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The “claim of NASA endorsing Sanskrit” is an exaggeration that is easy to debunk, but the paper itself is real: it presents (though in a vague way) something of

by svat 6y ago

The “claim of NASA endorsing Sanskrit” is an exaggeration that is easy to debunk, but the paper itself is real: it presents (though in a vague way) something of historical interest, namely a dialect of Sanskrit that was (and is) used for giving precise definitions and statements, attempting to avoid ambiguity. Of course from one perspective this is “just” a historical curiosity and an irrelevant dead end as far as AI is concerned, while from other it's an important landmark in the intellectual history of the world. (See my other comments in this thread if they're visible; trying to avoid repeating myself.) Aside, just remembered: there's a talk on this Navya-nyāya tradition that I listened to recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRiv7uv_C90&feature=youtu.be&list=PL01ilcOJQjCHb8zBKqniz8IEo38y1xE6i&t=470 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRiv7uv_C90&feature=youtu.be... (covers Navya-nyāya in the 2nd half, but may be hard to follow if you're not familiar with the Sanskrit tradition). For a Western audience, these ideas may be easier to understand via the papers I mentioned at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285, or something like the “History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps” podcast, which is good in general (but which covers only the older nyāya and not navya-nyāya so far, in its 62 episodes https://historyofphilosophy.net/india https://historyofphilosophy.net/india).

srean 6y ago
Of course the paper is real, but not one that's particularly influential, notable, novel or one that led to anything more substantial. Regardless, its frequently used to push a political agenda of Indian/Hindu superiority. Either overtly, or covertly.
- svat 6y ago
  Here's how I think about these things. You can either react to the extreme version, focus on the political consequences, and what the person-on-the-street says/thinks. This is totally valid, and closer to what happens “on the ground”. Or you can (if you can afford not to worry about it) take delight in intellectual curiosity, approach everything like a student, trying to be as scholarly and scrupulously honest as possible, gently correcting people when they make exaggerated claims, etc. I mean, no matter how much you use strong words like “debunked” etc., people will tend to just ignore it and keep bringing up the same dumb thing as evidence of whatever-they-imagine and only think you're ignoring/fighting them, while instead if you non-confrontationally give them a proper judicious account of its role, they at least have a positive valence towards what you're saying and there's a chance the accurate version will sink in. Even if not, it's also good practice for being able to extract whatever good is in something: haṃsa-kṣira-nyāya or nīra-kṣīra-viveka as they say in Sanskrit. (I think I already mentioned this paper being a “dead end” etc in my comments, even in my first comment on this topic from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285. BTW it did lead to something more: excitement over the paper led to a conference the next year in India—see the only other paper of Rick Briggs listed in DBLP—though that too fizzled out and led nowhere... I haven't even been able to find any record of its proceedings being published anywhere. Anyway, telling people about all this creates a mystery and raises questions—if a lot of people putting their minds together couldn't produce anything useful for AI from it, maybe it's not so useful for AI after all?—and invites them to reconsider their position, and generally leads to better outcomes than quick debunking and denial of false claims, IMO.)
  - srean 6y ago
    I think we are more in agreement than in opposition. The two point of views that you mentioned should not even be complementary. Delighting in the intellectual marvel should not stop one from calling out abuse.
    - svat 6y ago
      Yes we are in agreement! There is no opposition, and if at all there is any disagreement it is at most one of focus and emphasis, not anything substantive. Consider the chain: <Fun fact: X, imperfectly stated> → <NASA engineer says Sanskrit can be used for knowledge representation> → <NASA endorses Sanskrit for AI> → <Sanskrit is good for AI> → <Sanskrit is the best language for computers> → <claims of superiority> → <Y: the thing you might be actually worried about>. In any such chain X→…→Y, I think it's possible that worry about Y can hinder ability to appreciate X on its own terms as an intellectual delight, so it requires some conscious mental effort of stepping back or “depoliticization”, to do so. Then, for “calling out abuse” (as you said, they're not complementary), one again has a choice of form. A shooting-down approach, especially one where one debunks something actually further ahead in the chain, has its advantages — it is strong, and plays well to third parties and to those already on one's side. But it can be polarizing, and poor at convincing the person who was saying X. It seems preferable to me to start by agreeing with X (in this case X too was imperfectly stated so actually one would have to reach back and agree with the correct W), then add a cautionary note about the next steps in the chain that are not true. But this is ultimately a matter of preference no doubt. After all, those who react strongly seem to be more successful in most outcomes other than convincing the person they're reacting to. :-) Anyway I guess it is a bit pointless and too meta to be talking about talking, so I'll end here; will just for concreteness repeat the correct (AFAIK) version of the “fun fact”: there existed/exists an interesting and sophisticated special-purpose usage of (a subset of) Sanskrit that was used to avoid (reduce?) the ambiguity that is common all natural languages, and Sanskrit in particular, and this was (roughly) pointed out in a paper in the 80s that caught some interest because of the author's employer (NASA) and publication venue (AI Magazine), though there are much better sources, and though it is not actually any more useful for AI than the typical approaches used (even at that time) for knowledge-representation.

by svat 6y ago

srean 6y ago

Of course the paper is real, but not one that's particularly influential, notable, novel or one that led to anything more substantial. Regardless, its frequently used to push a political agenda of Indian/Hindu superiority. Either overtly, or covertly.

svat 6y ago
Here's how I think about these things. You can either react to the extreme version, focus on the political consequences, and what the person-on-the-street says/thinks. This is totally valid, and closer to what happens “on the ground”. Or you can (if you can afford not to worry about it) take delight in intellectual curiosity, approach everything like a student, trying to be as scholarly and scrupulously honest as possible, gently correcting people when they make exaggerated claims, etc. I mean, no matter how much you use strong words like “debunked” etc., people will tend to just ignore it and keep bringing up the same dumb thing as evidence of whatever-they-imagine and only think you're ignoring/fighting them, while instead if you non-confrontationally give them a proper judicious account of its role, they at least have a positive valence towards what you're saying and there's a chance the accurate version will sink in. Even if not, it's also good practice for being able to extract whatever good is in something: haṃsa-kṣira-nyāya or nīra-kṣīra-viveka as they say in Sanskrit. (I think I already mentioned this paper being a “dead end” etc in my comments, even in my first comment on this topic from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14295285. BTW it did lead to something more: excitement over the paper led to a conference the next year in India—see the only other paper of Rick Briggs listed in DBLP—though that too fizzled out and led nowhere... I haven't even been able to find any record of its proceedings being published anywhere. Anyway, telling people about all this creates a mystery and raises questions—if a lot of people putting their minds together couldn't produce anything useful for AI from it, maybe it's not so useful for AI after all?—and invites them to reconsider their position, and generally leads to better outcomes than quick debunking and denial of false claims, IMO.)
- srean 6y ago
  I think we are more in agreement than in opposition. The two point of views that you mentioned should not even be complementary. Delighting in the intellectual marvel should not stop one from calling out abuse.
  - svat 6y ago
    Yes we are in agreement! There is no opposition, and if at all there is any disagreement it is at most one of focus and emphasis, not anything substantive. Consider the chain: <Fun fact: X, imperfectly stated> → <NASA engineer says Sanskrit can be used for knowledge representation> → <NASA endorses Sanskrit for AI> → <Sanskrit is good for AI> → <Sanskrit is the best language for computers> → <claims of superiority> → <Y: the thing you might be actually worried about>. In any such chain X→…→Y, I think it's possible that worry about Y can hinder ability to appreciate X on its own terms as an intellectual delight, so it requires some conscious mental effort of stepping back or “depoliticization”, to do so. Then, for “calling out abuse” (as you said, they're not complementary), one again has a choice of form. A shooting-down approach, especially one where one debunks something actually further ahead in the chain, has its advantages — it is strong, and plays well to third parties and to those already on one's side. But it can be polarizing, and poor at convincing the person who was saying X. It seems preferable to me to start by agreeing with X (in this case X too was imperfectly stated so actually one would have to reach back and agree with the correct W), then add a cautionary note about the next steps in the chain that are not true. But this is ultimately a matter of preference no doubt. After all, those who react strongly seem to be more successful in most outcomes other than convincing the person they're reacting to. :-) Anyway I guess it is a bit pointless and too meta to be talking about talking, so I'll end here; will just for concreteness repeat the correct (AFAIK) version of the “fun fact”: there existed/exists an interesting and sophisticated special-purpose usage of (a subset of) Sanskrit that was used to avoid (reduce?) the ambiguity that is common all natural languages, and Sanskrit in particular, and this was (roughly) pointed out in a paper in the 80s that caught some interest because of the author's employer (NASA) and publication venue (AI Magazine), though there are much better sources, and though it is not actually any more useful for AI than the typical approaches used (even at that time) for knowledge-representation.