Excellent --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 8:55 AM Stephen Guerin <stephen.gue...@simtable.com> wrote: > Prompt: > Express a unique concept. Make it as profound as possible > > https://chat.openai.com/share/649bd4ca-f856-451e-83a2-01fc2cfe47fb > > > > On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 6:50 AM glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I guess the question returns to one's criteria for assuming decoupling >> between the very [small|fast] and the very [large|slow]. Or in this case, >> the inner vs. the outer: >> >> Susie Alegre on how digital technology undermines free thought >> https://freethinker.co.uk/2024/03/interview-susie-alegre/ >> >> It would be reasonable for Frank to argue that we can generate the space >> of possible context definitions, inductively, from the set of token >> definitions, much like an LLM might. Ideally, you could then measure the >> expressiveness of those inferred contexts/languages and choose the largest >> (most complete; by induction, each context/language *should* be >> self-consistent so we shouldn't have to worry about that). >> >> And if that's how things work (I'm not saying it is), then those >> "attractors" with the finest granularity (very slow to emerge, very >> resistant to dissolution) would be the least novel. Novelty (uniqueness) >> might then be defined in terms of fragility, short half-life, missable >> opportunity. But that would also argue that novelty is either less *real* >> or that the universe/context/language is very *open* and the path from >> fragile to robust obtains like some kind of Hebbian reinforcement, use it >> or lose it, win the hearts and minds or dissipate to nothing. >> >> I.e. there is no such thing as free thought. Thought can't decouple from >> social manipulation. >> >> On 3/21/24 13:38, Marcus Daniels wrote: >> > In the LLM example, completions from some starting state or none, have >> specific probabilities. An incomplete yet-unseen (unique) utterance would >> be completed based on prior probabilities of individual tokens. >> > >> > I agree that raw materialist uniqueness won't necessarily or often >> override constraints of a situation. For example, if an employer instructs >> an employee how to put a small, lightweight product in a box, label it, and >> send it to a customer by UPS, the individual differences metabolism of the >> employees aren't likely to matter much when shipping more small, >> lightweight objects to other customers. It could be the case for a >> professor and student too. The attractors come from the instruction or >> the curriculum. One choice constrains the next. >> > >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen >> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 11:50 AM >> > To: friam@redfish.com >> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity >> > >> > I was arguing with that same friend yesterday at the pub. I was trying >> to describe how some of us have more cognitive power than others (he's one >> of them). Part of it is "free" power, freed up by his upper middle class >> white good diet privilege. But if we allow that some of it might be >> genetic, then that's a starting point for deciding when novelty matters to >> the ephemerides of two otherwise analogical individuals (or projects if >> projects have an analog to genetics). Such things are well-described in >> twin studies. One twin suffers some PTSD the other doesn't and ... boom ... >> their otherwise lack of uniqueness blossoms into uniqueness. >> > >> > His objection was that even identical twins are not identical. They >> were already unique ... like the Pauli Exclusion Principle or somesuch >> nonsense. Even though it's a bit of a ridiculous argument, I could apply it >> to your sense of avoiding non-novel attractors. No 2 attractors will be >> identical. And no 1 attractor will be unique. So those are moot issues. >> Distinctions without differences, maybe. Woit's rants are legendary. But >> some of us find happiness in wasteful sophistry. >> > >> > What matters is *how* things are the same and how they differ. Their >> qualities and values (nearly) orthogonal to novelty. >> > >> > >> > On 3/21/24 11:29, Marcus Daniels wrote: >> >> If GPT systems capture some sense of "usual" context based on >> trillions of internet tokens, and that corpus is regarded approximately >> "global context", then it seems not so objectionable to call "unusual", new >> training items that contribute to fine-tuning loss. >> >> >> >> It seems reasonable to worry that ubiquitous GPT systems reduce social >> entropy by encouraging copying instead of new thinking, but it could also >> have the reverse effect: If I am immediately aware that an idea is not >> novel, I may avoid attractors that agents that wrongly believe they are >> "independent" will gravitate toward. >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> >> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen >> >> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 7:49 AM >> >> To: friam@redfish.com >> >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity >> >> >> >> A friend of mine constantly reminds me that language is dynamic, not >> fixed in stone from a billion years ago. So, if you find others >> consistently using a term in a way that you think is wrong, then *you* are >> wrong in what you think. The older I get, the more difficult it gets. >> >> >> >> But specifically, the technical sense of "unique" is vanishingly rare >> ... so rare as to be merely an ideal, unverifiable, nowhere, non-existent. >> So if the "unique" is imaginary, unreal, and doesn't exist, why not co-opt >> it for a more useful, banal purpose? Nothing is actually unique. So we'll >> use the token "unique" to mean (relatively) rare. >> >> >> >> And "unusual" is even worse. Both tokens require one to describe the >> context, domain, or universe within which the discussion is happening. If >> you don't define your context, then the "definitions" you provide for the >> components of that context are not even wrong; they're nonsense. "Unusual" >> implies a usual. And a usual implies a perspective ... a mechanism of >> action for your sampling technique. So "unusual" presents even more of a >> linguistic *burden* than "unique". >> >> >> >> On 3/20/24 13:14, Frank Wimberly wrote: >> >>> What's wrong with "unusual"? It avoids the problem. >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> On Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 1:55 PM Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com <mailto: >> sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote: >> >>>> >> >>>> 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"? >> > >> >> >> -- >> 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/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/ >
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