3 ms·

What is quantitative in understanding the meaning of a name? We don't know that the brain runs on "numbers" (and no, it's no just like a "computer"). To respon

What is quantitative in understanding the meaning of a name? We don't know that the brain runs on "numbers" (and no, it's no just like a "computer"). To respond to your edit: That is not brown... there is a whole science of color perception, have a look.

jon_richards 5y ago
It’s not a computer, but it is quantified.
- RandomLensman 5y ago
  That touches on the really tricky point that some things can be quantified but not computed, so again, we don't know how that measurable representation relates to they way results are derived.
- username90 5y ago
  Numbers implies you can do mathematical operations on them that makes sense. So how would you quantify "good" or "bad"? You can't unless you also answer what "good" + "bad" should be. In psychology they just assume that mapping those onto 1 and 5 makes sense, so "good" + "bad" = 5 + 1 = 6, but that doesn't make sense since it would imply that "good" is the same as "bad" + "bad" + "bad" + "bad" + "bad". You get similar but different issues if you start including negative numbers, or if you just use relative measures and don't have a proper zero, no matter what you do numbers doesn't properly represent feelings as we know them.
m00x 5y ago
It is quantitative, but in an abstract way. You see the color "brown" as a reception of a photon of a certain wavelength onto your retina, which is sent to your brain. Visual perception can be equated to camera perception, but the data isn't represented the same way. Humans are just much better at "analog input" than computers are. When you see things around you, it's natural to try to classify it at multiple levels. In our early formative years, we learn shapes, lines, colours, etc. This said, "Brown" is just a label we put on a the perception of a photo's wavelength, which is quantitative on the light spectrum. All raw data is quantitative. Qualitative data are just the labels we put on it, but if we're going to general intelligence, we can't shortcut learning this way.

jon_richards 5y ago

It’s not a computer, but it is quantified.

RandomLensman 5y ago
That touches on the really tricky point that some things can be quantified but not computed, so again, we don't know how that measurable representation relates to they way results are derived.
username90 5y ago
Numbers implies you can do mathematical operations on them that makes sense. So how would you quantify "good" or "bad"? You can't unless you also answer what "good" + "bad" should be. In psychology they just assume that mapping those onto 1 and 5 makes sense, so "good" + "bad" = 5 + 1 = 6, but that doesn't make sense since it would imply that "good" is the same as "bad" + "bad" + "bad" + "bad" + "bad". You get similar but different issues if you start including negative numbers, or if you just use relative measures and don't have a proper zero, no matter what you do numbers doesn't properly represent feelings as we know them.

m00x 5y ago

It is quantitative, but in an abstract way. You see the color "brown" as a reception of a photon of a certain wavelength onto your retina, which is sent to your brain. Visual perception can be equated to camera perception, but the data isn't represented the same way. Humans are just much better at "analog input" than computers are. When you see things around you, it's natural to try to classify it at multiple levels. In our early formative years, we learn shapes, lines, colours, etc. This said, "Brown" is just a label we put on a the perception of a photo's wavelength, which is quantitative on the light spectrum. All raw data is quantitative. Qualitative data are just the labels we put on it, but if we're going to general intelligence, we can't shortcut learning this way.