what types of bodies do "psyche", and where those >> types of bodies can be found. >> You say further that: 'No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff"'. >> Well, now we have something to actually talk about then! Dave West, >> unsurprisingly, stepped in strongly on the side of dirt having psyche in at >> least a rudimentary form, I presume he would assert that you (Glen) do >> mental stuff too. Dave also asserts that his belief in panpsychism /does/ >> affect how he lives in the world. Exactly to the extent that his way of >> living in the world is made different by the belief, panpsychism /_is_/ more >> than just something he says. >> Steve's discussion about what it would feel like to be the bit of dirt >> trampled beneath a particular foot is a bit of a tangent - potentially >> interesting in its own right. His discussion of when he, personally, starts >> to attribute identity - and potentially psyche - to clumps of inanimate >> stuff seems directly on topic, especially as he too has listed some ways his >> behaviors change when he becomes engaged in those habits. > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,qRyl2ykVbm4IlC3MIfDxVi2CUVfUYhK_H4tgMHaNUvKBTQG3ZJDGP7QyskZxFIdxt4KiAL0fs_5nSMrGtDGkvOKvnXJfwb96AFYLbs5Qdw,,=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,xOFJHcIS7ZBgBaQ1JfUJjryeqhrGUbq8UzDyOjwYXGBgGhBEdKTVuZM3PcbtnpMJLOC_m74yWgDC6tJ3oGEzQEMnMJC2iAYnlZsR_X3KezQ0cEAmcvoMjntk=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,OPs4vX-WAmkek6fM-FbwgU8RItl4svm_OlY5ARClXaz3Qn8nrMgJXuBUdoEmf0DxLAn-lAyN3iCIFoxpqBc39fy2a5vTU8uqeQGXrAfYsj7n5dwTQBlG80Cc2w,,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,WB9-5VhaVkuozGrqAPEEVGhv9NX_zb7GE7UssAcyly_yTKX-wT40SSih_cx9qiojGvxAUnQ39iw6G_vNA9lrwT2JK2dRwYf7fjO4EbyZE35e6Q3QYBYzfYCD=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
want to acknowledge Glen’s formulation here, too, which is helpful and seems both reasonable to the point, and specific enough to explain why Mind and not just-any essentialism. It’s interesting: I know just what people mean when they talk this way about computing’s universality (so, like Seth Lloyd here https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-Scientist/dp/1400033861 ). I would of course use the same language informally, but I would never use the same short-hand if I were trying to be careful about the ontological or epistemologial commitments entailed in things I was saying. To me (as I think to Glen), matter does what it does, and each whole thing is a completely good model only of itself (obviating the point of having a model). Relative to that, I would say if trying to speak carefully, that computing as an equivalence class of real, material phenomena, occupies some different category. The equivalence class is “the thing”. It is not meant to be a full identification with all of any of the phenomena, but rather a collection of signs, conventions for manipulating them, and programs for mapping them to patterns in particular phenomena, that can be integrated without contradictions. It is just their finiteness (or smallness of infinity) that makes a test for consistency possible, and that makes them _intentionally_ incomplete as models for any more-infinite actual phenomenon. There seem to be many things that have sort of an analogous status in this world of abstractions, as things brought into existence only when the world of abstracitons is brought into existence. “Number” seems of a similar kind to “having algorithmic structure”. It doesn’t seem to me like a closed question how we should refer to “their type”, but in a middle-out sort of way, it seems quite reasonable to grant them a different place in experience and cognition than many other categories. And of course, there is a long tedious harangue we can pursue describing them (what “number” “is”, and so forth). So it is much more than nothing, to put behind referring to them that way. Eric > On Feb 20, 2023, at 10:31 AM, glen wrote: > > While I appreciate DaveW's historical ensconcing, I think there's a different > answer to EricS' question. When/if I feel generous to people who talk about > the mind and thinking, I liken it to computation, in the trans-computer sense > of portability ... the idea that you can run the same computation on > different machines. The essentialist tendency, in that seemingly small > domain, is well-exhibited by Turing's universal machines and, I think also, > the conception that reality is information (another monism, I guess). I even > see this in DaveW's attempt to reframe N=1 experimentation (scientific > introspection), as an attempt to discover just how *expressive* that > computation (someone's mind) can be. It's essentialism because it is a > feature of all possible worlds. Even if our universe had no humans or > animals, computation is still present. It's the only essence because it's the > only feature present in all possible worlds. > > My hitch, which prevents me from authentically playing that game, is that > semantics requires full grounding. There is no such thing as pure > portability. The same computation *cannot* occur on different machines. At > best, you can shoe horn equivalence classes, like "for all intents and > purposes, the DaveW computation is similar enough to the EricS computation", > whereas "the Scooter computation (my cat's thinking) is similar to the Dorian > computation (my other cat's thinking)". > > Of course, this all hinges on some particular, maybe perverse, understanding > of "computation". But it's a much more wranglable word than "mind". > > On 2/20/23 04:10, Santafe wrote: >> So there are things in DaveW’s very helpful post below about which I am >> genuinely curious. My tendency is to analyze them, though I have a certain >> habitual fear that asking a question in an analytic mode will come across as >> somehow disrespectful, and that is not my intent. >> The description below sounds to me very much like “essentialism”. If we >> have long human experience that water is wet, and if after many hundreds of >> millenia being human (and longer bring primates etc.) we take on some good >> reasons to describe water as being made of H2O molecules, the essentialist >> habit is to suppose (to take as a philosophical premise?) that there must be >> some attribute of wetness about each molecule, which is then amplified when >> many such molecules make the bulk that even ordinary people experience as >> water. (One could go on a branch and argue that special people also >> experience each in
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
gt; anteceded human beings by eons. "Propriety" in this instance are actions that > lead to the eventual separation of purusa and prakrti; something that will > happen when everything, including those things that are now inanimate, as > well as all animate creatures goes through the rebirth cycle until attaining > a state from which they can attain enlightenment and enter Nirvana. > > Modern philosophers, like Whitehead, take positions closer to Vedic (sans > Nirvana and Karma), than animism—at least to the extent I understand them. > > davew > > > On Mon, Feb 20, 2023, at 5:10 AM, Santafe wrote: >> So there are things in DaveW’s very helpful post below about which I am >> genuinely curious. My tendency is to analyze them, though I have a >> certain habitual fear that asking a question in an analytic mode will >> come across as somehow disrespectful, and that is not my intent. >> >> The description below sounds to me very much like “essentialism”. If >> we have long human experience that water is wet, and if after many >> hundreds of millenia being human (and longer bring primates etc.) we >> take on some good reasons to describe water as being made of H2O >> molecules, the essentialist habit is to suppose (to take as a >> philosophical premise?) that there must be some attribute of wetness >> about each molecule, which is then amplified when many such molecules >> make the bulk that even ordinary people experience as water. (One >> could go on a branch and argue that special people also experience each >> individual molecule as itself and can attest to its wetness, and one >> could try to push the analogy that far, but I want to focus above on >> the essentialist premise as a kind of “mind-set background”.) >> >> One could be essentialist about really anything. The wetness of water, >> the hardness of rock, the warmness of air, the loyalty of friends, or >> pretty much anything that has syntax making such a construction >> possible. >> >> In the Mind community, is the central orientation a commitment to >> essentialism as a posture, or is essentialism only to be applied to >> whatever specifically comes under the scope of “mind”? >> >> If only mind is to be framed in this kind of essentialist ontology, why >> does it become the only attribute thus deserving to be framed as an >> essence? Of course, for me to ask that already expresses the point of >> view that the Mind community are arguing against: that people are a >> tiny and late corner in a large universe, and that all this >> conversation about Mind didn’t come into existence until they were >> there to generate it, which seems almost as tiny and niche as any >> particular one of Shakespeare’s plays. But to put the question that >> way is the only way I know to use language. >> >> Eric >> >>> On Feb 18, 2023, at 9:22 AM, Prof David West wrote: >>> >>> Panpsychism is fundamentally dualist. There is 'Mind" and there is >>> 'Matter'. However, neither is found in isolation, Mind is always embedded >>> in Matter and all Matter possesses Mind. This is a proportionate relation: >>> very tiny bits of Matter (string, particle) embed very minute "auras" of >>> matter. As Matter aggregates and organizes (atoms, molecules, organisms); >>> Mind expresses a parallel aggregation and organization. >>> >>> Organization is a key factor. Matter must be organized in a >>> complicated/complex way before the embedded Mind will have a >>> corresponding/complementary organization. Mere accumulation, soil to >>> mountain, is insufficient. (Although, there are places, geographic >>> locations, that seem to exhibit "Mindness." This is a subject that Jenny >>> Quillien is investigating, and which was mentioned previously in the >>> context of Christopher Alexander's QWAN and Liveness.) >>> >>> Dynamism is a key factor. If the organization includes change (growth) and >>> motility (flexible fingers) the corresponding/complementary Mind >>> organization will be more interesting. >>> >>> Paradoxically (a bit), the Matter / Mind dualism is a kind of monism, in >>> the same way that space-time is one thing not two. >>> >>> So glen is correct in saying there is only 'body stuff' but someone else >>> could say, with equal validity, that there is only mind stuff. All depends >>> on which side of Janus you are facing. the lie/truth in in the eye of the >>> observer. >>&
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
about
>>>> "categories of being"? Ontologies, as it were?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regarding ErisS' reflections... I *do* think that animals behave *as
>>>> if* they "have categories", though I don't know what it even means to say
>>>> that they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and his legacy-followers
>>>> (e.g. us) do... I would suggest/suspect that dogs and squirrels are in no
>>>> way aware of these "categories" and that to say that they do is a
>>>> projection by (us) humans who have fabricated the (useful in myriad
>>>> contexts) of a category/Category/ontology. So in that sense they do NOT
>>>> *have* categories... I think in this conception/thought-experiment we
>>>> assume that Martians *would* and would be looking to map their own
>>>> ontologies onto the behaviour (and inferred experiences and judgements?)
>>>> of Terran animals?
>>>>>
>>>>> If I were to invert the subject/object relation, I would suggest that it
>>>> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals' behaviours) we want to
>>>> categorize into ontologies? It is what things are "good for" that make
>>>> them interesting/similar/different to living beings. And "good for" is
>>>> conditionally contextualized. My dog and cat both find squirrels "good
>>>> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks (once).
>>>>>
>>>>> Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved lexicons?
>>>>>
>>>>> To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like this discussion parallels
>>>> the one about LLMs where we train the hell out of variations on learning
>>>> classifier systems until they are as good as (or better than) we (humans)
>>>> are at predicting the next token in a string of human-generated tokens (or
>>>> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot distinguish from a
>>>> string generated by another human, in particular one with the proverbial
>>>> 10,000 hours of specialized training). The fact that or "ologies" tend to
>>>> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and in fact usually
>>>> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us want to believe (some of
>>>> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the same "ologies" we
>>>> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional journal articles?
>>>>>
>>>>> I think one of the questions that remains present within this group's
>>>> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations we have conjured are
>>>> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of superposed
>>>> alternative formulations? And whether some of those formulations are
>>>> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the existing (accepted)
>>>> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science, etc) are uniquely (and
>>>> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of capturing/describing what is
>>>> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).
>>>>>
>>>>> Some here (self included) may often suggest that such formulation is at
>>>> best a coincidence of history and as well as it "covers" a description of
>>>> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by abstract conception ("all
>>>> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error. But nevertheless still
>>>> useful...
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question (on a tangent) is to ask
>>>> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to conceive of
>>>> Categories? Or did they train their telescopes on ancient Greece and
>>>> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the Greek's philosophical
>>>> traditions? And then, did the gas-balloon creatures floating in the
>>>> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians' who had observed the
>>>> Greeks and thereby come up with their own Categories. Maybe it was those
>>>> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into the neural tissue of
>>>> the Aristotelians and Platonists? Do gas-balloon creatures even have
>>>> solids to be conceived of as Platonic? And are they missing out if they
>>>> don't? Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot? And what would the
>>>> Cheela <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg> sa
Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
It’s the tiniest and most idiosyncratic take on this question, but FWIW, here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113 I actually think that all of what Nick says below is a perfectly good draft of a POV. As to whether animals “have” categories: Spend time with a dog. Doesn’t take very much time. Their interest in conspecifics is (ahem) categorically different from their interest in people, different than to squirrels, different than to cats, different than to snakes. For me to even say that seems like cueing a narcissism of small differences, when overwhelmingly, their behavior is structured around categories, as is everyone else’s. Squirrels don’t mistake acorns for birds of prey. Or for the tree limbs and house roofs one can jump onto. Or for other squirrels. It’s all categories. Behavior is an operation on categories. I found it interesting that you invoked “nouns” as a framework that is helpful but sometimes obstructive. One might just have said “words”. This is interesting to me already, because my syntactician friends will tell you that a noun is not, as we were taught as children, a “word for a person, place, or thing”, but rather a “word in a language that transforms as nouns transform in that language”, which is a bit of an obfuscation, since they do have in common that they are in some way “object-words”. But from the polysemy and synonymy perspective, we see that “meanings” cross the noun-verb syntactic distinction quite frequently for some categories. Eye/see, ear/hear, moon/shine, and stuff like that. My typologist friends tell me that is common but particular to some meanings much more than others. Another fun thing I was told by Ted Chiang a few months ago, which I was amazed I had not heard from linguists, and still want to hold in reserve until I can check it further. He says that languages without written forms do not have a word for “word”. If true, that seems very interesting and important. If Chiang believes it to be true, it is probably already a strong enough regularity to be more-or-less true, and thus still interesting and important. Eric > On Feb 15, 2023, at 1:19 PM, > wrote: > > FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive fed to Thuam by 10.30 Mountain. I > want to hear the experts among you hold forth on WTF a cateogory actually IS. > I am thinking (duh) that a category is a more or less diffuse node in a > network of associations (signs, if you must). Hence they constitute a vast > table of what goes with what, what is predictable from what, etc. This > accommodates “family resemblance” quite nicely. Do I think animals have > categories, in this sense, ABSOLUTELY EFFING YES. Does this make me a > (shudder) nominalist? I hope not. > Words…nouns in particular… confuse this category business. Words place > constraints on how vague these nodes can be. They impose on the network > constraints to which it is ill suited. True, the more my associations with > “horse” line up with your associations with “horse”, the more true the horse > seems. Following Peirce, I would say that where our nodes increasingly > correspond with increasing shared experience, we have evidence ot the > (ultimate) truth of the nodes, their “reality” in Peirce’s terms. Here is > where I am striving to hang on to Peirce’s realism. > The reason I want the geeks to participate tomorrow is that I keep thinking > of a semantic webby thing that Steve devised for the Institute about a decade > ago. Now a semantic web would be a kind of metaphor for an associative web; > don’t associate with other words in exactly the same manner in which > experiences associate with other experiences. Still, I think the metaphor is > interesting. Also, I am kind of re-interested in my “authorial voice”, how > much it operates like cbt. > > Rushing, > > Nick > > From: Friam On Behalf Of Eric Charles > Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 10:29 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening? > > Well shoot. that would do it Thank you! > > > > On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 12:28 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: >> Today is Wednesday, isn't it? >> >> --- >> Frank C. Wimberly >> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, >> Santa Fe, NM 87505 >> >> 505 670-9918 >> Santa Fe, NM >> >> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 10:19 AM Eric Charles >> wrote: >>> Are the Thursday online meetings still happening? I missed a few weeks due >>> to work piling up meetings on, but I'm trying to log in now, and it looks >>> like the meeting hasn't started. >>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>> archives: 5/2017 thru
Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
That makes me feel so good, that I am not the only one who makes that kind of mistake publicly. > On Feb 15, 2023, at 12:27 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > Today is Wednesday, isn't it? > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 10:19 AM Eric Charles > wrote: > Are the Thursday online meetings still happening? I missed a few weeks due to > work piling up meetings on, but I'm trying to log in now, and it looks like > the meeting hasn't started. > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,OyhUG-ORXQ5jixlePFUUXUm09mvSQrQl22RJS5wN5yX6rgisyOu3TfHURy6dISBisgseFLvTqA4snQ9AKPzFfDQi1OZ2OJle-mN0ZBImd8hk=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,xCIGZpX0W4cGWT3skTybmsY4Y8MH2-qXHNNb5osZw386OEpZ1UeeTHoxd-RCXDtHMg7RvkjXWC24Cxc9DXfnfqDofsuJ1dXn50Sz_OPgHA3jORkuoaA,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,7YyCk5LGYGHTfJgfNYICj_WoPUDjG9J5ycBTh4MD6xZWo_6CdiKfD2ZZ2fS3ii95DQjo0_ibjUl7oHt0MSp7M1SMuQQMYEXSYRtWAl82dgAqk4eE=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,L3PkJOX1mun9UuDB5IbJL1j6bexMzGIsCMJW5YFpFXGR6YwCT-eXRP2OJih899uexDhW328KB-pTop6DgC0Ntihhg4cyECrwfm0iyM7RIRVpjF1tenNoAes,=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT is not very smart...
Sorry for the last post. I hadn’t read the link below in this one yet. I will now get back to the work I was supposed to have been doing. Eric > On Feb 10, 2023, at 2:22 PM, glen wrote: > > This was laugh out loud funny for me. YMMV. > > Arguing with AI: My first dispute with Microsoft’s brilliant and boneheaded > Bing search engine > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.geekwire.com%2f2023%2farguing-with-ai-my-first-dispute-with-microsofts-brilliant-and-boneheaded-new-bing-search-engine%2f%3fmc_cid%3de4cf83ee41%26mc_eid%3dd5c14b4c73=E,1,P1Xq0EwlrN6G3WM0A2WTH1H7AomK__NRgyniiFYF0Rz_D4I0KuzYnL9EJlwOg8N1_yIPRafbdPnl4gf5U5NdwCTpUEKCUcjSpM4JRAbx=1 > > I quoted my comment about choosing your use case wisely. In this article, I > think it's clear that mixing the 2 use cases doesn't work out that well ... > yet, anyway. > > On 2/10/23 10:14, glen wrote: >> [⛧] I wanted to write something about how the use case of ChatGPT severely >> biases these perspectives on what GPT3.5 is or can do. But the post was too >> long already. It's sufficient to say there are many many *other* use cases >> for GPT3.5. ChatGPT ≠ GPT3.5. > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam=E,1,ir6m4SkmXohdtGP9Y3caumZaSTghHBR3r1ZpJp0VpbRqdr5TCHQj3E-hAR-6Qa-d1H7jiiBv2iUD661w4t3Rt57yWIhxmqiw0A0CH5_w=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com=E,1,VPEyN5poYN3a8hZyVNSsIeCcTmy0J-SiW0UDXicLHD9MhnOGERYwqjHe5h1UL-TmO7h-vQlShyVJOsSk-QknkoWKmzv6WLhwIXnjyC4AJ5PSe9BeUtkQ2g,,=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f=E,1,zMPnLB1bnITVYbabHbpKaUE1Zaum6_rZstvYRGMkYZE1xKWwjs32_grxsub07xDK0qTypXTKyxU_Xv1M4FCM4ELytb0eHR0wXqn7l58QtXFklrLpFw,,=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f=E,1,wU-ASxBH_kmg4JPXUkyMIgcjQZMecZxiujPY7fT7ZCYhHI1frGWP-YXtGSZDr2oLs1fSvOMTcUtW0xvdJB4Ph1D7B9Y4V8IudlIpODwOrkyNUr8,=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT is not very smart...
> On Feb 10, 2023, at 2:31 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > > I don't think it is necessarily the case a very large neural net would need > to backtrack. It could devote more and more resources to different > hypotheses so long as it was not energy constrained. In some sense, I understand that this must be right, because your language is more faithful to how the algorithm works. I have another colleague who has commented that one needs to think differently about large neural-net learners because in very high dimensions, there are not the same kinds of snags as those encountered in lower dimensions. There is always “a way around”, and therefore gradient descent works better than one has come to expect. Yet in the output, there still seems to be a tree somehow; maybe from things that aren’t flexible by a design logic (?): Time runs forward, for the machine as for the rest of us. Having said something, the chatbot can’t un-say it. So then there is a design decision: Do we take what we have said as a constraint on what we can say next? I can well imagine that there is strong reinforcement for some version of that, because it is inherent in fluidity, and even the notion of a “topic” in the pragmatics of a string of sentences. If topicalization somehow means strict retention (doubling down), then our speech lives on a tree, and there seem to be certain ways of putting “more resources on different hypotheses” that become closed to us. Glen’s characterization as mansplaining encapsulates this route nicely in one word. Or, does the chatbot have a way to actually say Wow, shit. I was confused; start over. Then more of the dimensionality would be available. Are there any chatbots that operate in this general space that people would call “admitting one’s mistakes”? If not, why not? Is it a design consideration in what to reward? I can’t imagine it’s a property of the training set in the abstract, as there’s all sorts of literature on admitting mistakes (the wedding guest in the Ancient Mariner “a sadder but a wiser man”). Are those patterns somehow “harder” to learn, even though they are there? What would make them harder, as a category of composition patterns? A “third way”, I guess, is what one could call the “dumb pathological liar” (a sort of trump-like character), who simply rambles along in mutually contradicting utterances and doesn’t “structurally” acknowledge their existence. Yet at some level of speech, that isn’t happening, because there is local fluidity, topics, and so forth. At that lower level, the preference given to continuity seems very strong. A fun aside about topicalization. Our friend, the historical linguist Sergei Starostin, whose English was to my ear essentially blank and perfect, was once telling me that for a Russian speaker, the last latent point of fear in speaking English was the use of the definite article. He said that no matter how many years on, he stil had this nagging stress about whether he was using it in the right places. I don’t remember whether it was in that conversation — I think it was, and that the conversation was also about topicalization in Japanese with ga and wa, and in Chinese with topic-comment phrase structure (which French also uses in many constructions, but less structured around a “pivot” as it would be called for Chinese) — but either then or subsequently I came to appreciate what a problem topicalization is. I would say it lives in speech at the level of pragmatics, in that one can almost see the “attention” as a kind of searchlight that is moving around, and that pragmatics is supposed to respect in the unfolding of a conversation for the conversation to be coherent. The challenge of marking topic — one form of “definiteness” of the definite article versus an indefinite one — is that it involves this ever-negotiated problem of how much either from the discourse or from presumed shared knowledge the listener has in primed-awareness at any given moment. “The” drifts back and forth between implicit definiteness (I can just say “the moon”, without a further specifying clause, presuming that we both know there is only one), versus definiteness that demans a specifier (the senator from Wisconsin, when first introduced in the discourse). I guess “the” in English is unusually fraught, in that its insertion or omission also modulates category terms versus literal instances (the AI chatbots say silly things, versus AI chatbots say silly things), and all these functional roles are in tension with each other at the same time. So it’s all very attention-scope semantic. Yet it can fail to be semantic at other levels. What it would be about the encoding of speech that makes them so different is still hard for me to see. Eric > -Original Message- > From: Friam On Behalf Of Santafe > Sent: Friday, February 10, 2023 3:11 AM > To: The Friday Mornin
Re: [FRIAM] ChatGPT is not very smart...
So probably this has all been analyzed to death already, by people who, unlike me, know what they are talking about. But in re-reading it, I feel like the structure of the problem is characterizable. It is as if “facts” that are constraints on the sentences to be composed are ordered in a way that is somewhat like lexicographic ordering. Lexicographically, azzz is before zaaa; no subsequent letters even get consideration (much less the set of them all in aggregate), until the first letter has dictated as much of the sorting as its values can index. Likewise, somewhere chatGPT was stuck in a local valley, where there was a “fact” that a particular list of two states is “the core of the answer” to this set of questions, and membership in the list is the first condition in a selection-tree for replies. However tortured, the following sentences have to operate within a reality that has already been truncated by the “first fact”. (Again, since this is obvious, my even belaboring it is kind of dull once I see it on the page.) Come to think of it, it reminds me too of Vygotsky’s claim that children first assign category terms by what he called “family resemblances”, and only later at the age where some developmental threshold is crossed, do they form “predicates” in the sense we would use the term in langauge semantics. “Family resemblances” can be, effectively, anything, are very idiosyncratic to the experiential history of any particular child-in-context, and in that sense are fragile categories. The distinction in predicates, once they emerge, is that they seem to be much less fragile, which amounts to being exchangeable across thinkers and across situations for a single thinker. As predicates, membership-in-a-list, letter-count, being-a-state-name, are of quite unlike types. As there is a kind of Venn-diagram intersection logic that can be applied to letter-count and being-a-state-name, which does not exist in general form for membership in arbitrary lists, we learn that the latter predicates should get priority in navigating streams of thoughts and of sentences. But if, to chatGPT, those are not yet predicates, but rather various modes of family resemblance, all comparably eligible, one can scan how a dialog of the below form would be a derivable outcome. If that is the right analysis, the step of getting stuck in a pre-emptive membership-in-a-list commitment is not the revealing, or by that criterion the interesting, part of the dialog below. The interesting part becomes the suddenly much-higher need for “cleverness”, to find flowing sentences that can be forced to the far side of an unresolvable contradiction. It’s like my laptop, when some internet-check-in step becomes unsatisfiable, and it will dump more and more CPU into trying to do something that got mis-configured, the fan ramps up, and this will spiral indefinitely until I stop what I am doing to kill the offending process. One can imagine that “learning” what predicates “are”, that they “have” logics, and what those logics “are”, is a feedback loop of trying to avoid the mental costs of getting into blind alleys. The deeper the backtrack to find the unbinding choice, the harder the learning program is, until we get up to scientific categories, where it becomes quite difficult to recognize that we had invalid meanings for “time”, “space”, and “state”. But a kind of continuous process of rewarding laziness across all those levels of organization of thought. I also, of course, cannot keep out of mind the George Santos characters or similar pathological liars, who live full-time in this navigating-snags mode. Police interrogators think they can wear even pathological liars down — catch them out — because the effort level is high enough that eventually nobody can sustain it. But at the same time, humans have a wide talent range for different tasks, and I could believe that for the pathological liar, this snag-navigating can be done much more fluently and with lower effort, than the same degree of performance would demand of a “normie”. All the above feels about as satisfying as listening to somebody explain a joke. Oh well. Eric > On Feb 2, 2023, at 1:49 PM, Barry MacKichan > wrote: > > or is obsessed with four-letter words. From an email from another group. > Paragraphs with an initial capital are ChatGPT’s responses. The others are > input: > > Chat GPT dialog, courtesy of Paul Ginsparg: > > > “how many states in the united states have four letter names? > > “There are actually two states in the United States that have four-letter > names: Iowa and Ohio. Both states were named after Native American words, > with Iowa derived from the word "ayuxba," which means "this is the place," > and Ohio coming from the Iroquois word "ohi-yo," meaning "great river. > > “what about utah? > > “Utah is not a four-letter word. It is a state in the western United
Re: [FRIAM] Datasets as Experience
It’s funny. I was reading some commentary on this last week (can’t even remember where now; that was _last week_!), and I remember thinking that the description reminded me of Williams Syndrome in people. They have a grammatical sense that is at the stronger end of the human range, but their train of meaning has come to be characterized (again, a now-tropish short-hand) as “word salad”. That there should be several somewhat-autonomous processes running in parallel in people, and coupled by some kind of message-passing, as Ray Jackendoff proposes, seems quite reasonable and in keeping with brain biology, and if there is, it would be a compact way to account for the seeming independence in refinement of grammatical sense and whatever other part of sentence-coherence we have come to term “semantics”. Last year, too, someone (I think my boss at the time, which would make it two years ago) told me about some nature paper saying that a comparative genome analysis of domestic dogs and wolves had shown a mutation in the dogs at the cognate locus to the one that results in Williams Syndrome in people. That would be an easy indulgent interpretation: the greater affectionateness preserved into adulthood, and the increased verbal-or-other communicativeness. Though Barry Lopez, I think it was, argues that wolves have higher social intelligence, which I guess would be making some claim about a “semantics”. The chatbot has, however, a knd of pure authentic evil that Philip K. Dick tried to mimic (the argument with the door), and came close enough to be laughing-through-tears, but could not truly simulate as it shines through in the Ginsparg exchange. Or dealing with the maddening, horrifying computer interfaces that every company puts up to its customers, after they have fired all the human problem-solvers. Few things put me in a real dread, because I am now fairly old, and getting older as fast as I can. But the prospect of still being alive in a world where that interface is all that is left to any of us, is dreadworthy. Eric > On Feb 8, 2023, at 11:51 AM, glen wrote: > > I wrote and deleted a much longer response. But all I really want to say is > that these *models* are heavily engineered. TANSTAAFL. They are as > engineered, to intentional purpose, as a Boeing 777. We have this tendency to > think that because these boxes are opaque (more so to some than others), > they're magical or "semantic-less". They simulate a human language user > pretty well. So even if there's little structural analogy, there's good > behavioral analogy. Rather than posit that these models don't have semantics, > I'd posit *we* don't have semantics. > > The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists. > > On 2/7/23 14:16, Steve Smith wrote: >> DaveW - >> I really don't know much of/if anything really about these modern AIs, >> beyond what pops up on the myriad popular science/tech feeds that are part >> of *my* training set/source. I studied some AI in the 70s/80s and then >> "Learning Classifier Systems" and (other) Machine Learning techniques in the >> late 90s, and then worked with folks who did Neural Nets during the early >> 00s, including trying to help them find patterns *in* the NN structures to >> correlate with the function of their NNs and training sets, etc. >> The one thing I would say about what I hear you saying here is that I don't >> think these modern learning models, by definition, have neither syntax *nor* >> semantics built into them.. they are what I colloquially (because I'm sure >> there is a very precise term of art by the same name) think of or call >> "model-less" models. At most I think the only models of language they have >> explicit in them might be the Alphabet and conventions about white-space and >> perhaps punctuation? And very likely they span *many* languages, not just >> English or maybe even "Indo European". >> I wonder what others know about these things or if there are known good >> references? >> Perhaps we should just feed thesemaunderings into ChatGPT and it will sort >> us out forthwith?! >> - SteveS >> On 2/7/23 2:57 PM, Prof David West wrote: >>> I am curious, but not enough to do some hard research to confirm or deny, >>> but ... >>> >>> Surface appearances suggest, to me, that the large language model AIs seem >>> to focus on syntax and statistical word usage derived from those large >>> datasets. >>> >>> I do not see any evidence in same of semantics (probably because I am but a >>> "bear of little brain.") >>> >>> In contrast, the Cyc project (Douglas Lenat, 1984 - and still out there as >>> an expensive AI) was all about semantics. The last time I was, briefly, at >>> MCC, they were just switching from teaching Cyc how to read newspapers and >>> engage in meaningful conversation about the news of the day, to teaching it >>> how to read the National Enquirer, etc. and differentiate between
