Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 459 posts

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#331

Post by js8 »

cameldrv wrote: post #275
abathologist wrote: post #159

I think we are going to be seeing a vast partitioning in society in the next months and years. The process of forming expressions just is the process of conceptual and rational articulation (as per Brandom). Those who misunderstand this -- believing that concepts are ready made, then encoded and decoded from permutations of tokens, or, worse, who have no room to think of reasoning or conceptualization at all -- they…

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

Another example is free market ideology. This was a question I posed to libertarians - how can you claim that free market enhances human freedom, when it always tells you what to do in the name of efficiency?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#332

Post by loser357 »

keiferski wrote: post #286
loser357 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we need is a type of block chain that only records new lines of thought, and ascribes a kind of novelty index for concepts. That way researchers can stay on their intended side of the boundary of human knowledge, either well-trodden, averaged prior art or exploratory and theoretical. Then ambitious thinkers can gamify searching for truly new tokens.

The publication process seems to already basically function this way, no? Whether through books, academic papers, or even just a blog post. If you publish something first online and it gets indexed, that is the best we can probably do - at least while human thoughts are still stuck in human heads.

Thinking more about distilling information down in a compressed form like the LLMs. Then the uniqueness of ideas, not actual language like copyright enforcement, could be measured. Established ideas are common and diluted by human and synthetic authors. While concepts out on the edge are measured as a novel combination and might be worth more exploration. Just basing this on the personal conviction of "ask not what the sum of all human knowledge can do for you, but what you can add to the sum of all human knowledge."

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#333

Post by BeFlatXIII »

cameldrv wrote: post #275
abathologist wrote: post #159

I think we are going to be seeing a vast partitioning in society in the next months and years. The process of forming expressions just is the process of conceptual and rational articulation (as per Brandom). Those who misunderstand this -- believing that concepts are ready made, then encoded and decoded from permutations of tokens, or, worse, who have no room to think of reasoning or conceptualization at all -- they…

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

The big benefits I find about modern satnav have little to do with route planning. That can be done with maps and dead reckoning. Where it shines are

1. Having knowledge that cannot be acquired ahead of time, such as traffic conditions

2. Providing a countdown timer until my next turn

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#334

Post by BeFlatXIII »

bccdee wrote: post #233
fennecbutt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% if not 100% of human thought and general output is derivative. Everything we create or do is based on something we've experienced or seen. Try to think of an object that doesn't exist, and isn't based on anything you've ever seen before, a completely new object with no basis in our reality. It's impossible. Writers made elves by adding pointy ears to a human. That's it.

No, that's not true. Quick, what's 51 plus 92? Now: Did you think back to a time someone else added these numbers together, or are you doing it yourself, right now, in your head? I'm sure it's not the first time these numbers have ever been summed, but that doesn't matter. You're doing it now, independently. Just because something isn't unique, doesn't make it derivative. We rediscover things every day.

> Just because something isn't unique, doesn't make it derivative. We rediscover things every day.

This is the argument I use to dunk on ranters who spam conversations with “How can you say Christopher Columbus discovered the new world when there were already people living there?”

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#335

Post by norome »

js8 wrote: post #331
cameldrv wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

Another example is free market ideology. This was a question I posed to libertarians - how can you claim that free market enhances human freedom, when it always tells you what to do in the name of efficiency?

I don't think the claim is that it enhances human freedom necessarily, rather: by giving more freedom to i.e. set prices than people will use their particular knowledge of their area of concern to set those prices correctly.

It does coincidentally align with John Stuart Mill's reasoning for why Liberty is fundamentally necessary: that only at the level of the individual is it possible to know what is good and right for that individual.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#337

Post by drakonka »

This rings true for me. I still write a lot on my personal blog and still use writing as a way to process and solidify my learnings, but as I outsource more to LLMs during the process of writing (e.g., helping me find a source or something, or have it explain a topic to me instead of googling for an answer from multiple channels), I can feel my brain getting more sluggish. I think this is impacting not just my creative thinking and problem solving when learning something, but also how I form those thoughts into language. It's so hard to put a finger on exactly what the concrete factors are, but I can feel the change.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#338

Post by immibis »

empiricus wrote: post #288
cameldrv wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

For GPS, I start by looking at the overall route, and compare with potential alternatives. Then during the driving the GPS just manages the local details, I still have some understanding and agency over where to go and how to get there.

I start by looking at the map. I go in the direction of the place I want to be. If I want to know the technically fastest route then I let my device calculate that. I don't always take that route. It's an assistant, not a boss. It's more interesting to walk down different streets sometimes. (And while I'm preaching to Americans, it's also good to walk down streets sometimes. It breaks away a few layers of abstraction that you have when driving.)

Looking at the map actually helps you learn the city layout. As of right now (literally as I'm typing this) the train was delayed, so I chose to get off at the next big station before everyone crowds on, and walk the rest of the way. I can do this without checking a map because I know where it is and where I am, because I don't let the machine think for me.

I don't drive (non-car-worshipping cities are amazing) but I do this when walking and also with train routes. I don't memorize the bus routes, since the train is better and has fewer routes, so I also sometimes ask my device for a route if I think there's a faster bus route than train (usually not the case).

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#339

Post by BeFlatXIII »

azinman2 wrote: post #122
johnisgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Never underestimate laziness, or willingness to take something 80% as good for 1% of the work. So most are not curious. So what do you do for them?

Leave ‘em behind and win the race.
Post reply on HN