Aaron, If you really want me to go on about conceptual relativism I will. I may have said that there are no universal facts. Well, there are facts, but what I meant is that we cannot know that those facts are absolutely true, and our knowledge about facts pertains more to local situations than universal situations. So I can know that the ground I am walking on is "real" and that it won't shatter when I step on it. However, I cannot say that will be true under all situations. I might walk onto some synthetic turf thinking that it is real. Or I might walk onto some ground or grass that covers a marsh and be surprised when my foot sinks into it. So that sense that there are some facts which are universally true because they will -always- have been true does not mean that our expectations that we will encounter those facts in all situations will be so. So we have to adapt relativistically and whether that is done consciously or not most of us will figure out some way to be wary of our presumptions that a -type- of fact will always indeed be a case of that fact. The understanding that we have two cases of an incident may be of the same kind of incident except that one was a fact and the other was not. So we have all sorts of little ways of adapting to the possibility that some of our facts are not. Jim Bromer
On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Aaron Hosford <[email protected]> wrote: > OK, that gives me a partial grasp. Can you give me an example? > On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 7:05 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Conceptual relativism is the idea that concepts must be used to think >> about other concepts and when that happens the concepts that are used in an >> expression or study of the subject concept can often affect the "meaning" >> of the subject concept. So concepts are not only relative and relational >> they are also relativistic. >> Incidentally, a pattern does describe a pattern. Most typically, a >> pattern is composed of other patterns. (And it is pretty hard to imagine a >> pattern that isn't composed of other patterns. I guess you could define a >> simplest form of pattern or something.) Just about all interesting patterns >> are composed of patterns. >> Jim Bromer >> >> On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Aaron Hosford <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> I wouldn't argue that a meta pattern isn't itself a pattern. It's just a >>> special kind of pattern that describes patterns instead of other sorts of >>> things. Kind of like a type in programming can itself be a type. That >>> doesn't diminish the distinctness of the two concepts to me, though. >>> >>> Could you define conceptual relativism for me? I'm new to this list, and >>> haven't heard the term used outside of it. >>> >>> On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:17 AM, [email protected] < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> You lost me on why that would make it any harder to define the >>>> difference between patterns and metapatterns. A pattern is a constraint >>>> applied to a set of things which is expressed as a description of those >>>> things' parts/structure. As such, patterns themselves can be placed in a >>>> set constrained by their own parts/structure, creating a metapattern which >>>> acts as a category over those patterns >>>> ------------------------------ >>>> Well to be honest, I was thinking of the difference between a pattern >>>> generator and a meta-pattern generator when I said that. However the same >>>> thing applies to a pattern and a meta pattern. If "a meta pattern" is the >>>> category over "some patterns" then the two concepts can be distinguished if >>>> the relation is so defined (or a conclusion is constrained by the original >>>> definition of things). However, I believe that concepts are relativistic >>>> and in this case there are some problems with the definition when using it >>>> as a method of recognition. A meta-pattern is a pattern (according to the >>>> traditional way of thinking about meta-things) and therefore, by >>>> definition, we find that such things have to be classified as patterns. >>>> While you can define the distinction (as in a declaration of a given >>>> definition) that does not mean that it would be so easy to give a clear >>>> definition of the thing when you saw it. >>>> For example, you can think of a dynamic system like an amazing >>>> fireworks display in which the first pattern spawns a second pattern which >>>> spawns the first pattern over again. Although this definition is a little >>>> stretched, there are more important systems in computer science (which I >>>> can not clearly think of at this time but which are very relevant to the >>>> problem of AGI.) >>>> Conceptual relativism is serious stuff. >>>> Jim Bromer >>>> >>> ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
