Exactitude in Science – Borges (1946) [pdf]
kwarc.info
kwarc.info
His way with words and way to highlight to absurdity of situations is first class.
My favorite is the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. It's a critique of the classification used by the Institute of Bibliography which he considered nonsensical. He claims to have found the list in an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia:
- those belonging to the Emperor
- embalmed ones
- trained ones
- suckling pigs
- mermaids
- fabled ones
- stray dogs
- those included in this classification
- those that tremble as if they were mad
- innumerable ones
- those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
- et cetera
- those that have just broken the vase
- those that from afar look like flies
The hubris it takes to maintain the view that we can just keep figuring things out if we are rational enough is also sometimes overwhelming to me. It's not that we can't understand things better through analysis, just that it sometimes seems foolish to me to try to get all of it through system-2 type behavior. We will always miss something crucial[2].
[1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4vHnM8WPvU
[2]:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...
His stories are such a strange read. The plot, the characters, the mentions, all feel almost secondary to the feeling they evoke.
I envy a bit those , who, like you, had such exposures. It's such a fascinating world, which I used to scoff at when I was younger. But it's a healthy envy. I feel happy for those who choose to developed such capacities, and it inspires me to try to develop them for myself.
I think I've still got the time.
Thanks for your reply.
Changed my life, when it comes to literature.
The feelings you get from that work are hard to describe, but unique and engaging and marvellous. But when you step back and look at it from a critical reading, it's all a bit odd and silly and mocking.
There is no writer I want in my pocket more than Borges though, particularly when it's dark and cold outside and the fire is burning, and a friend who also appreciates him is nearby to discuss.
(And probably House of Leaves)
https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content...
Simply put anything that can be encoded is a language, so you just need sensors to capture and classify the incoming data and build that into a model. The real question is post training the model to behave correctly as these places are far less explored than things at the human scale. RLHF may be a poor choice because the models may see actual behaviors that humans don't and humans will discount it as being incorrect.
>When I was a child I used to ask my mother—of course—all sorts of ridiculous questions that every child asks, and when she got bored with my questions she would say, “Darling, there are just some things we’re just not meant to know.” I said, “Will we ever know?” She said, “Yes, of course, when we die and go to heaven, God will make everything plain.” So I used to imagine on wet afternoons in heaven, we’d all sit around the throne of grace and say to God, “Well, now, why did you do this?” and “How did you do that?” and he would explain it to us. “Heavenly father, why are the leaves green?” And he would say, “Because of the chlorophyll.” And we’d say, “Oh.”
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But in he Hindu universe, you would say to God, “How did you make the mountains?” And he would say: well, I just did it. Because what you’re (Text sourced from https://www.organism.earth/library/document/out-of-your-mind...) asking me for—when you ask me how did I make the mountains, you’re asking me to describe in words how I made the mountains, and there are no words which can do this. Words cannot tell you how I made the mountains any more than I can drink the ocean with a fork. A fork may be useful for sticking into a piece of something and eating it, but it’s of no use for imbibing the ocean. It would take millions of years. So it would take millions of years, and you would be bored with my description long before I got through it, if I put it to you in words. Because I didn’t create the mountains with words, I just did it. Like you open and close your hand. You know how to do this, but can you describe in words how you do it? But you do it. You are conscious, aren’t you? Don’t you know how you manage to be conscious? Do you know how you beat your heart? Can you say in words, explain correctly, how this is done? You do it, but you can’t put it into words! Because words are too clumsy, and yet you manage this expertly for as long as you’re able to do it.[1]
[1]:https://www.organism.earth/library/document/out-of-your-mind...
Does this ring a bell to anyone?
Steven Wright
Though it's not as funny without his delivery