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Would there be a robot rebellion inside a robot rebellion?

Started by Chelagoras The Boulder, January 11, 2015, 11:50:34 PM

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Cain

This thread is starting to remind me of the time Justine Tunney said unemployment was an "engineering problem".

LMNO

This is one reason I try to avoid metaphors when discussing quantum mechanics.

To condense demo's condensed version of the link that Cain posted, to say "everything is X" is to make "X" a meaningless term.

It also implies that all solutions for "X" are the same. But the solution for "DrywallComputer doesn't stay upright" is different than the solution for "PuppyComputer is bleeding from the eyes".

The fact that you've defined both Drywall and Puppy as Computer doesn't seem to help us in either instance.

Demolition Squid

#92
Semi-related, my favorite bad political metaphor ever. (Youtube link)

ETA - This is one of my big bugbears for this exact reason. Metaphors get thrown around to justify really terrible stuff. 'Money flows like water, therefore it will trickle down' for instance. 'The country's economy is just like your home checkbook' for another. These things aren't true, but they seem at first glance to make a lot of intuitive sense because there's some surface similarities, and suddenly everyone is accepting as common sense that we need to enact policies which screw over everyone in the long run.
Vast and Roaring Nipplebeast from the Dawn of Soho

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Metaphors can be useful for aiding understanding, right up to the point where people start confusing metaphors for literal reality. My favorite biology teacher uses the "cookbook" metaphor for DNA, but nobody actually thinks that genes are literal recipes.

To repost something I said elsewhere because it is directly relevant (even though it also makes me that guy who is quoting himself):

QuoteIt is an extraordinary feat of reductionism that seems to be particularly common among computer engineers and programmers: "Computers process input and produce output; the brain processes input and produces output. Computer programs are a type of code; DNA is a type of code. I understand computers and code; therefore I understand the brain and DNA". Once that (il)logical conclusion has been reached, further communication becomes impossible, because they are experts on computers, and brains are computers, and they are therefore experts on the brain and have no use for the flights of fancy of mere neurobiologists.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Demolition Squid

I don't know. It may just be because I read a lot of political statements/analysis, and you can pretty much guarantee that when a metaphor is being used in that context, it is being used purely as a rhetorical trick rather than as an aid to understanding... but I have an instant suspicion of metaphors outside creative writing.

Then again, I use them in my own political writing too, usually to do exactly the thing I hate seeing done, sooo... willing to admit some hypocrisy there.  :p
Vast and Roaring Nipplebeast from the Dawn of Soho

LMNO


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


rong

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 04:00:03 PM
The brain is nothing but a computer in  the same way a moose is nothing but a little red wagon.

brain is to computer as eye is to camera
"a real smart feller, he felt smart"

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: rong on January 31, 2015, 09:30:10 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on January 30, 2015, 04:00:03 PM
The brain is nothing but a computer in  the same way a moose is nothing but a little red wagon.

brain is to computer as eye is to camera

Rong answer.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Chelagoras The Boulder

yea, especially since our eyes are actually really shitty cameras. If you could hook up the raw sensations recieved by your eyeball and display them on a screen without the brains input they would look like shit. The brain actually does a lot to correct our perception of visual stimuli
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on January 31, 2015, 11:15:06 PM
yea, especially since our eyes are actually really shitty cameras. If you could hook up the raw sensations recieved by your eyeball and display them on a screen without the brains input they would look like shit. The brain actually does a lot to correct our perception of visual stimuli

Yeah, our visual experience is something like 90% hallucination to boost the low-fidelity input to high-fidelity perception, which is really amazing, considering.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


rong

"a real smart feller, he felt smart"

The Wizard Joseph

You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Junkenstein

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 01, 2015, 01:26:47 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on January 31, 2015, 11:15:06 PM
yea, especially since our eyes are actually really shitty cameras. If you could hook up the raw sensations recieved by your eyeball and display them on a screen without the brains input they would look like shit. The brain actually does a lot to correct our perception of visual stimuli

Yeah, our visual experience is something like 90% hallucination to boost the low-fidelity input to high-fidelity perception, which is really amazing, considering.

Woah, wait, what?

Thread/ links / expansion in general please, this intrigues the fuck out of me. And explains quite a bit about quite a lot.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Junkenstein on February 03, 2015, 11:12:26 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 01, 2015, 01:26:47 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on January 31, 2015, 11:15:06 PM
yea, especially since our eyes are actually really shitty cameras. If you could hook up the raw sensations recieved by your eyeball and display them on a screen without the brains input they would look like shit. The brain actually does a lot to correct our perception of visual stimuli

Yeah, our visual experience is something like 90% hallucination to boost the low-fidelity input to high-fidelity perception, which is really amazing, considering.

Woah, wait, what?

Thread/ links / expansion in general please, this intrigues the fuck out of me. And explains quite a bit about quite a lot.

Oh, yes, I'll try to collect some links that will explain this! It's really interesting.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."