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> I can trace my entire career to reading a single paper by doing this very tediously (it gets easier; eventually, you build an embedding and every paper is rea
by PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> I can trace my entire career to reading a single paper by doing this very tediously (it gets easier; eventually, you build an embedding and every paper is really just another point in hypothesis space).
Tangential, but it really annoys me how people use computational jargon to represent internal mental processes. These are absolutely terrible metaphors outside of computing and I have no clue what you're referring to. What the hell does "building an embedding" even mean with respect to humans? Yea, I'm sure I encode some embedding inside my brain. I'm also certain this is just a tiny part of the mental processes I rely on.
- dekhn 2y agoPlease note that I've worked in both biology and CS for 30+ years. Everything I describe in this way is a simplified approximation of mental processes, and half-joking (mainly appreciated by ML nerds and cognitive neuroscientists, I admit) To build an embedding for a human means to build an approximate map of entities within a metric space. We do this all the time, for example unsupervised clustering of related entities (for example species classification based on visible character states). From what I can tell, the human brain basically has a number of approximate computing systems- we have associative memory (hash tables/dictionary lookups), trajectory interpolation/extrapolation (catching a ball with only a few glances), logical reasoning from a premise (theoretical math), monte carlo tree search (formulating a complex plan wiht multiple steps and some unknowns), etc, etc. I certainly don't propose that my terminology is specifically scientifically correct, it's just heuristics I apply to my own thought patterns.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago> To build an embedding for a human means to build an approximate map of entities within a metric space. We do this all the time, for example unsupervised clustering of related entities (for example species classification based on visible character states). I thought you said "for a human". These are all computational concepts that are unrelated to human cognition (at least in terms of evidence). Why are we talking about human cognition in terms of "metric space" when metric space applied to human cognition is nonsensical? > From what I can tell, the human brain basically has a number of approximate computing systems- we have associative memory (hash tables/dictionary lookups), trajectory interpolation/extrapolation (catching a ball with only a few glances), logical reasoning from a premise (theoretical math), monte carlo tree search (formulating a complex plan wiht multiple steps and some unknowns), etc, etc. I certainly don't propose that my terminology is specifically scientifically correct, it's just heuristics I apply to my own thought patterns. Police? This comment right here: they failed to read my comment. I of course certainly strongly support you describing your mental cognition the way you want to! It's just not evidence that other people can be modeled with the same computational mechanics, nor that these mechanisms are sufficient. We should use meaningful terms that people can actually recognize rather than trying to forcing mental cognition to fit models that are curently in vogue.
- dekhn 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPlease don't cross into personal attack.
- chicken_grease 2y ago[dead]