[FRIAM] narrative

[steve smith]

On 1/8/25 10:39 AM, glen wrote:
> Yeah, this is the problem with narrative. And the source of my 
> complaint against science communicators like Huberman (and to some 
> extent Hossenfelder, less so Collier and Farina). Even deeper, the 
> source of my complaint against narrativity lies in my problem with 
> visualization, projection, and dimension reduction ... even simulation 
> writ large.
>
I have come to (slowly) appreciate some aspects of the position you have 
held in this area over time.  I appreciate your consistency and 
coherence (oops, are those qualities of a narrative? <grin>).  Maybe my 
own narrative embedding (diachronic nature/style) is too strong to break?

FWIW I've been reading Douglas Hoffstadter's "Surfaces and Essences", 
continuing to make accessible/popular his schtick on "understanding by 
analogy" and perhaps more relevant to this discussion, how analogy 
suffuses language across both syntax and semantics.    I can't argue 
strongly for or against his position but it does fascinate me and I 
think HE may well (in this work and his larger arc) be arguing for and 
against your POV.   I'm too old/slow/lazy to render all that down right 
now, maybe it will emerge if I continue to wander around the topic (in 
my reading/thinking/mind, not here) long enough.

- Steve

> This paper:
>
> Why language models collapse when trained on recursively generated text
> https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14872
>
> seems to make the point in a hygienic way (even if ideal or 
> over-simplified). We make inferences based on "our" (un-unified) past 
> inferences, build upon the built environment, etc. In the humanities, 
> I guess it's been called hyperreality or somesuch. Notice the infamous 
> Catwoman died a few days ago.
>
> It all (even the paper Roger just posted) reminds me of a response I 
> learned from Monty Python: "Oh, come on. Pull the other one." And 
> FWIW, I think this current outburst on my part spawns from this essay:
>
> Life is Meaningless: What Now?
> https://youtu.be/3x4UoAgF9I4?si=7uVDeiDQ8STTJtv7
>
> In particular, "he [Camus] has to introduce the opposing 
> concept—solidarity. This solidarity is a way of reconstructing mutual 
> respect and regard between people in the absence of transcendent 
> values, hence his argument for a natural sense of shared humanity 
> since we are all forever struggling against the absurd."
>
> On 1/7/25 09:40, steve smith wrote:
>> Regarding Glen's article "challenging the 'paleo' diet narrative".   
>> I'm sure their reports are generally accurate and in fact 
>> homo-this-n-that have been including significant plant sources into 
>> our diets for much longer than we might have suspected.  Our Gorilla 
>> cousins at several times our body mass and with significantly higher 
>> muscle tone live almost entirely on low-grade vegetation.    But the 
>> article presents this as if ~1M years of hominid development across a 
>> very wide range of ecosystems was monolithic?  There are still near 
>> subsistence cultures whose primary source of nourishment is animal 
>> protein (e.g. Aleuts,  Evenki/Ewenki/Sami)?
>>
>> I'm a fan of the "myth of paleo" even though I'm mostly vegetarian.   
>> I like the *idea* of living a feast/famine cycle and obtaining most 
>> of my nutrition from fairly primary/raw sources. Of course, my modern 
>> industrial embedding has me eating avocados grown on Mexican-Cartel 
>> owned farms and almonds grown in the central valley of California on 
>> river water diverted from the Colorado river basin.   <sigh>.
>
>> On 1/7/25 06:21, glen wrote:
>>>
>>> Archaeological study challenges 'paleo' diet narrative of ancient 
>>> hunter–gatherers
>>> https://phys.org/news/2025-01-archaeological-paleo-diet-narrative-ancient.html 
>>>
>>>
>>> Renee' convinced me to eat fried chicken the other night. ... Well, 
>>> OK. She just put it in front of me and my omnivorous nature took 
>>> over. Fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. But it reminded me of the 
>>> fitness influencers and their obsession with chicken and [ahem] 
>>> "protein". Then I noticed the notorious non-sequitur science 
>>> communicator Andrew Huberman is now platforming notorious 
>>> motivated-reasoning through evolutionary psychology guru Jordan 
>>> Peterson. Ugh. And Jan 6 is now a holiday celebrating those morons 
>>> who broke into the Capitol. Am I just old? Or is the world actually 
>>> going to hell in a handbasket? Get off my lawn!
>>>
>
>