[FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Is this your version of the Serenity Prayer?  If so, it is a nicely 
novel one!

I feel *measureably* (if only fractionally) smarter when I manage to 
(mostly) follow many of the deeply thoughtful discussions here...  
your's and Marcus' most most immediately.   I could easily list a dozen 
others and am tempted to suggest "you know who you are", but in fact 
suspect some of the more valuable contributors to have their own 
(false?) modesty.  Nick, you know who you are.

I do like the stylization of upper case initiated variables similar to 
Marcus PROLOG reference, though if I understand him correctly I use it 
differently.  Initial Upper Caps means to me that the word is in a 
special lexicon... using the example of evil vs Evil... "evil" IS in the 
standard dictionary(ies) of common discourse, but "Evil" might be one of 
many things depending on the reserved lexicon of the speaker...   Social 
Conservatives would place LGBT and Abortion Rights and Gun Control on 
their list of "Evil" while Social Progressives would place restricting 
"Personal Choice" and Racial or Gender or Gender Identity discrimination 
on their "Evil" list for example.   I'm not sure what followers of 
Cthuhlu use the term "Evil" for, it seems to be deliberately obscured or 
skewed?

- Steve


On 5/5/17 2:05 PM, gepr wrote:
> And as always I'm tremendously grateful for all my friends, who are immeasurably smarter than me, for their tolerance of my nonsensical attempts to navigate reality.
>
>
> On May 5, 2017 12:02:15 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>> Glen writes:
>>
>> < If a listener abstracts their self, they are just as evil as a
>> speaker abstracting their self. >
>>
>> Steve writes:
>>
>> < Firstly, my own throwdown of "rhetoric" was intended to be very
>> specific.  I believe that you both took it to be a bit more broad than
>> intended.  I specifically meant rhetoric as "language intended to
>> persuade".  I hold this specifically distinct from "language intended
>> to inform" and "language used to think or contemplate".  Unfortunately
>> I discovered that in fact the formal definition of rhetoric includes
>> "to inform" as well as "to persuade" >
>>
>> In PROLOG, free variables are upper case, meaning that the reader
>> should expect some effort in establishing their values.   If Glen were
>> forced to write down his arguments and propositions in PROLOG he'd have
>> to say "Evil" and not "evil" because the latter would be something
>> constrained by a dictionary.  I tend to use single quotes to highlight
>> terms where I am encouraging the reader to find a grounding or tolerate
>> my loose or arbitrary set of constraints in the definition.
>>
>> Sure, Glen's crypto-obsfucation is a sort of rhetoric.  He forces you
>> to both consume and actively doubt every single one of his words.
>> Advertisements have a similar effect over time.   I can appreciate Flo
>> and the Gecko, but then I don't purchase Progressive or Geico insurance
>> either.  I become immune to many of their tricks!     For many years
>> I've believed the purpose of this is to make arguments robust to
>> perturbation.   You can reject all the parts of his argument but still
>> be forced to accept the conclusion.  :-)