This makes me think of a tool from semiotics called the Greimas square where you can have opposing concepts e.g. A and B (ugly & beautiful, for & against, legal & illegal).
At the surface level they can appear as binaries, but the negation of A is not equivalent to B and vice versa (e.g. illegal is not equivalent to not-legal) and encourages the consideration of more complex meta-concepts which at surface level seem like contradictions but are not (both beautiful and ugly, neither for or against).
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Others have pointed out that English speakers do have the capacity, and do use these sort of double negatives that allow for this ambiguity and nuance, but if you are an English-only speaker, I do believe that there are concepts that are thick with meaning and the meaning cannot accurately be communicated through a translation - they come with a lot of contextual baggage where the meaning can not be communicated in words alone.
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As a New Zealander who's lived in the U.S. for the last 15 years, I've realized in conversations with some native Americans where despite sincere (I think) efforts on both sides, I've not been able to communicate what I mean. I don't think it's anything to do with intelligence, but like author hints how language shapes how we think and therefore our realities.
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I've never found poetry to be interesting, but recently I've come to appreciate how I think poets attempt to bypass this flaw of language, and how good poets sometimes seem to succeed!
I made my own top level comment below about the ambiguity of "I don't want x" and how hard it is in English to distinguish between "I have zero want for x" and "I have negative want for x"
I didn't know about semiotic square, and appreciate learning about it. It points at exactly the property that I keep tripping over (and seeing others trip over).
Given that wants are an expression of values, and understanding other people's values enables empathy, I can't help but think this flaw in language is actually inhibiting empathy and cooperation at larger scales.
[0] by which I mean people prefer to use intuition when thinking on their own, but prefer others to be deliberate -- however inappropriate levels of intent also provokes suspicion?
> and how hard it is in English to distinguish between "I have zero want for x" and "I have negative want for x"
"I do not want to X"
"I want to not X"
These are both pretty natural English constructions, though the second is usually used as a retort for clarification after saying the first but meaning the second.
Related, that in English "must not" means that it's forbidden, while in German the analogous "muss nicht" just means "don't have to". Also "need not" means "don't need", instead of actually needing the negation.
As a native Chinese speaker that's always my confusion when communicate in English as I would feel that the word/phrasing can not express the meaning in my heart.
That's beautiful. E.g., I have Chinese coworkers and now I realize what they meant with "that's not wrong". I felt those expressions like humbleness, but now I realize they were trying to keep their authenticity. Mind blowing.
For me personally, it's the uncertainty dealing with non native languages. I can see that for my own language it is so hard to take full control of all cases for even a simple word, that gives me nerve to think before I say anything non native, as I learn, there are more complex cases that makes a single word fitting to more and more scenarios. Although I totally understand that the native speakers will definitely understand even if I do it wrong, but still, I feel that nerve every time.
native Americans or Native Americans? the latter would be more like the Moriori and fit the context better, but somehow native English speakers who arent interlegible are also interesting.
Western culture is predicated on a sort of positivist metaphysics, and our language reflects that. Whereas in the east, the langauges and cultures have both long ago (as in, thousands of years ago) assimilated the precepts of non-dualism, which brings with it a greater degree of subtlety, through its embedded understanding of equanimity, dependent arising, and so on. It's a different ontological root, and therefore a different schema altogether.
Knowing what I know of you guys in NZ, a lot of that sort of thinking has made its way into popular understanding by way of encounters with the Maori people, and some of it has to do with more modern notions of pluralism, and some of it has to do with British politeness.
All that to say, it is not your fault nor the Americans fault that there's a gap in understanding. It's the byproduct of where those two schemas do not connect.
The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome. No language is more expressive than another, some are more expressive for particular very specific things, like Inuit languages might be much better at describing the varieties of snow, but no language has a monopoly on describing dualism of ideas. It's just as silly to be overly dismissive of the language you're familiar with as it is to be overly dismissive of others.
> The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome.
The author did not say this; this is your unnecessarily negative take. However the author is comparing Chinese with English where this is somewhat true and well studied; eg. A Comparison of Chinese and English Language Processing - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs... Google will give you lots more info. on this.
> No language is more expressive than another,
Objectively false. This is the same meaningless logic that since almost all programming languages are Turing Complete and can simulate any Turing Machine therefore they are equivalent. In a abstract sense they are but for all practical purposes the notion is useless as anybody trying to program in C++ vs. Haskell vs. Prolog will tell you. This is why you have the concept of "Paradigms" and "Worldviews".
Every culture imposes a "Philosophical Worldview" on the Languages it invents.
An ancient Indian Philosopher named Bhartṛhari (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari) actually founded a school of philosophy where language is linked to cognition-by-itself with cognition-of-content i.e. subject+object+communication as a "whole understanding". He called this Sphota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa) defined as "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on the mind as language is uttered. This is the reason why in ancient Sanskrit literature there is so much emphasis on oral tradition i.e. using right words, right utterances, right tones etc.
It is pretty unanimously agreed by linguists that all language is equally expressive, which makes sense considering they were all made by humans to do the same thing.
No; I had already refuted this in my earlier comment.
Language is a product of Geography and Culture to express a "Philosophical Worldview". Mere study of its Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Grammar are not enough. What is important is whether a given language has specialized technical vocabulary to express specific concepts/ideas i.e. the "complexity of semantics" involved. These are usually context/culture dependent.
As an example, compare the language of the Xhosa people living in equatorial Africa with that of the Chukchi people living in the Arctic Circle. It should be obvious that they each have concepts expressed via language unique to their Geography/Culture and which are unknown to the other.
As another example, consider the Sanskrit word Karma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma). It is impossible to understand this word in all its connotations (it actually is a stand-in for a whole lot of concepts) without having an idea of Reincarnation which is specific to Hinduism/Buddhism philosophical worldviews.
Not all opinions must be taken on authority, they can be assessed on their internal coherence. The views he is putting forth are coherent and he has cited sources in a very precise manner. We can infer that he knows what he is talking about (spoiler: he does, as these are the same ideas I was referring to in my original comment).
Huh? It seems like i have showed up your ignorance on this subject and hence you are just trying to "appeal to authority" which is funny given that you have actually not mentioned any one Authority nor any papers/books in support of your argument.
I have studied Linguistics from the pov of Philosophy which any intelligent person should be able to infer from my references.
I don't think you even understand what the phrase "All languages are equally expressive" means. It means very different things when applied to Natural Languages vs. Formal Languages. The latter is where this expression is usually used/studied which is what you are parroting without any understanding.
Indeed but we have veered far from Plato's school of thought ever since the dualism of Descartes and it was further reinforced by the rise in materialism following the "death of god" and the discovery of the atom.
I hear you on that, but it's not like Laozi's thought is particularly useful to Chinese capitalism, either. Certainly any remnant gestures towards the dialectics of Marx by the CCP are farcical. We can allow for some local variance, of course, while still seeing the vulgarization of the whole world, so to speak. I think it's important to appreciate that the seed of dialectical thought can never be vanquished; Kant accidentally paved the way for Hegel's abolition of Cartesian dualism, and Hegel had no problem making use of the German language, so seemingly divorced from Plato's Greek, to do that. Dialectical thought can't help but appear over and over again, no matter the language, because all language is a product of the real world.
Again, it would be a mistake to not afford some degree of autonomy to language. The question is to what degree language is free to structure the world. Ultimately any language, I believe, can be expanded to express whatever new ideas arise in society, so that it is the real conditions that have ultimate power "in the last instance".
I afford that "autonomy" (in the sense of a sponptaneous emergence of phenomena, not in the sense of having agency); nevertheless, thousands of years of culture going one way here and another way there lend themselves to pre-built apparati of perception. See other comments in this thread for a more articulated explanation of what I mean; I don't have the time to re-express it here.
Something I think would be interesting for model APIs and consumer apps to exposed would be the probability of each individual token generated.
I’m presuming that one class of junk/low quality output is when the model doesn’t have high probability next tokens and works with whatever poor options it has.
Maybe low probability tokens that cross some threshold could have a visual treatment to give feedback the same way word processors give feedback in a spelling or grammatical error.
But maybe I’m making a mistake thinking that token probability is related to the accuracy of output?
I had a problem with my carrier as well with porting my number over. Attempting to interact with their customer service was a painful loop where nothing was resolved.
After a week I submitted an FCC complaint online (it was very straightforward) and issue was resolved in 24 hours.
During the start of covid I was considering buying a pulse oximeter and it annoyed me that some listings on Amazon were using “FDA approved” in listing and logo and I found it was easy to report them to FDA and their listing was taken down.
One time I was frustrated that a large and popular NYC-based physical store was charging sales tax for clothing under $110 (in NYC clothing and shoes under $110 have 0% sales tax) and I tired reporting to a state authority but I never even got an acknowledgment that complaint was received :/
I have to give a shoutout to New Zealand Marmite which is totally different to British Marmite (I think that NZ marmite has some sweetness as well).
Somehow i grew up in a mixed household that had both because my mum preferred Vegemite and I prefer Marmite.
In NYC it’s fairly easy to get Australian Vegemite but sadly impossible to find NZ Marmite, instead I do a bulk order every couple of years so that I have a stockpile :)
This. Imagine my suprise growing up on NZ Marmite, to open a jar of British Marmite and go 'wtf is that slightly gooey stuff'.
There's 3 very distinct camps in NZ.
Love Marmite - what's wrong with you Vegemite people
Love Vegemite - what's wrong with you Marmite people
None of the above - what's wrong with the lot of you
I had to tell my mum off for having Vegemite in her pantry the other day, but she had a decent enough excuse that made me giggle. "I buy vegemite because it comes in glass jars and I can reuse them!"
In the 80s Vegemite used to come in small glass jars with a press-on lid that were designed to be reused as drinking tumblers. It was common to see kitchen cupboards full of those tumblers.
I live in a smallish apartment building with 50 apartments and in the basement we have a little building community library where people put books/DVDs/Blu-ray disks that they’re done with. Last weekend I grabbed The Goodfellas and The Dark Night and will put them back when I’m done.
I think it would be really cool if there were ways for people to share their physical media because I don’t have the room to maintain a big media library, and also don’t have the energy to rip and store locally.
I also want to add that I’ve changed my streaming behavior- I will subscribe and immediately cancel the subscription so that it expires after a month so that I don’t end up with a bunch of active subscriptions that I’m not actively using.
When I do subscribe I always pay for the more expensive ad-free versions but recently I couldn’t get anything to play on Paramounts streaming service. After some trial and error I found that their “ad-free” service won’t run with my blocker running on my router and I needed to allowlist some ad services for it work. That’s pretty annoying.
Many local libraries offer DVDs. Libraries aren't just for books! My local library has all sorts of weird things, e.g. I can borrow a cake pan for if I don't want to buy a pan just to make a single bundt cake.
Where I live most of the charity shops are selling DVDs very cheaply - often 5 for £1. So I frequently buy a handful, watch them, then re-donate any that I don't want to keep.
That is a great way of doing things. I did this when I was younger and found tons of movies I would’ve never run into on a streaming website - especially Hong Kong and Japanese movies from the 90s
Paramount's LG app is the worst I've used. It doesn't support the pause feature reliably, ffs! Even browsing TV episodes is a jittery mess (and you must browse because it does a bad job of resuming a series where you left off). As soon as we're done with Star Trek we're gone.
Maybe you’ve read this already (I still have it in my stack to read so can’t give any personal review) but ‘Determined’ by Robert Sapolsky sets the argument that we don’t have free will and that the justice system is flawed because of that.
I read the article and I have to say, it's disturbingly compelling. Although I think that while we are unable to demonstrate intricate puppeting of real, conscious humans or something like that, there's some "truth" or "weight" in our thoughts and feelings that are genuine and outside of the typical sphere that free will governs (or, lacking that, fails to govern). Like, even if it could've been predicted with 73% accuracy at birth and 98% by age 25, the fact that someone deeply loves someone else doesn't seem like something to be written off as "this was in your genes and environment". It might still hold true in some sense if full-on mind control is invented, but then you wouldn't know if the feelings are real or fake, meaningful though they feel.
It’s a really interesting product that I’m not going to buy!
Declarative interfaces that allow you to describe what you want and use agents to go out to different services and chain them together is a cool idea:
I don’t want to spend time using dozens of different apps with different (often poorly designed) interfaces.
Having a push to talk hardware button instead seems less clunky than a “hey siri” key phrase (I use Siri dozens of times a day but unfortunately ‘raise to talk’ feature on Apple Watch has never worked well for me).
I’m curious how their LAM works with interfaces being updated- if they need to retrain with UI updates or if it’s flexible enough to be stable with UI changes and new features etc.
I currently use ChatGTP sessions to dive into various topics I’m interested in, and explore ideas- I do like the idea of dedicated hardware that would allow this, but it’s something I imagine I’d keep on the coffee table at home, I don’t want to get a dedicated SIM and data connection or carry around another device.
They’ve raised $30M and I wish them well, I hope they survive and have me as a customer in the future.
At the surface level they can appear as binaries, but the negation of A is not equivalent to B and vice versa (e.g. illegal is not equivalent to not-legal) and encourages the consideration of more complex meta-concepts which at surface level seem like contradictions but are not (both beautiful and ugly, neither for or against).
--
Others have pointed out that English speakers do have the capacity, and do use these sort of double negatives that allow for this ambiguity and nuance, but if you are an English-only speaker, I do believe that there are concepts that are thick with meaning and the meaning cannot accurately be communicated through a translation - they come with a lot of contextual baggage where the meaning can not be communicated in words alone.
--
As a New Zealander who's lived in the U.S. for the last 15 years, I've realized in conversations with some native Americans where despite sincere (I think) efforts on both sides, I've not been able to communicate what I mean. I don't think it's anything to do with intelligence, but like author hints how language shapes how we think and therefore our realities.
--
I've never found poetry to be interesting, but recently I've come to appreciate how I think poets attempt to bypass this flaw of language, and how good poets sometimes seem to succeed!