(Ian): These 'metrological ideals' are simply facts that anyone couldI clearly must have misunderstood you then. I thought that you criticized the education system for not conveying the, as you call it, "fundamental principle of epistemology". Now it seems to me that you are claiming, that no educational system is needed, because anyone can make an effort to think for himself and reach that conclusion alone.
know who takes the trouble to actually think about them
Is it then that you suggest that it would be better to abandon the idea of maintaining education systems, because people would as well do without them, or that the education systems that you've had experience with need to be fixed? (or did I misunderstand you completely?)
(Ian): Skepticism is the belief that knowledge is impossible, 'metrology' is quite literally "knowledge of measure" so metrology is the rational basis of all quantitative scientific knowledge. The idea that metrology is skeptical is absurd.The claim that "skepticism is the belief that knowledge is impossible" is as naive as the claim that the word "relativism" can be interpreted in only one way. Although the skeptics did argue that knowledge is impossible, is not the subject of their arguments that is important (because such a claim is simply insane), but their arguments themselves. According to what you call WikipediA, the greek word "skeptikos" means "doubtful". The argument of Descartes is by all means skeptical, yet he does not claim that knowledge is impossible.
I do agree, though, that calling metrology a skeptical (or critical) science would be absurd. Therefore, clearly, this adjective did not apply to metrology itself, but to your interpretation of metrology, that is, the application of some principles of metrology to epistemology.
(Ian): I don't regard this as a problem at all, because it simply not true that "civilization is the struggle to make our lives effortless" The fact that you make such a ridiculous claim without justification is yet more evidence that you clearly do not understand that fundamental principle of epistemology which I enunciated.I percieve your claim, that my claim is ridiculous, as ridiculous (because my claim seems rather obvious to me), yet you didn't bother to justify it either, which clearly proves that you also don't understand your fundamental principle of epistemology.
The reason for me aping you is actually not to prove that you don't understand what you're saying (although if one asserts the validity of your argument, then he or she would necessarily conclude the validity of mine, unless willing to accept inconsistency), but to note that -- although you seem to be very intelligent -- your communication skills need an improvement badly.
It would be OK if you wrote "I disagree with your claim because xxx, although I'm eager to hear your justification, because maybe I didn't understand you properly," instead of offending me right away. The one thing that I know from dealing with language processing, is that a natural language is one ambiguous bitch. (In addition, I have to admit that I'm not a native English speaker, and so I often find it difficult to choose the right words for my thoughts)
(Ian): The rest of your missive is merely a feeble appeal to blind faith that there is good in the world. I don't need blind faith, because I have actual knowledge that this is in fact the case.That's good (although untrue).
(Ian): That good is God, who is the actuality of thought, and thisInteresting. Perhaps your insight and cognitive capabilities are much
is something that is quite clearly outside your experience.
greater than mine, but imagining that is beyond those humble capabilities.
My narrow mindset allows me only to imagine that your mental capabilities
are similar to mine (because that's the highest level of comprehension
that I can comprehend), and if it is so, then I need to assert that
the statement that you uttered is beyond your cognitive competence.
(I do agree with it, though)
kisses AND hugs, plz
ReplyDeleteThis and the following comments are the e-mail conversation which led up to the above posting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for these comments. I regard the "CMS" restricting comments to
not much more than the length of an SMS message as anti-intellectual.
Unfortunately it seems to have truncated your responses. If you could
e-mail me both responses in full, together, then I will publish them
as a blog article, and make my own responses as separate comments.
Before you do that, you might wish to revise your first comment
ReplyDeleteotherwise I will simply ask you to consider that the statement
"civilization is the struggle to make our lives effortless" is
obviously indefensible because then, by definition, civilization will
have ended before our lives become effortless. Therefore the
'metrological ideals' do not "go against" this. On the contrary, one
might claim, they are exactly that struggle, should you choose to
define civilization in that way, but I don't think that is a good
definition of civilization at all. I would say it is the struggle to
make sure that everyone's life is a constant and conscious effort to
be good.
As to your second response, that too is incoherent. Metrology is
ReplyDeleteexactly an example of "knowing how it is you know" So the fundamental
principle of epistemology itself will, if you actually think about it,
be self-evident in the idea of metrology.
So I suggest you pay special attention to exercising your
communications skills to the full, otherwisei will just rip your
"argument" to shreds yet again.
Ian
There, three kisses! One for the French, one for the English and one for the Americans.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is Panicz' reply to those three kisses, which as you can see were the result of a final cause.
ReplyDeleteHi.
Instead of following your suggestion to reconsider my comments, I decided to attach them verbatim, because I believe that even if your arguments prove me wrong (or "rip mine to shreds"), then it's better that they do it overtly, rather than secretly.
On the other hand, I can't say that I see them as compromising. When it comes to civilization, then it seems to me that our disagreement doesn't come from fallacious reasoning on either sides, but from asserting different definitions of civilization. I can dig deeper into that topic soon, if you want, but now I have some more urgent things to do. (Same with metrology, although I have to admit that I have much less to say in that regard)
Finally, when it comes to communication skills, then their essence is not the ability to reason properly (which, more likely than anything else, is an implication of you "ripping my >>arguments<< to shreds"), but to present certain ideas in a way that they are easy to comprehend -- or, to make it plain that what you are actually "ripping to shreds" are my arguments.
What is plain to me now is that there are a lot of people who are having trouble to understand your ideas, and that your attitude (to make them feel like idiots) doesn't help a bit. Of course, you can ignore those signals, and stubbornly claim that there's no problem with that, but only if you don't find your premise important to communicate to the world, and treat your endaevour as a whim.
regards
> Finally, when it comes to communication skills, then their essence is not
ReplyDelete> the ability to reason properly (which, more likely than anything else, is an
> implication of you "ripping my >>arguments<< to shreds"), but to present
> certain ideas in a way that they are easy to comprehend -- or, to make it
> plain that what you are actually "ripping to shreds" are my arguments.
I'm afraid that, although the _words_ are all English words, the grammar and the semantics are something else entirely!
You will see, if you read this blog, and some more of my interactions with other people, that my manner varies a great deal depending with whom I am discussing something, and what that something is. I doubt you will be able to detect any pattern in it, but there's a chance, or perhaps someone else will be able to point it out to you.,
And if you want to understand it properly, then look up what Socrates says about philosophers and dogs in The Republic. Dogs, you see, hate anything that they don't know ...
> You will see, if you read this blog, and some more of my
Delete> interactions with other people, that my manner varies
> a great deal depending with whom I am discussing something,
> and what that something is.
I think the polish word for "madman", "wariat", comes from exactly that variation
> I doubt you will be able to detect any pattern in it, but there's
> a chance, or perhaps someone else will be able to point it out to you.,
I already see a pattern. First you write some lengthy texts and send it to people who don't wish to read them, then they ask you to stop sending those texts, and then you insult them. I wonder how far you are going to get using that communication strategy. Fingers crossed.
>> my manner varies a great deal depending with whom I
Delete>> am discussing something, and what that something is.
>
> I think the polish word for "madman", "wariat", comes from
> exactly that variation
Right. That makes sense, I've never been to Poland, but if in Poland a madman/woman is someone who has a different character depending on the character of the person with whom they are conversing, then the character of the sane Polish people is presumably uniform, assuming the sane Polish people command the majority of the population. So the madman's epithet is earned from the fact his character varies when he interacts with different people who are essentially of the same uniform character. So _his_ character varies without apparent cause.
Now from these two premisses, the one concerning as it does the character of a Polish madman with respect to sane people, and the other concerning my character variation, depending upon the character of the person to whom I am engaged in conversation, your logico-philosophical skills enable you to deduce, .... what?
> The one thing that I know from dealing with language processing,
ReplyDelete> is that a natural language is one ambiguous bitch.
No it isn't. It's just that our work in natural language processing was certainly bullshit, and you will know that if anyone was prepared to pay you to do it, or was prepared to publish it.
The reason I know this is that you are making the same mistake with natural language that you and dozens of other smart-asses are making with "artificial" programming languages. I don't expect you to understand this, because you are presumably an expert on natural language.
And you should probably know that in English using the word "bitch" in _any_ context, is likely to make some women angry. And it makes some men angry too.
> (In addition, I have to admit that I'm not a native English speaker,
> and so I often find it difficult to choose the right words for my thoughts)
You don't have to admit that. It is blatantly obvious, and I think 50% of the population of Denmark would agree with me.
Ian
> No it isn't. It's just that our work in natural language processing
ReplyDelete> was certainly bullshit, and you will know that if anyone was prepared
> to pay you to do it, or was prepared to publish it.
The fact that our work on NLP is bullshit is one thing. But it does not imply
that language is unambiguous. On the contrary, there are many examples
of communication errors which prove my point.
> The reason I know this is that you are making the same mistake
> with natural language that you and dozens of other smart-asses
> are making with "artificial" programming languages. I don't expect
> you to understand this, because you are presumably an expert
> on natural language.
The fact that you don't explain the mistake definitely lessens my odds for understanding them.
> And you should probably know that in English using the word
> "bitch" in _any_ context, is likely to make some women angry.
> And it makes some men angry too.
I apologize then, because I had no intention of making anyone angry.
> You don't have to admit that. It is blatantly obvious, and I think
> 50% of the population of Denmark would agree with me.
What does it have to do with Denmark?
>>> (In addition, I have to admit that I'm not a native English speaker,
Delete>>> and so I often find it difficult to choose the right words for my
>>> thoughts)
>>
>> You don't have to admit that. It is blatantly obvious, and I think 50%
>> of the population of Denmark would agree with me.
>
> What does it have to do with Denmark?
Wow, you ask welly hard questions!
All the Danish people I know speak and write better English than all the Americans I know, for example.
So I think it's because I _don't_ think that 50% of the population of Burkina Faso, or China, or North Korea, or .... quite a lot of other countries, really, would agree with me. To them, your command of English would not seem any worse than mine. So, in a nutshell: it has to do with Denmark, because that's what I meant when I wrote Denmark. It's the intensional semantics thing again.
Is that the right answer? Have I passed the exam?
Ian
> > The reason I know this is that you are making the same mistake
Delete> > with natural language [.that you are] making with "artificial"
> > programming languages. I don't expect you to understand
> > this, because you are presumably an expert on natural
> > language.
> The fact that you don't explain the mistake definitely lessens
> my odds for understanding them.
No it doesn't, because it's _the same mistake_ you see. (In English, the word "same" means the same as "=" means in arithmetic - oops. I see your problem. It's the fundamental principle of epistemology again!)
But fear not, the odds of your understanding the problem remain the same: and they are _not_ in your favour! You just have to take my word for it though, you will never be able to deduce this yourself.
>> No it isn't. It's just that our work in natural language processing
ReplyDelete>> was certainly bullshit, and you will know that if anyone was prepared
>> to pay you to do it, or was prepared to publish it.
>
> The fact that our work on NLP is bullshit is one thing. But it does not
> imply that language is unambiguous. On the contrary, there are
> many examples of communication errors which prove my point.
It's a phenomenon called redundancy. It's what makes crosswords possible in English, and some other written languages. The redundancy is how you know that was a typo, and that I intended to write "your work" not "our work." The meanibg (semantics) is in the intensional expression, not the extensional representation, which is redundant. This is the principle behind the idea of varying the concrete (extensional) representation of the intensional definition.
The ambiguity you "see" is a result of your attempting to capture the meanibg by analysing the extensional representation rather than synthesizing the extensional representation from the intensional definition. Just as William Leslie thinks a machine could recognise a C compiler from the assembler implementing it. You can't, because that's formally undecidable.
Does that help?
Here's a "graphical" analogy to make the problem and it's solution more memorable:
DeleteThe error that "computational linguists" and Free Software hackers make when they try to attach semantics to extensional representations of formal syntax is the same error that they make when they go to the bathroom and stick their head down into the toilet bowl and shit with their legs up in the air.
It's much cleaner and more efficient, in the medium-long term, if you can learn to sit down the right way up. It's a totally different experience, but I'm sure you could get used to it eventually.
Ian