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On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

cs.utexas.edu

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Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#11

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #9
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a baby have a will? How about a cat? Bacterium? I'm actually curious why people believe one emergent system does (eg, people) but another doesn't (eg, evolution/biosphere). What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold?

> What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold? There isn't really a threshold beyond that pattern or object somehow communicating to you that it does indeed possess a will or some form of consciousness. The default assumption is to assume it doesn't until it shows it does instead of invoking an animist world view that imbues a spirit to every complex phenomenon…

Why is the animist view not the default assumption?

That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, albeit that most wills don't look much like ours (since most things don't look like us).

I mean, I could see if you were arguing that humans don't have a will, but evolution doesn't either -- but to divide them in to categories based on feelings (which seems to be the case) seems to needlessly complexify the model.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#12

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #11
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold? There isn't really a threshold beyond that pattern or object somehow communicating to you that it does indeed possess a will or some form of consciousness. The default assumption is to assume it doesn't until it shows it does instead of invoking an animist world view that imbues a spirit to every complex phenomenon…

Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait. The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, alb…

> Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

Although you raise an interesting point, that was the default view of many, if not most, societies until modern times. Once that threshold is crossed, we reflexively imbue it with other superstitious traits. In theory it makes sense, in practice, it'll lead to shit like human sacrifice.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#13

Post by smhost »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #12
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait. The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, alb…

> Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait. Although you raise an interesting point, that was the default view of many,…

In what theory would that make even remote sense?

If there's no selective pressure for a will to emerge, a will will not emerge (barring some infinitely improbable random event).

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#14

Post by GuiA »

leoscuro wrote: post #8
chickenfries wrote: post #3

I have a coworker who describes everything in a very anthropomorphic and casual way, and their code is excessively imperative: everything is accomplished through conditionals rather than by designing the code in such a way that functions only run on data structures that they support. I would share this with him, but I imagine it would go completely over his head. > The implied abstraction, in which time has disappear…

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I've been learning Japanese for a bit over a year now, and while I am still very far away from being happy with my level in the language, I definitely noticed a distinct shift for the better in my understanding of the language and how fast I picked up new grammatical constructs etc when I stopped trying to contrast it to the western languages I already knew.

You have to accept that Japanese grammar might have some basic concepts in common with the grammar of western languages (verbs, objects, adjectives, etc) but that really doesn't get you far.

(for japanese learners reading this comment, the article that pushed the first domino for me was this one: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2007/09/03/repeat-after-... )

Regarding your question about programming, I'd encourage you to read both The Little Schemer and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#15

Post by [deleted] »

GuiA wrote: post #14
leoscuro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I've been learning Japanese for a bit over a year now, and while I am still very far away from being happy with my level in the language, I definitely noticed a distinct shift for the better in my understanding of the language and how fast I picked up new grammatical constructs etc when I stopped trying to contrast it to the western languages I already knew. You have to accept that Japanese grammar might have some ba…

[deleted]

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#16

Post by elihu »

leoscuro wrote: post #8
chickenfries wrote: post #3

I have a coworker who describes everything in a very anthropomorphic and casual way, and their code is excessively imperative: everything is accomplished through conditionals rather than by designing the code in such a way that functions only run on data structures that they support. I would share this with him, but I imagine it would go completely over his head. > The implied abstraction, in which time has disappear…

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I suppose learning a language that forces you to work in a declarative style (such as Haskell) rather than imperative might be enlightening, but if that's not practical you could try using declarative style in C and/or Python. For instance, don't use global mutable variables and whenever possible write functions that take in const arguments and produce some return value without changing the state of anything.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#17

Post by chickenfries »

leoscuro wrote: post #8
chickenfries wrote: post #3

I have a coworker who describes everything in a very anthropomorphic and casual way, and their code is excessively imperative: everything is accomplished through conditionals rather than by designing the code in such a way that functions only run on data structures that they support. I would share this with him, but I imagine it would go completely over his head. > The implied abstraction, in which time has disappear…

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I think your language metaphor works here, but I won't try to extend it for fear of misleading you with anthropomorphism :)

Anthropomorphized code reads like someone reading off a gigantic checklist that keeps getting longer and longer. Each time a new problem comes up, we solve it by adding another "If A then B" except it's something like this

    if foo.bar.baz[0][1]['value']
      if (foo.bar.baz[0][1]['value'] == 'undocumented business rule')
        globalVariable = false # why? who knows
      else
        globalVariable = true

      globalVaraiable = foo.bar.baz[0][1]['value']
Relying on “If A then B” quickly get out of hand. The number of possible paths that your code can take grows quickly, even exponentially depending on the structure of your program. I don't want to be dogmatic, but always be asking yourself if you can structure your code as to avoid relying heavily on conditionals, especially nested ones.

Focus on the problem you're trying to solve, not the operational details of the language or other tools you're using. However, keep exposing yourself to more languages, that are different from each other in semantics, run-times. Learn about different programming paradigms: declarative, imperative, functional, etc, focusing on semantics and not syntax.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#18

Post by gizmo686 »

GuiA wrote: post #14
leoscuro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I've been learning Japanese for a bit over a year now, and while I am still very far away from being happy with my level in the language, I definitely noticed a distinct shift for the better in my understanding of the language and how fast I picked up new grammatical constructs etc when I stopped trying to contrast it to the western languages I already knew. You have to accept that Japanese grammar might have some ba…

Speaking as someone who is studying both linguistics and Japanese, this this type of comment is just cringy to read. In the grand scheme of potential "languages" Japanese and English (as well as all natural human languages; including signed languages) have incredibly similar grammars. It is only when you restrict your view to the range of human languages that Japanese and English start to look incredibly different.

With regards to your link. Japanese absolutely has subjects.

The question of presisly what -ga marks is a bit more controversial, but calling it a subject marker is a perfectly defensible position. Indeed, having studied linguistics before studying Japanese, I found that thinking of -ga as a subject marker and -wa as a topic marker made the distinction easy for me.

The point of this comment is not to say that we should be teaching English-native Japanese students that Japanese does have subjects and -ga marks them. I am not qualified to make that judgement, and my benefit likely came as a result of leveraging my linguistic studies.

As others have pointed out, thinking of Japanese as analogous to English is counter-productive for most students. This is despite the fact that Japanese is analogous to English in most cases, including (potentially) cases where seeing the analogy could be counter productive.

Returning to the original article; this is a good indication that just because something is wrong does not mean that it is not useful. Anthropomorphizing might not be technically correct, but it could still be a useful tool to help our human brains make sense of the world or subject matter. In the same way that saying "Japanese does not have subjects" might not be technically correct, but it might still be useful.

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#19

Post by Houshalter »

chickenfries wrote: post #17
leoscuro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages. I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of…

I think your language metaphor works here, but I won't try to extend it for fear of misleading you with anthropomorphism :) Anthropomorphized code reads like someone reading off a gigantic checklist that keeps getting longer and longer. Each time a new problem comes up, we solve it by adding another "If A then B" except it's something like this if foo.bar.baz[0][1]['value'] if (foo.bar.baz[0][1]['value'] == 'undocume…

My favorite examples of overreliance on conditionals: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/285492834444771328/28... https://i.redd.it/6fh5xb20ttly.png http://i.imgur.com/GqcvMhp.png

Re: On anthropomorphism in science (1985)

#20

Post by skybrian »

Apparently Dijkstra thought that if we could somehow think more abstractly and mathematically then we'd avoid making mistakes.

But in practice, it seems to be the opposite: most people have a hard time thinking abstractly. We need analogies to make sense of things.

For example, there was an experiment [1] showing that even basic logic is easier to handle if it's thought of as "detecting cheating" than as a pure logic problem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

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