What's wrong with "unusual"? It avoids the problem. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 1:55 PM Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > > On 3/20/24 12:54 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > Everyday as I am listening to CNN I say, "There are no degrees of > uniqueness," multiple times. > > > I'm hung up on the usage of qualified "uniqueness" as well, but in > perhaps the opposite sense. > > I agree with the premise that "unique" in it's purest, simplest form does > seem to be inherently singular. On the other hand, this mal(icious) > propensity of qualifying uniqueness (uniqueish?) is so common, that I have > to believe there is a concept there which people who use those terms are > reaching for. They are not wrong to reach for it, just annoying in the > label they choose? > > I had a round with GPT4 trying to discuss this, not because I think LLMs > are the authority on *anything* but rather because the discussions I have > with them can help me brainstorm my way around ideas with the LLM nominally > representing "what a lot of people say" (if not think). Careful prompting > seems to be able to help narrow down *all people* (in the training data) > to different/interesting subsets of *lots of people* with certain > characteristics. > > GPT4 definitely wanted to allow for a wide range of gradated, speciated, > spectral uses of "unique" and gave me plenty of commonly used examples > which validates my position that "for something so obviously/technically > incorrect, it sure is used a lot!" > > We discussed uniqueness in the context of evolutionary biology and > cladistics and homology and homoplasy. We discussed it in terms of cluster > analysis. We discussed the distinction between objective and subjective, > absolute and relative. > > The closest thing to a conclusion I have at the moment is: > > 1. Most people do and will continue to treat "uniqueness" as a > relative/spectral/subjective qualifier. > 2. Many people like Frank and myself (half the time) will have an > allergic reaction to this usage. > 3. The common (mis)usage might be attributable to conflating "unique" > with "distinct"? > > - Steve > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > 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/ >
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