Redundant Expressions in Science

[Hrvoje1]

On ‎2‎/‎13‎/‎2019 at 10:11 AM, Eise said:

Hrvoje1, you happily ignored what I wrote. I made it bold for you:

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 9:35 AM, Eise said:

Or do monkeys and dogs do selective breeding, based on the output they want to reach?

 

I believe they can be selective in eating, mating, and in other activities, based on the output they want to reach.

But since you insist so much on homo sapiens being so special, let me pose back a question to you, provoked by Sensei's question.
Let's say people produce one day general artificial intelligence and implement it into self reproducible robots, and build into them instructions to obey three Asimov laws. Only humans can do it, not monkeys or dogs, they are not sufficiently intelligent to produce artificial intelligence, they can only produce natural intelligence (offspring), by self-reproducing, as any other species does. But man is special with respect to that, much more than when he does selective breeding.
Is it because, unlike monkey or dog, man was made in the image and likeness of God? Just as, unlike watch, or TV, or a pocket calculator, self reproductive robot with general intelligence will be made in the image and likeness of Man? And let's say that we produce robots so that they cannot perceive us. Or that we disappear in nuclear war, after we produced them. How could one robot prove to another the existence of Man, in that case?

Edited February 14, 2019 by Hrvoje1

[Eise]

12 hours ago, Hrvoje1 said:

I believe they can be selective in eating, mating, and in other activities, based on the output they want to reach.

Do you always react only on half-sentences?

Read the complete question, and answer it as a whole:

On 2/12/2019 at 9:35 AM, Eise said:

Or do monkeys and dogs do selective breeding, based on the output they want to reach?

So I am not asking if animals have goals (yes, they have), but I am asking if they breed selectively based on what they want to reach with it (faster horses, fatter pigs, white mice...). Did you ever see lions breed slower gazelles, because they are easier to catch? In reality, their evolutionary pressure 'breeds' faster gazelles.

[Hrvoje1]

OK, so, homo sapiens is perversely cunning species, capable of devising exceptional strategies. Already changing from hunter-gatherer to farmer-pastoralist is a big step, that is agricultural revolution, that abandoned foraging as main strategy and established domesticating instead. And from there to selecting and selective breeding is actually much smaller, and natural step. The question is, are these strategies so unnatural, that they deserve the attribute "artificial"? And is it natural to devise a theory, that was supposed to remind the human kind alienated and distanced from nature, that we are part of that nature, that we have common ancestors with other species, and that there is no sharp delineation between "us and them", and then to insist on distinction between the selection that we do and that they do? What's the point?

And did you ever see monkeys producing artificially intelligent self-reproducible robots in the image and likeness of monkey? How do you explain that? What is the cause of that difference between human and monkey, and is that more or less impressive difference than selective breeding vs just choosing the fruit for eating, and shitting around to spread its pits or seeds.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Hrvoje1

[studiot]

25 minutes ago, Hrvoje1 said:

OK, so, homo sapiens is perversely cunning species, capable of devising exceptional strategies. Already changing from hunter-gatherer to farmer-pastoralist is a big step, that is agricultural revolution, that abandoned foraging as main strategy and established domesticating instead. And from there to selecting and selective breeding is actually much smaller, and natural step. The question is, are these strategies so unnatural, that they deserve the attribute "artificial"? And is it natural to devise a theory, that was supposed to remind the human kind alienated and distanced from nature, that we are part of that nature, that we have common ancestors with other species, and that there is no sharp delineation between "us and them", and then to insist on distinction between the selection that we do and that they do? What's the point?

And did you ever see monkeys producing artificially intelligent self-reproducible robots in the image and likeness of monkey? How do you explain that? What is the cause of that difference between human and monkey, and is that more or less impressive difference than selective breeding vs just choosing the fruit for eating, and shitting around to spread its pits or seeds.

 

It is fine to use the same evidence as someone else and interpret it differently, so long as you make it clear that this is your interpretation.

Naturally you need to then acknowledge that others may have yet different interpretations.

 

What is not fine is to claim statements and definitions by others as supporting your interpretation when in fact you need to change their definitions in order for that be self consistent.

However few discussions that cannot agree common ground or definitions get very far.

 

 

 

 

[Hrvoje1]

 

25 minutes ago, studiot said:

It is fine to use the same evidence as someone else and interpret it differently, so long as you make it clear that this is your interpretation.

Naturally you need to then acknowledge that others may have yet different interpretations.

 

What is not fine is to claim statements and definitions by others as supporting your interpretation when in fact you need to change their definitions in order for that be self consistent.

What exactly did you mean by that? Please be more concrete.

[studiot]

10 hours ago, Hrvoje1 said:

11 hours ago, studiot said:

It is fine to use the same evidence as someone else and interpret it differently, so long as you make it clear that this is your interpretation.

Naturally you need to then acknowledge that others may have yet different interpretations.

 

What is not fine is to claim statements and definitions by others as supporting your interpretation when in fact you need to change their definitions in order for that be self consistent.

What exactly did you mean by that? Please be more concrete.

 

That's a fair question (my emboldening) that deserves a fair answer.

Your original proposition, which you have generalised over all Science, to mean that some scientifc work is better written than other scientific work and that some is extremely poorly written is not in dispute by anyone.

 

On 2/10/2019 at 10:50 AM, Hrvoje1 said:

Is it usually just a bad style, redundant, instead of concise and precise, or is it usually a sign that a content is also lacking quality?
I can give you one example (that I think it's an example, you may not agree with me), for which I think it is just a bad style. The syntagm "Natural Selection" in Darwin's theory is redundant in a sense that the word "Natural" could/should be omitted, as there is no alternative to nature when we talk about reality, ie not imaginary processes but real processes.
As a naturalist, I reject existence of supernatural processes that may influence natural processes, and as an evolutionist I reject existence of artificial processes, that are somehow separate from natural processes. What criteria could we establish to distinguish between them (at least in the context of evolution)? If we define artificiality as a human intervention into nature, then this is also too anthropocentric for me, and any true evolutionist should disregard that definition, because homo sapiens is just one natural species among many of them.

The other alternative is to talk about "Environmental Selection" process, as it has more sense, as environment is that agent that is acting selectively.

 

The problem is  you have chosen to apply this to attack Darwin's theory from 120+ years ago using different definitions of the terms he so carefully defined.

So you are, in effect, attacking a different theory, whilst still blaming Darwin.

Further at least one of your different definitions founders since even in Darwin's day it was necessary to provide means of identifying different forms of selection.

Claiming everything is Natural is too coarse a filter.

 

Consider the following selection process to determine a winner of a tennis tournament.

 

It can clearly be seen that the selection process for contestor I is different from that for all the other contestants.

I merely has to be present to participate in the final and if he wins that it will be the only match in which he has participated.

A on the other hand has had to win 3 previous rounds to get to the final.

 

Darwin acknowledged this effect in seeking out isolated south sea islands for some of his studies.

He also chose to separate out selection processes used by (the rest of ) Nature and by Man (he did not use the term artificial, that word had a somewhat different meaning in his day) so that he could compare them. Some of his reasons for doing this were supplied as the difference between certain plant behaviour statistics from the wild (Nature) and statistics from horticulture (Man).

He did his homework thoroughly, which you have acknowledged here that you have not, despite claims to be a naturalist and evolutionist.

Was Darwin ever wrong?
Yes, indeed. He had to recant his first paper (Glen Roy Roads) which won him initial fame, in the light of better later knowledge.
Did you know that?

So do you want to discuss style or Darwin's most famous paper?

Quote

Is it usually just a bad style,...

 

 

 

[Sensei]

On 2/15/2019 at 12:19 AM, Hrvoje1 said:

Just as, unlike watch, or TV, or a pocket calculator, self reproductive robot with general intelligence will be made in the image and likeness of Man? And let's say that we produce robots so that they cannot perceive us.

Programmers are making artificial intelligences which cannot perceive humans, right now, at this moment. They are A.I. inside of games and simulations.. The more "bots" are in game, the smaller percentage of CPU/GPU power is used for single A.I. entity. Therefor they are pretty stupid in large quantity. The less there is A.I. the smarter they can be. CPU or GPU power is split to less entities.

The most sensefull would be to place artificial intelligence inside of virtual world, virtual Universe, where it could grow up, live, develop, becoming self aware (or not), think. Where programmers/scientists performing experiment of new code, could observe how A.I. is behaving. And introduce required changes. Destructive behaviors are (typically) not welcome, as they destroy entire experiment, and kill other A.I. and require restart of the entire experiment.

On 2/15/2019 at 12:19 AM, Hrvoje1 said:

Only humans can do it, not monkeys or dogs, they are not sufficiently intelligent to produce artificial intelligence, they can only produce natural intelligence (offspring), by self-reproducing, as any other species does.

Some apes are more intelligent than humans. They just need little genetic mutation to make them speak and share knowledge this way, make them less aggressive in adult age, and wait couple thousands to couple millions of years, and we will have "Human v2.0"... See how they are smart in some puzzles:

 

Edited February 16, 2019 by Sensei

[Hrvoje1]

@studiot

Generally speaking, there is a merit in reading original scientific papers, and I see your effort to study Darwin's work thoroughly, but I think I should be much more into it, to start reading all his stuff, and I think I have decent picture about his ideas without it, from numerous indirect sources.

@Sensei

The work of Japanese scientists was already familiar to me, I watched not only that, but some other videos on youtube about it. And I was impressed both by their work and chimp abilities, although not surprised, because I think I am less biased than an average person (at least in my neighbourhood) when judging about animal intelligence. There can be other not yet revealed mental capabilities of chimpanzee's that are also superior to human's. But still, to produce general artificial intelligence, and artificial life, only a human is capable of, at least at this moment on Earth. If we destroy each other in a nuclear war, and they miraculously survive, then perhaps planet of the apes scenario might happen after millions of years, who knows.

[Hrvoje1]

It would be interesting to know would apes in that hypothetical case on their evolutionary path to a dominant species that at the end develops artificial self-reproducible intelligent conscious machines in their own image and likeness, necessarily acquire selective breeding at certain point in time as we did, and as an indicator of something, I guess their special role on Earth, at that moment?

I watched a lot of documentaries about animal intelligence recently, and I was always irritated by the fact how biologists get surprised each and every time when they discover something they presumed only homo sapiens can do. I mean, how can they be not embarrassed at all while they admit that much arrogance in their anthropocentric views at nature? I was never that biased, although I never had that much resources at disposal to observe all fascinating creatures of this world, and I am surely less biased regarding natural intelligence (animal or plant) than Darwin, who thought he has to single out human selective breeding as something special in nature.

Besides that, the question about apes is totally rhetorical, since in case of human self destruction, apes would most likely be destroyed too, however, robots may "survive" it... In fact, in all our great wisdom, we already managed to destroy apes and their habitat, while we still live in illusion we will not destroy us.

And to answer studiot, my objection to style was never directed towards someone's writing, Darwin's or anyone else, especially Darwin's since I did not read his papers, but towards passing the ideas without sufficient criticism, and towards redundant expressions in science in general, I can mention some other examples if you want.

[studiot]

23 minutes ago, Hrvoje1 said:

my objection to style was never directed towards someone's writing, Darwin's or anyone else, especially Darwin's

 

Now you are directly contradicting yourself.

 

On 2/10/2019 at 10:50 AM, Hrvoje1 said:

I can give you one example (that I think it's an example, you may not agree with me), for which I think it is just a bad style. The syntagm "Natural Selection" in Darwin's theory is redundant in a sense that the word "Natural" could/should be omitted, as there is no alternative to nature when we talk about reality, ie not imaginary processes but real processes.

 

If your beef with style was not about writing, what was it about ?

And what other presentation method is there for formal dissemination of scientific theory?

On 2/10/2019 at 10:50 AM, Hrvoje1 said:

Is it usually just a bad style, redundant, instead of concise and precise, or is it usually a sign that a content is also lacking quality?

 

[Hrvoje1]

As I said, about accepting ideas without sufficient criticism. When you talk about natural selection, what does it have to do with Darwin's writing?

You may be an eloquent speaker or a lousy one, but the redundant expression that you transmit is always unnecessary and bad.

[studiot]

So are you saying Darwin did not write the treatise I posted the frontpiece from?

[Hrvoje1]

He wrote there much more than just these two words that I mentioned, which all determine his writing style, which is insignificant to me. However, his style of expressing of key ideas, and their uncritical acceptance by others, deserves criticism.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Hrvoje1