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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#361

Post by jofla_net »

krelian wrote: post #302
voidhorse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It astonishes me sometimes how completely stupid and reductive some HN takes on arts and creativity can be. I am astounded continually at how we can produce humans who are so capable in one sphere of life and so ignorant and oblivious of others...yet all too willing to make dismissive claims about them... Creativity is much more than the derivative production of artifacts. What the OP is driving at is that creativity…

In full agreement with you on the flagrant incapability of a sizeable part of the HN crowd to understand and value of the arts. Throughout history man has been celebrated and distinguished as the rational animal. As master of the earth this animal in our days dedicates its brightest minds to the continual increase of economic growth. Ask the rational man what is growth good for and after a few exchanges they perhaps…

I'm reminded of that My dinner with Andre monologue, and totally agree.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#362

Post by tsumnia »

bonoboTP wrote: post #311
boppo1 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When you use any social media, you're not really choosing what you're looking at. You just scroll and the site decides what you're going to look at next. Not necessarily. I'm into a very particular sort of painting and I have been totalitarian with Instagram about showing me that content and not other stuff. It works splendidly as long as I'm consistent. Thanks to Instagram, I have been introduced to tons of painter…

Is it better to be introduced to tons of painters vs fewer but in more detail? Or being told about a painter by someone in person vs by an algorithm? In the 90s you only had certain songs if you knew someone who had it on cassette and you borrowed it and put it on your mixtape. Throughout the interaction, you also got initiated deeper into the culture of that thing in person. I also notice that families rarely sit to…

> Then the fact that you only saw the picture once you were back at home, generated excitement that you could share and relive candid moments

Or you do like me and go see Interstellar 5 times in IMAX because the story was so good

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#363

Post by bartread »

bsenftner wrote: post #359

I believe the author is awash in a sea they do not understand, and that is the cause of their discomfort. When they describe their ideas being fully realized by LLMs, are they really, or just appearing as such because the words and terms arrive in a similar and expected manner as their prompt? Performing any type of intellectual philosophic or exploratory work with LLMs is extremely subtle, largely because you nor th…

> but when that audience is a weak communicator the entire process disintegrates. That is, what I suspect is happening with the blog post author.

That’s a pretty rude and disrespectful take on this piece, don’t you think?

How can you read a piece that is so well articulated then turn around and, apparently unironically, suggest the author isn’t a good communicator?

How can you invalidate the author’s experience without seeing and knowing more? You have no idea of the nuts and bolts of their LLM interactions whereas, to support the conclusion you’ve arrived at, this is exactly the information you’d need based on what you’ve said.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#364

Post by Swizec »

johnisgood wrote: post #325
Swizec wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it really is laziness, and not something else, e.g. a mental health issue. Kids optimize. When I was in high school I was fully capable of getting straight F's in a class I didn't care about and straight A's in a class I enjoyed. Why bother learning chemistry when you could instead spend that time coding cool plugins and websites in PHP that thousands of internet strangers are using? I really did build one of th…

What you just described is irrelevant to what we are discussing. As for what you said, yeah, I got 1s (Fs) because I was too busy coding and reading books on philosophy, as a 14 years old.

How is it irrelevant? Kids will always cheat their way through classes they feel are a distraction. Even the super smart Type A kids.

Hell, all humans do that. You use every resource available to get out of dealing with things that are not your priority. This means you will never be good at those things and that’s fine. You can’t be good at everything.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#365

Post by johnisgood »

layer8 wrote: post #356
johnisgood wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, that is why you need the desire, the will to learn. I have been using LLMs for this, so I know it is possible. I understand what you are saying though, and it is indeed a sad state of affairs, but then again, this was the case due to search engines, Wikipedia, and so forth, long before LLMs. Again, you can truly learn a lot using LLMs, but you have to approach it properly. It does not have to be just "facts",…

Yes, but previously you didn’t need the desire that much, because you were more forced to it, there was no easy way. The fact that now you need that internal motivation means that it will happen less, where previously it happened by default.

I agree, it is sort of like a double-edged sword, I would say.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#366

Post by bccdee »

treebirg wrote: post #319
bccdee wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But I do know what numbers are. I've also done addition before, so I know what the steps are. The result of 51 + 92 is derivative from (at least) these two concepts, which derive from others and so on. Maybe I'm stretching the meaning of derivative here, but to me derivative doesn't mean strictly recalling something verbatim.

I do think you're stretching the meaning of derivative. At that point, what can ever be called original? Every idea depends on pre-existing concepts. Even Newton stood on the shoulders of giants.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#367

Post by johnisgood »

Swizec wrote: post #364
johnisgood wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you just described is irrelevant to what we are discussing. As for what you said, yeah, I got 1s (Fs) because I was too busy coding and reading books on philosophy, as a 14 years old.

How is it irrelevant? Kids will always cheat their way through classes they feel are a distraction. Even the super smart Type A kids. Hell, all humans do that. You use every resource available to get out of dealing with things that are not your priority. This means you will never be good at those things and that’s fine. You can’t be good at everything.

They will, but we were talking about the will or motivation to learn. If someone has a curious mind, and actually wants to learn, then they can definitely use LLMs to do that.

I don't disagree with you though.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#368

Post by nopinsight »

Au contraire, reasoning LLMs free me from mundane cognitive tasks, e.g. selecting websites to read from among search results, assessing level of evidence in papers before reading them in more detail, routine coding, and many other repetitive tasks. It allows me to spend mental effort on more abstract and strategic thoughts.

We should seize the opportunity to elevate our mental skills to a higher plane, aided by these “cognitive elves”.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#369

Post by bccdee »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #334
bccdee wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

In fairness, Columbus thought he had found India, even after other, smarter people had told him otherwise. You can't give him too much credit, especially given that he was considered a monster even by contemporary monsters like Isabella I of Spain, his sponsor, who founded the Spanish Inquisition and still thought his treatment of the Taino natives was unconscionable. She wanted him to convert them to Christianity, and instead he exterminated them.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#370

Post by daveguy »

bsenftner wrote: post #359

I believe the author is awash in a sea they do not understand, and that is the cause of their discomfort. When they describe their ideas being fully realized by LLMs, are they really, or just appearing as such because the words and terms arrive in a similar and expected manner as their prompt? Performing any type of intellectual philosophic or exploratory work with LLMs is extremely subtle, largely because you nor th…

> LLMs are fantastic communicators, who will mirror their audience in an attempt to be better understood, but...

This seems to represent a complete misunderstanding of what LLMs are and do. There is not a single LLM that "attempts" to be understood or anything else other than produce tokens. They have no autonomy.

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