Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
If you’ve read about them, Open AI probably has too. From: Friam On Behalf Of Prof David West Sent: Friday, March 22, 2024 8:32 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity this is 'unique' only if you exclude Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, ... thought. davew On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, at 9:54 AM, Stephen Guerin 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 mailto: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 mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > > On Behalf Of glen > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 11:50 AM > To: friam@redfish.com <mailto: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 s
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
"Unique in a qualified manner"?
FWIW, I prompted (Indra's Net edition) and sent my DALL-E images before
I read Dave's entry into this fray...
I have beat GPT and Gemini around the head and shoulders a bit at times
to try to get it to expose it's own East/West (or hopefully more subtle
and gradated) distribution of knowledge/training/??? but mostly I'd say
it reports (given I have the same intrinsic myopias) on "Western" views
of "Eastern" thought.
I do wonder if DaveW or anyone else here with more interest or
qualifications than I has explored the bi(multi?)modal distribution in
the LLMs?
I know EricS at the very least has some significant grounding in
linguistics (and semiotics?) and perhaps perspective on the socio
cultural implications of language constructions, etc. which might be
evidenced in LLMs as-trained by our tech-billionaire (wannabes?)
On 3/22/24 12:07 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
Are you saying it's unique to a degree? ;-)
CEO Founder, Simtable.com
stephen.gue...@simtable.com
Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
stephengue...@fas.harvard.edu
mobile: (505)577-5828
On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 9:31 AM Prof David West
wrote:
this is 'unique' only if you exclude Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, ...
thought.
davew
On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, at 9:54 AM, Stephen Guerin 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 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 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.
On
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
Are you saying it's unique to a degree? ;-) CEO Founder, Simtable.com stephen.gue...@simtable.com Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab stephengue...@fas.harvard.edu mobile: (505)577-5828 On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 9:31 AM Prof David West wrote: > this is 'unique' only if you exclude Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, ... thought. > > davew > > > On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, at 9:54 AM, Stephen Guerin 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
this is 'unique' only if you exclude Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, ... thought. davew On Fri, Mar 22, 2024, at 9:54 AM, Stephen Guerin 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 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 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 >> >> o
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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 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 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 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 &g
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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 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 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 Me
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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 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, wh
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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 > <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 h
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 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, a
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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. >> 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/ smime.p7s Description: S
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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". > [...[ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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] 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. 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/
Re: [FRIAM] the inequities of uniquity
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 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/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
