[FRIAM] Reminder

[Frank Wimberly]

Friam at Downtown Subscription tomorrow because of construction at St
John's.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
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Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity

[Marcus Daniels]

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  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  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 > > 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 
>>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Sleep trackers

[Frank Wimberly]

Don't remind me, Nick.  About 40(?) years ago I paid $5000 for an Apple II
which served as little more than a terminal that could do some graphics.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 1:19 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Thanks everybody.  All interesting.
>
> As irony would have it, I was felled by a 72 hour virus and have barely
> woken up since posting this inquiry.
>
> By the way, being sick makes me more suceptible to click bait and I
> stumbled into this:
>
> Our 10 Best Laptops Best in the US - March 2024 | BestProductsReviews.com
> 
>
> I don't need a laptop so there is no danger I will buy anything, but Geez,
> am I reading these prices right?
>
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson 
> wrote:
>
>> Everybody I know sleeps badly.  Has any of you had any lu from
>> heartrate?  ck with a sleeptracker.  Did it teach you anything you did not
>> already know?I borrowed a fit bit from my daughter and it tells me my
>> sleep efficiency is lousy, and I don't bet much rem or deep sleep.  Does it
>> know what it is talking about.   Can you get all of that.
>>
>> Any experience to share out there?
>>
>> Nick
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] Sleep trackers

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks everybody.  All interesting.

As irony would have it, I was felled by a 72 hour virus and have barely
woken up since posting this inquiry.

By the way, being sick makes me more suceptible to click bait and I
stumbled into this:

Our 10 Best Laptops Best in the US - March 2024 | BestProductsReviews.com


I don't need a laptop so there is no danger I will buy anything, but Geez,
am I reading these prices right?

On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 9:12 PM Nicholas Thompson 
wrote:

> Everybody I know sleeps badly.  Has any of you had any lu from heartrate?
> ck with a sleeptracker.  Did it teach you anything you did not already
> know?I borrowed a fit bit from my daughter and it tells me my sleep
> efficiency is lousy, and I don't bet much rem or deep sleep.  Does it know
> what it is talking about.   Can you get all of that.
>
> Any experience to share out there?
>
> Nick
>
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
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Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity

[glen]

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  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 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.
 

Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity

[Marcus Daniels]

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  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  > 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"?


-- 
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Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity

[Roger Critchlow]

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

Twenty years of Not Even Wrong, an anniversary blog post.

-- rec --

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 8:48 AM glen  wrote:

> [...]
> 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".
> [...[
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Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity

[glen]

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 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

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