5 ms·

That appears to be meaningless. Please explain without using language.

by nyeah 1y ago

mallowdram 1y ago
If you understand the nature of language fully, then its ultimate function is to refute itself. In other words, all our use of arbitrary signals leads eventually to specific signals. To make that simpler, each statement in any existing language is about replacing language.
- the_af 1y ago
  I'll try to say this as politely as I can: I think this is a bot account. Not only your two posts above read like word-salad, I went through your comments history and almost every comment of yours reads like this (except maybe a couple). If so, could you maybe stop your experiment? I wasted time trying to parse your comment as if it was generated by a human.
  - mallowdram 1y ago
    I'm not a bot, I'm a neurobiologist with a start up that's about replacing the symbolic. and I'm pretty stunned at how inert CS is regarding language. You can find plenty of typos in my posts, and they're not all about this, they're about myth, causality, the symbolic. To accuse a human of being a bot is really poor manners. Far from word salads, they are based in deep theories from empirical demonstrations that words are our most fundamental illusions. If you want the deep research we use internally (about 100 citations) start here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXtU97SCjxaHCrf8UVeQGYajatFQ_MU69MBDmIFe58I/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXtU97SCjxaHCrf8UVeQGYaj... I suggest that CS has little ability to debates the scientific reality of language if posters are going to complain scientific statements that are defined and defendable are word salads. That's a warning CS hasn't done its homework.
    - the_af 1y ago
      > I'm a neurobiologist with a start up that's about replacing the symbolic What's your startup? What are your publications? That Google doc link is more word-salad and random quotes and citations. What on earth is a "start up that's about replacing the symbolic"? > If you understand the nature of language fully, then its ultimate function is to refute itself. In other words, all our use of arbitrary signals leads eventually to specific signals. To make that simpler, each statement in any existing language is about replacing language. This is word salad, for example. You're not trying to "make it simpler", you're trying to obfuscate (or it's just random). > That's a warning CS hasn't done its homework. What's a "CS"?
      - mallowdram 1y ago
        I don't disclose affiliations here, that's the beauty of HN. I get to keep my anonymity to explore. A start-up that replaces the symbolic engages with specifics in signals in the record (animals, entoptics, onomatopoeia, calendrical signs, action-syntax externals, cinematic action-glyphs) and figures out what representations veer referential and offers concatenation. The idea that language refutes itself is as old as the pre-socratics. I won't go into the detailed history here, but there are 1000s of reference for this statement. I'll use Cassirer's, which is pretty succinct. ..at some point a direct contact must occur between knowledge and reality. If we succeed in freeing ourselves from all these interpretations – if we above all succeed in removing the veil of words, which conceals the true essence of things, then at one stroke we shall find ourselves face to face with the original perceptions.. Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms Freeing ourselves from the veil of words is theoretically equivalent to language's ultimate function is to refute itself. CS is computer science. btw it's clear the drive to encapsulate in plain English was and is the achilles heel to CS, coders are forced to finger point using characterizations of "word salad" at scientifically complex theories and analytic ideas.
      - nyeah 1y ago
        Commenter says language carries no meaning. Why discuss? (How would you discuss?)
  - ghc 1y ago
    While it could be a bot, I have a more charitable take. The comments mostly appear quite similar in structure to certain academic writing I've had to edit in the past -- specifically proposals written by non-native English speakers at the graduate or post-doc level. Academic jargon usually has precise vocabulary conveying a specific meaning with lower ambiguity than standard English. If the majority of your time is spent using those terms, you may default to using them conversationally when speaking English even in casual settings. This makes you especially hard to understand when you also make simple grammatical errors and use punctuation in an unnatural manner (for English).
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - mallowdram 1y ago
      I'm an American, don't discuss what you don't understand.
      - ghc 1y ago
        Then you must be writing extremely fast to make so many basic punctuation and grammar errors consistently throughout your posts. If you wish to be understood, slow down and put more time into your writing. Writing on an internet forum is no different from other forms of written communication -- write for your audience and don't use jargon as a crutch.
        mallowdram 1y ago
        The engineering tyrannical drive for plain English doesn't fit in the web's protocol philosophy. It's a place where all styles and forms belong. "Written communication" is by nature jargon when specializations are interdisciplinary, otherwise monoculture takes root. If you don't understand something, ask or search - this is the web, dude. Nothing ends here.
        ghc 1y ago
  - 4ndrewl 1y ago
    It's more likely someone who has studied the philosophy of language and structure - someone who reads Russel/Wittgenstein/Derrida. Reducing everything you don't understand to "must be a bot" seems uncharitable.
    - the_af 1y ago
      > Reducing everything you don't understand to "must be a bot" seems uncharitable. That seems a non sequitur. I didn't say I didn't understand this person, I said their comments are word salad and full of logical disconnects. You'll see, for example, the first reply bears almost no relation to TFA nor to the comment they were replying to. Then, when pressed, they responded with obfuscation. They reply with variations of "language refutes itself" and links to google docs with a salad of links that bear no relevance to the topic at hand. They claim to be researchers in a startup but when pressed, they backpedal into anonymity. That's... not a good sign. There's plenty I read that I don't understand, and I don't assume it was written by an LLM. Most of it predates LLMs! But surely you sometimes read stuff you suspect was written by an LLM? PS: the commenter directly used AI (Gemini) in this response, with no semblance of relevance to the comment they were replying to (except responding to keywords, exactly what an LLM would do): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374270
      - 4ndrewl 1y ago
        Perhaps it's only "wordsalad" to you because you have a different set of academic experiences. If you've read something like Ricoeur's The Rule Of Metaphor, their initial comment makes more sense I think.
        the_af 1y ago
        Maybe! But I think the implicit netiquette is that when one is posting in a public forum, one should strive to make the message clear and avoid obfuscation [1]. To be 100% honest, what drew my attention to the initial comment is that I thought it was joke about the TFA: responding to an anecdote about cryptic machine (mis)translation with some LLM-generated mumbo jumbo! Alas, it seems not to be the case. [1] though, I suppose, if one is trying to make the point that "all language refutes itself"...
- glitchc 1y ago
  > each statement in any existing language is about replacing language. I found that difficult to parse. Moreover, it's a strong claim. Can you provide some evidence as to why it's true? I can find some trivial counter-examples. For instance, which part of "I like oranges." evolves English as a language?
  - mallowdram 1y ago
    Language as a self-refuting system, doesn't evolve, or evolve us, it devolves towards increasing arbitariness, the faster it's used, particularly once automated. “We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.” Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024 .at some point a direct contact must occur between knowledge and reality. If we succeed in freeing ourselves from all these interpretations – if we above all succeed in removing the veil of words, which conceals the true essence of things, then at one stroke we shall find ourselves face to face with the original perceptions.. Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

That appears to be meaningless. Please explain without using language.

by nyeah 1y ago

That appears to be meaningless. Please explain without using language.

If you understand the nature of language fully, then its ultimate function is to refute itself. In other words, all our use of arbitrary signals leads eventually to specific signals. To make that simpler, each statement in any existing language is about replacing language.

the_af 1y ago
I'll try to say this as politely as I can: I think this is a bot account. Not only your two posts above read like word-salad, I went through your comments history and almost every comment of yours reads like this (except maybe a couple). If so, could you maybe stop your experiment? I wasted time trying to parse your comment as if it was generated by a human.
- mallowdram 1y ago
  I'm not a bot, I'm a neurobiologist with a start up that's about replacing the symbolic. and I'm pretty stunned at how inert CS is regarding language. You can find plenty of typos in my posts, and they're not all about this, they're about myth, causality, the symbolic. To accuse a human of being a bot is really poor manners. Far from word salads, they are based in deep theories from empirical demonstrations that words are our most fundamental illusions. If you want the deep research we use internally (about 100 citations) start here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXtU97SCjxaHCrf8UVeQGYajatFQ_MU69MBDmIFe58I/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXtU97SCjxaHCrf8UVeQGYaj... I suggest that CS has little ability to debates the scientific reality of language if posters are going to complain scientific statements that are defined and defendable are word salads. That's a warning CS hasn't done its homework.
  - the_af 1y ago
    > I'm a neurobiologist with a start up that's about replacing the symbolic What's your startup? What are your publications? That Google doc link is more word-salad and random quotes and citations. What on earth is a "start up that's about replacing the symbolic"? > If you understand the nature of language fully, then its ultimate function is to refute itself. In other words, all our use of arbitrary signals leads eventually to specific signals. To make that simpler, each statement in any existing language is about replacing language. This is word salad, for example. You're not trying to "make it simpler", you're trying to obfuscate (or it's just random). > That's a warning CS hasn't done its homework. What's a "CS"?
    - mallowdram 1y ago
      I don't disclose affiliations here, that's the beauty of HN. I get to keep my anonymity to explore. A start-up that replaces the symbolic engages with specifics in signals in the record (animals, entoptics, onomatopoeia, calendrical signs, action-syntax externals, cinematic action-glyphs) and figures out what representations veer referential and offers concatenation. The idea that language refutes itself is as old as the pre-socratics. I won't go into the detailed history here, but there are 1000s of reference for this statement. I'll use Cassirer's, which is pretty succinct. ..at some point a direct contact must occur between knowledge and reality. If we succeed in freeing ourselves from all these interpretations – if we above all succeed in removing the veil of words, which conceals the true essence of things, then at one stroke we shall find ourselves face to face with the original perceptions.. Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms Freeing ourselves from the veil of words is theoretically equivalent to language's ultimate function is to refute itself. CS is computer science. btw it's clear the drive to encapsulate in plain English was and is the achilles heel to CS, coders are forced to finger point using characterizations of "word salad" at scientifically complex theories and analytic ideas.
    - nyeah 1y ago
      Commenter says language carries no meaning. Why discuss? (How would you discuss?)
- ghc 1y ago
  While it could be a bot, I have a more charitable take. The comments mostly appear quite similar in structure to certain academic writing I've had to edit in the past -- specifically proposals written by non-native English speakers at the graduate or post-doc level. Academic jargon usually has precise vocabulary conveying a specific meaning with lower ambiguity than standard English. If the majority of your time is spent using those terms, you may default to using them conversationally when speaking English even in casual settings. This makes you especially hard to understand when you also make simple grammatical errors and use punctuation in an unnatural manner (for English).
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - mallowdram 1y ago
    I'm an American, don't discuss what you don't understand.
    - ghc 1y ago
      Then you must be writing extremely fast to make so many basic punctuation and grammar errors consistently throughout your posts. If you wish to be understood, slow down and put more time into your writing. Writing on an internet forum is no different from other forms of written communication -- write for your audience and don't use jargon as a crutch.
      - mallowdram 1y ago
        The engineering tyrannical drive for plain English doesn't fit in the web's protocol philosophy. It's a place where all styles and forms belong. "Written communication" is by nature jargon when specializations are interdisciplinary, otherwise monoculture takes root. If you don't understand something, ask or search - this is the web, dude. Nothing ends here.
        ghc 1y ago
- 4ndrewl 1y ago
  It's more likely someone who has studied the philosophy of language and structure - someone who reads Russel/Wittgenstein/Derrida. Reducing everything you don't understand to "must be a bot" seems uncharitable.
  - the_af 1y ago
    > Reducing everything you don't understand to "must be a bot" seems uncharitable. That seems a non sequitur. I didn't say I didn't understand this person, I said their comments are word salad and full of logical disconnects. You'll see, for example, the first reply bears almost no relation to TFA nor to the comment they were replying to. Then, when pressed, they responded with obfuscation. They reply with variations of "language refutes itself" and links to google docs with a salad of links that bear no relevance to the topic at hand. They claim to be researchers in a startup but when pressed, they backpedal into anonymity. That's... not a good sign. There's plenty I read that I don't understand, and I don't assume it was written by an LLM. Most of it predates LLMs! But surely you sometimes read stuff you suspect was written by an LLM? PS: the commenter directly used AI (Gemini) in this response, with no semblance of relevance to the comment they were replying to (except responding to keywords, exactly what an LLM would do): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374270
    - 4ndrewl 1y ago
      Perhaps it's only "wordsalad" to you because you have a different set of academic experiences. If you've read something like Ricoeur's The Rule Of Metaphor, their initial comment makes more sense I think.
      - the_af 1y ago
        Maybe! But I think the implicit netiquette is that when one is posting in a public forum, one should strive to make the message clear and avoid obfuscation [1]. To be 100% honest, what drew my attention to the initial comment is that I thought it was joke about the TFA: responding to an anecdote about cryptic machine (mis)translation with some LLM-generated mumbo jumbo! Alas, it seems not to be the case. [1] though, I suppose, if one is trying to make the point that "all language refutes itself"...
glitchc 1y ago
> each statement in any existing language is about replacing language. I found that difficult to parse. Moreover, it's a strong claim. Can you provide some evidence as to why it's true? I can find some trivial counter-examples. For instance, which part of "I like oranges." evolves English as a language?
- mallowdram 1y ago
  Language as a self-refuting system, doesn't evolve, or evolve us, it devolves towards increasing arbitariness, the faster it's used, particularly once automated. “We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.” Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024 .at some point a direct contact must occur between knowledge and reality. If we succeed in freeing ourselves from all these interpretations – if we above all succeed in removing the veil of words, which conceals the true essence of things, then at one stroke we shall find ourselves face to face with the original perceptions.. Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms