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It's worth reading this as it also backs onto a lot of issues with LLMs. I'm annoyed to have come round to thinking he is maybe right, but I don't particularly want to
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Feb 16, 2024 05:44
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Narsham posted:There's an irony here in talking about something that happened before the "Eternal Emperor," but nothing textually acknowledges it. I think you're actually misreading the sentence there because of the aside - it's not "before the Dragon Emperor", it's "before the Dragon Emperor gave out the laws", i.e., they were already the Emperor, they just hadn't given laws out. Instead, they just let Dragons eat people.
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Feb 16, 2024 05:52
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sebmojo posted:It's worth reading this as it also backs onto a lot of issues with LLMs. I'm annoyed to have come round to thinking he is maybe right, but I don't particularly want to Something I've been thinking about lately: if you believe in physicalism, (you don't think there's souls or gods or other supernatural entities), and you believe in mathematics & CS (you think the big proofs are probably sound and the ZF axioms or basic logic or whatever the gently caress all seem reasonable to you), and you generally believe in physics, and you hate run on sentences, then you must believe that the human brain is equivalent to a DFA. It's got a finite number of neurons and there's a finite number of arrangements those neurons can take and the transition between those is all governed by physical laws.
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Feb 16, 2024 06:17
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What's DFA precious e: dumb loving algorithm?
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Feb 16, 2024 06:19
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General Battuta posted:What's DFA precious a finite state machine, basically a fancy flowchart
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Feb 16, 2024 06:22
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Oh, well, yeah. It's not just about the connectome though, nerves aren't just on/off switches, there's some extra trickiness going on. Still probably equivalent to a sufficiently gigantic flowchart but really what isn't
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Feb 16, 2024 06:24
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General Battuta posted:Oh, well, yeah. It's not just about the connectome though, nerves aren't just on/off switches, there's some extra trickiness going on. Still probably equivalent to a sufficiently gigantic flowchart but really what isn't Brain as DFA assumes there's no quantum mechanical effects going on in there, which seems optimistic.
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Feb 16, 2024 06:27
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Kalman posted:Brain as DFA assumes there's no quantum mechanical effects going on in there, which seems optimistic. It's plausible that there aren't any, at least in a way that matters. Transistors only work because of QM, but our computers are still DFAs.
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Feb 16, 2024 06:36
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Stuporstar posted:I love that poo poo so much, I’d read a whole made-up biology book about scifi aliens I, too, wish there were more books like Barlowe's Expedition Narsham posted:My biggest problem with Blindsight is that I was totally convinced by the aliens and even maybe the vampire, although it mostly functioned as a driver of the plot and not as a coherent character. I didn't actually believe in the humanity of the human characters. It felt like Wells had an easier time writing his non-conscious aliens than he did writing a human. That's interesting. I thought they were very human, and more true to my own lived experience than most characters in fiction. Siri Keeton's childhood flashbacks reminded me a lot of me at that age, and lo and behold I fell into the role of something like 'synthesist' as I got older. Kesper North fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 06:38
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VostokProgram posted:Something I've been thinking about lately: if you believe in physicalism, (you don't think there's souls or gods or other supernatural entities), and you believe in mathematics & CS (you think the big proofs are probably sound and the ZF axioms or basic logic or whatever the gently caress all seem reasonable to you), and you generally believe in physics, and you hate run on sentences, then you must believe that the human brain is equivalent to a DFA. It's got a finite number of neurons and there's a finite number of arrangements those neurons can take and the transition between those is all governed by physical laws. and, furthermore, that free will doesn't exist
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Feb 16, 2024 07:44
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Kalman posted:Brain as DFA assumes there's no quantum mechanical effects going on in there, which seems optimistic. Also no emergence, i.e. properties that arise from the arrangement of a complex system that can't be predicted from on analysis of the components.
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Feb 16, 2024 07:48
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Letting your algorithm consult a random number generator doesn't really change anything about the argument, whether it's generating a seed with low-significance clock digits, using pictures of a lava lamp, or hooked up to quantum events.
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Feb 16, 2024 07:50
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redleader posted:and, furthermore, that free will doesn't exist This is a fun tho imo not necessarily that convincing project in neuroscience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will?wprov=sfti1#Neuronal_prediction_of_free_will
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Feb 16, 2024 08:01
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zoux posted:Speaking of bleeding-edge imaginations. His Hell illustrations are some of the most grotesquely appealing designs I’ve come across. His concepts, whether sci fi or supernatural approach inconceivable to me. He also wrote a book to go along with his Hell stuff called God’s Demon, about a rebellion in hell . I can’t really recommend it because I’ve failed to finish it twice, it’s really, really slow - but it’s not bad or clumsy, he can write well, especially since that’s his second art. And his conception of the geographies and “geology” and hierarchies of hell and the penance of human souls are really interesting. It’s a great exercise in worldbuilding, if not plotting or characterization. Barlowe’s hell art is great and agreed, he’s a solid writer, it’s just that’s overshadowed by what an amazing artist he is. I liked God’s Demon. He uses the multiple POVs well. When you see things through the eyes of a vaguely noble senior baron of hell feeling some angst about formerly being an angel, it’s got one tone. Then when you switch to the viewpoint of one of the damned mortal souls, basically an underclass/building material, it shows up aaaaallll the horrific stuff that the baron skimmed over or took for granted. Barlowe really likes and gets Milton, much more so than most SFF depictions of hell/angels/demons, but then is also perfectly willing to paint that with some really nightmarish stuff. There was a sequel to God’s Demon as well, which I’ve been meaning to get. Apparently it deals a good bit more with the Salamandrine Men, a tossed off line in William Blake which Barlowe sets up as the indigenous inhabitants of hell before the angels fell. Cool concept and would be interesting to see if he handles that decently or if it winds up being a sort of noble savage thing.
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Feb 16, 2024 10:46
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VostokProgram posted:Something I've been thinking about lately: if you believe in physicalism, (you don't think there's souls or gods or other supernatural entities), and you believe in mathematics & CS (you think the big proofs are probably sound and the ZF axioms or basic logic or whatever the gently caress all seem reasonable to you), and you generally believe in physics, and you hate run on sentences, then you must believe that the human brain is equivalent to a DFA. It's got a finite number of neurons and there's a finite number of arrangements those neurons can take and the transition between those is all governed by physical laws. Yes this is correct
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Feb 16, 2024 11:38
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redleader posted:and, furthermore, that free will doesn't exist I'm not sure if it does, but I don't really have any choice but to behave as if it does.
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Feb 16, 2024 15:30
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Danhenge posted:I'm not sure if it does, but I don't really have any choice but to behave as if it does. Same, but I am also forced to express my doubts about the whole thing.
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Feb 16, 2024 15:37
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Groke posted:Same, but I am also forced to express my doubts about the whole thing. The "funny" thing to me is that I have expressed this before in the past, but only just now realized there was a joke wedged in there.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:05
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In a universe where you only get to make each decision once (because we aren't in a time loop) (or are we???) there's not really any difference between free will and determinism. Hell, I like knowing that my choices are a deterministic result of my beliefs and past experiences plus a random helping of chaotic bullshit!
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Feb 16, 2024 16:25
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General Battuta posted:In a universe where you only get to make each decision once (because we aren't in a time loop) (or are we???) there's not really any difference between free will and determinism. Hell, I like knowing that my choices are a deterministic result of my beliefs and past experiences plus a random helping of chaotic bullshit!
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Feb 16, 2024 16:30
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redleader posted:i will not be peer pressured into reading cherryh because they're not available on my library ebook pattern StrixNebulosa posted:Most of Cherryh's stuff isn't in ebook format at all and it makes me so sad The situation is actually much improved vs. ten or even five years ago; rummaging through the Kobo ebook store I see that they've got all of Chanur, Foreigner, Fortress, and Faded Sun, plus a bunch of her standalones like Voyager in Night or Cuckoo's Egg (some in omnibus collections), and even some A-U stuff, although bafflingly they have Regenesis but not Cyteen. ~20 years ago you had to buy her books in hardcopy and then  lovely OCRs (or scan them yourself) if you wanted them on an e-reader, but these official ebook editions are a lot nicer if you can cope with the DRM.The library situation is very dependent on where you are. My local has the entire run of Foreigner (and little else), but only in hardcopy; in ebook they've got five Foreigner and two Fortress books and that's it. The much larger libraries at the much larger city nearby have jack poo poo. Going further afield, TPL has just about everything, but they charge $150/year for an out-of-town card -- which might still be worth it depending on how much reading you do, honestly; their collection is very extensive. I don't know where you are, but it may be worth looking for other libraries in your area that either have peering agreements with your local or offer cheap out-of-town rates, and seeing if they have better collections. There's also the archive.org lending library, which has a shitload of her books available for 2-week checkout (same Adobe DRM used by most other libraries), but most, possibly all, of them are scans of print editions, not proper EPUBs. That's probably fine if you normally read ebooks on a computer or tablet anyways, but it's going to be a pretty miserable experience on an e-reader or even a phone. Selachian posted:I enjoyed A. K. Dewdney's The Planiverse, which was mostly an exercise in working out biology for a two-dimensional world. Strong seconding of this recommendation, I have it in hardcopy and it's a delight. Lots of in-depth looks at 2d biology and technology.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:31
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VostokProgram posted:a finite state machine, basically a fancy flowchart Dinite Ftate Aachine
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Feb 16, 2024 16:32
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Down For Acronyms
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Feb 16, 2024 16:34
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LifeLynx posted:CJ Cherryh's got a short story in my favorite sci-fi anthology. I got it when I was a kid: What the actual gently caress. That's one the climactic chapters of the third book in a trilogy, a trilogy which is, itself, the collective sequel to an earlier book. There's no way it makes any goddamn sense. As for the actual question, nothing really comes to mind, but I'm also interested in recs. We're the Weird Aliens has a few short stories about humans responsible for cats, or humans encountering catlike aliens, but nothing focusing on the cats themselves. And I'd love an anthology that's just, like, all about Merchanter ships' cats or similar.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:39
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Since it keeps coming up I thought I'd give Foreigner another go. It was one of the first science fiction novels I read in English as a young teenager, and it was recommended to me because I liked the work of Julie E. Czerneda. I didn't fancy it much at the time. Thus far it seems surprisingly breezy for a series that's often described as glacially paced and overly detail oriented. I do really dislike the multiple time skips that happen in the first quarter of the novel. In medias res should happen at the start of the book; I thought I might have hit the next chapter button by mistake, and had to google around to make sure I wasn't missing any pages.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:42
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redleader posted:and, furthermore, that free will doesn't exist you can't escape culpability for your bad posts like this
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Feb 16, 2024 16:43
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thotsky posted:Since it keeps coming up I thought I'd give Foreigner another go. It was one of the first science fiction novels I read in English as a young teenager, and it was recommended to me because I liked the work of Julie E. Czerneda. I didn't fancy it much at the time. The multiple time skips are actually short prequel stories that Cherryh's editor made her include, and while they're interesting, the main story doesn't start until you get Bren as the POV character! also imho the plot is pretty fast and focused for books 1-6, like her other 80-90s works. It's when she hits book 7 that she begins to slow way down and it's simultaneously awesome and different.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:44
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That's a shame, I got kind of invested in that biologist kid. I can't promise I'll make it through six books, but your enthusiasm definitely has contributed to me approaching it again with an open mind.
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Feb 16, 2024 16:49
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thotsky posted:That's a shame, I got kind of invested in that biologist kid. There's a natural breakpoint every three books, so if you're enjoying it but not "read six books in one sitting" enjoying it, between books 3 and 4 is a good place to put it down for a little while. On the openings, Cherryh writes (ca. 2005): quote:I didn't want to put the first few chapters into Foreigner: be patient with them---everybody in those chapters has been long gone by the time their descendant, Bren Cameron, comes on the scene with a midnight intruder, a shadow on the curtains, and a gunshot. I believe she regards them a bit more fondly now, but they're definitely not how the novel was originally meant to open, and IMO they would work better paired with "Deliberations" and "Invitations" in some sort of Foreigner shorter works collection. ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 16:56
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mewse posted:Dinite gently caress Acronyms
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Feb 16, 2024 16:56
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I don't think free will is a coherent concept (and thus it neither exists nor doesn't exist) so every time writers start going on about it I start to moan and wait for it all to be over so we can get back to the unicorns.
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Feb 16, 2024 17:48
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The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea #2) by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008GTB52E/ Changing Planes by Ursula K Le Guin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IWTRB4E/ The Man Who Japed by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVQZN4/
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Feb 16, 2024 23:08
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Stuporstar posted:Light from Uncommon Stars Thank you for recommending this, it's extremely good.
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Feb 17, 2024 01:45
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Thank you for recommending this, it's extremely good. Yeah! When I first read the description I was kinda  but it turned out to be very cozy
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Feb 17, 2024 01:56
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What a whiny and ineffectual dude this Bren is. I can see why young me disapproved.
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Feb 17, 2024 02:32
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Yeah I really liked Light from Uncommon Stars too.
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Feb 17, 2024 05:37
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The final act was very good! It's good that you get some catharsis, from a plot, character development and action angle, no less. I'll check out the next one.
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Feb 17, 2024 06:34
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The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NHZVF5T/ Spellslinger (#1) by Sebastien de Castell - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DNTPRK/
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Feb 17, 2024 18:02
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Kesper North posted:I, too, wish there were more books like Barlowe's Expedition That sounds more like a rpg source book. Kesper North posted:That's interesting. I thought they were very human, and more true to my own lived experience than most characters in fiction. Siri Keeton's childhood flashbacks reminded me a lot of me at that age, and lo and behold I fell into the role of something like 'synthesist' as I got older. And here we have the main reason for why blindsight as well as other books/authors that shall not be named are popular and reoccurring in this thread. mystes posted:yeah I agree with this and I'm not sure why it seems to be such an uncommon position to take Because people would have to face up to that their bad decisions and their consequences is on them. Humanity is horrible at learning from history and obvious consequences. Which Pratchett has masterfully described in so many ways. He was such a cynic despite his humanism.
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Feb 17, 2024 21:11
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Cardiac posted:Because people would have to face up to that their bad decisions and their consequences is on them. Humanity is horrible at learning from history and obvious consequences. Usually it's people who assume free will rejecting the idea of determinism
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Feb 17, 2024 21:24
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