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This ties in quite nicely with Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI Th

This ties in quite nicely with Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI There are so many strands of neuroscience that show predictive coding now. There's a really nice example in the use of common vs unusual words in sentences. If you're using fMRI to scan someone while they read these two sentences: The jam on the motorway made everything slow. The jam on the motorway made everything sticky. You'll see a flash of activity when people read the word "sticky" rather than the more common word in that context "slow". The theory is that when everything in the sentence proceeds as predicted there's very little need to update prior expectations, but when you come across something that goes against previous predictions it's a signal that something needs to be actively thought about.

fwip 8y ago
If anyone is interested in more sentences like these, check out garden path sentences. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
dtech 8y ago
> The theory is that when everything in the sentence proceeds as predicted there's very little need to update prior expectations Throwing exceptions is expensive
ta1234567890 8y ago
Cool! This sounds similar to koans: "a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment." If you explore the meaning of language enough you'll realize it doesn't really make sense. Everything is based on context and assumptions that we take for granted when communicating. But if you dig deep enough (and it's really not that deep anyway), you'll notice that pretty much anything you say or write can be interpreted in multiple different ways, which means there's no one absolute meaning to any expression of language. Meaning comes from interpretation, which is subjective and unique to the person doing it. Interesting exercise: for a day or a week, make an effort to think how anything that someone else says to you is actually true - asume they are always right and think about how to justify it. It's really amazing, at first it's really hard, but then you discover you can always just interpret what they say in a way that fits your views.
- soulofmischief 8y ago
  I think you can make unambiguous sentences: "I walked one mile today." Unless context specifically indicates the very rare possibility that walked is personal shorthand for another activity, it's a pretty unambiguous statement.
  - p1necone 8y ago
    I can think of two different ways to interpret that sentence. 1: They went for a walk as a single activity on top of their regular daily walking, and that walk was a mile long. 2. They walked a total of 1 mile throughout the entire day, including regular walking around the house/office etc. I do agree with the sentiment though, there definitely are plenty of unambiguous sentences you can say in everyday conversation. Perhaps "my refrigerator is currently powered on" is an arbitrary example that works.
    - soulofmischief 8y ago
      That's pretty good. But then knowing that ambiguity, I could craft a statement like, "I walked a mile on the treadmill today."
      - ta1234567890 8y ago
        Exactly, and if you keep going, you'd notice you need each time a longer, more precise description, which at the same time, paradoxically, opens the door for more ambiguity. In that example, the first context is English language, then knowing who I is, then what a mile is, and a treadmill and today. All of those are contextual. Even mile. How long is a mile? Like any physical measure, it actually varies, because it is defined relative to something else which varies. The meaning of English language has also varied over time, that sentence might not make any sense to someone reading it in 20 years. And then when is today? May 7, 2019 - which is also a relative measure of time and not even that precise. And then finally, what if you were lying? Did you really walk a mile today? How can I be sure? And how can you be sure I understand the same meaning from the words you say or write?
aportnoy 8y ago
Also related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N400_(neuroscience) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N400_(neuroscience)
blattimwind 8y ago
> You'll see a flash of activity when people read the word "sticky" I noticed that my gaze actually jumped back to "jam" when I read "sticky".
nvrspyx 8y ago
In psychology/neuroscience, many refer to this generally as heuristics. It’s astonishing how much the mind relies on these heuristics from aspects like language (as you’ve pointed out) to visual perception. Many think the main purpose is to speed up processing tasks and require less “resources” so that cognitive load is freed up for other things. One of my favorite examples of this is how car drivers seem to fall into a sort of “auto-pilot” mode freeing up resources to think about random things like what you’re going to eat for dinner once you get home. I think the ELI5 way to look at it is pattern recognition and then using those patterns for not only prediction, much like ML models, but also in other things like physical actions, emotional response, etc. Many theorize it is that these heuristics are trained and the “path more taken” is the default. It’s when a stimulus doesn’t fit that path that the brain has to decide whether: 1. Is something wrong with this? 2. Is this a new path I need to start paving to speed up future processing? Whether or not that second choice is made is dependent on lots of things co-processing at the time: Emotion, attention, attitude, etc. How much that path is paved is also dependent on those things. This idea is fundamental to areas of study like symbolic systems at Stanford [1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_Systems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_Systems
wazer5 8y ago
I'm not surprised neuroscientists can measure it, I about fell over upon reading that sentence.
stubish 8y ago
And that flash of activity is also the basis of humor. We find unexpected things like this funny, the reward that helps our brains to analyze and learn from the unexpected situation.
- frereubu 8y ago
  Not all humour, but Steven Wright certainly made an entire career out of sentences like this.

fwip 8y ago

If anyone is interested in more sentences like these, check out garden path sentences. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

dtech 8y ago

> The theory is that when everything in the sentence proceeds as predicted there's very little need to update prior expectations Throwing exceptions is expensive

ta1234567890 8y ago

Cool! This sounds similar to koans: "a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment." If you explore the meaning of language enough you'll realize it doesn't really make sense. Everything is based on context and assumptions that we take for granted when communicating. But if you dig deep enough (and it's really not that deep anyway), you'll notice that pretty much anything you say or write can be interpreted in multiple different ways, which means there's no one absolute meaning to any expression of language. Meaning comes from interpretation, which is subjective and unique to the person doing it. Interesting exercise: for a day or a week, make an effort to think how anything that someone else says to you is actually true - asume they are always right and think about how to justify it. It's really amazing, at first it's really hard, but then you discover you can always just interpret what they say in a way that fits your views.

soulofmischief 8y ago
I think you can make unambiguous sentences: "I walked one mile today." Unless context specifically indicates the very rare possibility that walked is personal shorthand for another activity, it's a pretty unambiguous statement.
- p1necone 8y ago
  I can think of two different ways to interpret that sentence. 1: They went for a walk as a single activity on top of their regular daily walking, and that walk was a mile long. 2. They walked a total of 1 mile throughout the entire day, including regular walking around the house/office etc. I do agree with the sentiment though, there definitely are plenty of unambiguous sentences you can say in everyday conversation. Perhaps "my refrigerator is currently powered on" is an arbitrary example that works.
  - soulofmischief 8y ago
    That's pretty good. But then knowing that ambiguity, I could craft a statement like, "I walked a mile on the treadmill today."
    - ta1234567890 8y ago
      Exactly, and if you keep going, you'd notice you need each time a longer, more precise description, which at the same time, paradoxically, opens the door for more ambiguity. In that example, the first context is English language, then knowing who I is, then what a mile is, and a treadmill and today. All of those are contextual. Even mile. How long is a mile? Like any physical measure, it actually varies, because it is defined relative to something else which varies. The meaning of English language has also varied over time, that sentence might not make any sense to someone reading it in 20 years. And then when is today? May 7, 2019 - which is also a relative measure of time and not even that precise. And then finally, what if you were lying? Did you really walk a mile today? How can I be sure? And how can you be sure I understand the same meaning from the words you say or write?

aportnoy 8y ago

Also related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N400_(neuroscience) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N400_(neuroscience)

blattimwind 8y ago

> You'll see a flash of activity when people read the word "sticky" I noticed that my gaze actually jumped back to "jam" when I read "sticky".

nvrspyx 8y ago

In psychology/neuroscience, many refer to this generally as heuristics. It’s astonishing how much the mind relies on these heuristics from aspects like language (as you’ve pointed out) to visual perception. Many think the main purpose is to speed up processing tasks and require less “resources” so that cognitive load is freed up for other things. One of my favorite examples of this is how car drivers seem to fall into a sort of “auto-pilot” mode freeing up resources to think about random things like what you’re going to eat for dinner once you get home. I think the ELI5 way to look at it is pattern recognition and then using those patterns for not only prediction, much like ML models, but also in other things like physical actions, emotional response, etc. Many theorize it is that these heuristics are trained and the “path more taken” is the default. It’s when a stimulus doesn’t fit that path that the brain has to decide whether: 1. Is something wrong with this? 2. Is this a new path I need to start paving to speed up future processing? Whether or not that second choice is made is dependent on lots of things co-processing at the time: Emotion, attention, attitude, etc. How much that path is paved is also dependent on those things. This idea is fundamental to areas of study like symbolic systems at Stanford [1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_Systems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_Systems

wazer5 8y ago

I'm not surprised neuroscientists can measure it, I about fell over upon reading that sentence.

stubish 8y ago

And that flash of activity is also the basis of humor. We find unexpected things like this funny, the reward that helps our brains to analyze and learn from the unexpected situation.

frereubu 8y ago
Not all humour, but Steven Wright certainly made an entire career out of sentences like this.