Thoughts on "Godel Escher Bach" - High Level Chunking

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I totally, 100% agree with that.  I know the Turkey Curse from the PD is old hat now, but the idea, the motivation behind it is still spot on.  You're right, the trick is finding out what is outside the target and it's a moving target.  The Turkey Curse wouldn't work anymore.  Although, a 50 year old, straight-laced, CEO doing the Turkey Curse probably would. 

In my experience, I can tell you it appears to work on VP's, Directors, Managers and Co-Workers... in fact, I haven't found a non-Discordian yet that it hasn't worked on.

[Cain]

I prefer Taleb's variant, an icecube down the back.  Usually easy, simple and effective, without saying a word.

[Cain]

As RWHN says, it's a moving target.

I'm getting this visual, of all these big, round targets swinging like erratic pendulums, and your mission is to shoot an arrow that misses all of them.

And the trick is twofold.  First you have to concieve of the areas that are poorly understood, or come totally originally, which requires a lot.  I mean, you have to wrap your brain around the concept without defining it, because it hasn't been defined before.  That requires a certain level of intuition, or Zen-like detachment coupled with a creative drive.

And then you actually have to act on it.

[Triple Zero]

wow LMNO, i would have totally skimmed passed such a thing in GEB if you hadn't shone your light on it. shows me how set in my ways i am that i read those things and think "yeah yeah i know this" and not even really consider the implications. so many things on my mind..

but if you'd mindfuck people by avoiding all their societal conventions, how is that not falling into the "doing everything opposite as the mainstream" trap?

sidenote, Rat, you did the turkey curse on collegues? meaning, doing a stupid dance and saying "gobble gobble gobble" right? what is supposed to happen? what happened? how did you get away with it?

[Cain]

Wouldn't the opposite also be implicit in what everyone is doing?  Satanism is implicit within Christianity for example.  But something that was a mixture of religion, art and philosophy would perhaps be a far further departure from Christian norms.  That is what should be aimed at, breaking out first of a binary value system to find new concepts.

In that sense, what we would be doing would not be the exact opposite, because that trap is somewhat obvious, you just reverse current trends.  Besides, I suspect that all of those opposites have already been colonized by music execs, fashion designers and other types of scum.

[Placid Dingo]

Saw this through the Reddit thread. Bump for quality.

[Cramulus]

I was at a meeting about an hour ago when I solved the MI -> MU puzzle


spoiler!!!



MI
MII
MIIII
MIIIIU
MUIU
MUIUUIU
MUIIU
MUIIUUIIU
MUIIIIU
MUIIIIUUIIIIU
MUUIUUIIIIU    <---This is where the magic happens
MUUIIIIIIU
MU!

[Elder Iptuous]

I was at a meeting about an hour ago when I solved the MI -> MU puzzle


spoiler!!!



MI
MII
MIIII
MIIIIU
MUIU
MUIUUIU
MUIIU
MUIIUUIIU
MUIIIIU
MUIIIIUUIIIIU
MUUIUUIIIIU    <---This is where the magic happens you have 5 I here
MUUIIIIIIU   you grew another I here
MU!

[Cramulus]

ah feck! 

[minuspace]

On first reading, part of what appealed to me was thinking how greater levels of chunking approximated the idea of moving to higher levels of abstraction (quantum indeterminacy aside).

I think the concept of aliasing is what informs how chunking supposedly produces error, in my mind.  To counter that, the possibility of compression that, although slight, is still "perfect", provides the condition for speculating that chunking does not necessarily result in a loss of determinacy.

What would a different kind of chunking look like?