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 <profw...@fastmail.fm> 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 <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/ > > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > 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/
