Algorithmic complexity is a measure of information. For any non-trivially sophisticated (i.e. interesting) system, there exists no shortest/best programmatic representation – i.e. theory, model, framework or network wiring. This means that in some circumstances we can reduce ad infinitum. There is no best, only better; a lesson in abject humility still to be learned by […]
Tag: incompleteness
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AI as Propaganda
Context: Attack Mannequins: AI as Propaganda An interesting article but the assertion of ideological counter-propaganda in this context is a bit of stretch. It projects much more structure, aptitude and volition to the behavioural and regulatory (as control/governance) systems than has ever actually existed. The assertion of all ideological positions requires a foil, an antithesis […]
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A language is not its parts
The artefacts and instances as microcosms or individuated and particular salience are indeed not the essence of a linguistic system, but notice how that from within the grammatical and ordered sub-set of logic that language (inadvertently) embodies – the projective and asserted totality of intelligible meaning or self-consistent systems is some kind of statistical average […]
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On Seeking the Impossible
I know of no other way than to seek the impossible beyond ourselves in the paragon of perfect forms or infinity other than as simultaneously and endemically manifest in and as the incompleteness, doubt, undecidability and uncertainty within us. In this, we come to understand that the distance and difference by which we seek and […]
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Defusing Disinformation
Context: Facebook to take action against users repeatedly sharing misinformation To be quite frank, this (and all interdictions like it) merely treat symptoms, regardless of sincerity, conscientiousness or any plausible resemblance to aspirational efficacy. One of the key problems we face in the problem of disinformation is that of foundationally misconstruing the nature of the […]
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Global Systems
There are quite a number of critically important things in this world which remain spectacularly and enduringly conspicuous by their absence. Central among these we might place everyday idioms of wishful thinking such as peace, love, freedom and environmental sustainability. What unifies all of these things is that the ways that manifest in this world […]
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Recursion
There is a very special sense in which the ordered complexity our world resembles matryoshka nesting dolls. It is not purely of the overt ubiquity of fractal patterns of self-similarity in spatial or material structure and temporal sequence, although these symmetries are striking and quite deeply beautiful in their own mischievously inter-dimensional ways. The recursion […]
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The Emptiness
There is an implicit and irreducible incompleteness in things. Those who feel experiences most acutely, with greater sensitivity and the profound depth of interior, psychological reflection are much less likely to simply sweep away a lingering sense of unease, less able to simply accept with complete belief or unproblematic gullibility the profoundly hollow or superficial […]
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Psychoanalysis is incomplete…
Psychoanalysis can be compelling but it is not necessarily or entirely true. Nothing interesting is ever completely true and this is what makes things more useful (and interesting) than they would otherwise be. Specifically, there will always exist unprovable truths and this itself (!) has been logically proven (Gödel, 1931). It is precisely in our […]
In his classic Tao Te Ching (The Way of Life), Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu characterises the utility of what does not exist as being of profound importance. While there exist complex senses in which this illustrates a powerful gradient of logical thought, the fact is – and contrary to pretty much every single ideological position or […]
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Incomplete Sketches of Mental Life
Our mental images are the incomplete sketches upon which we build a whole world and in their useful ambiguity and uncertainty we cultivate our freedom to grow.
Context: Would you trust an AI Operative in the field? This (quote from the above article) is an assessment of limitations in current AI: “…tend to respond well to what they’ve been trained to detect, but responses can become erratic when confronted with unexpected circumstances…” is in fact, and perhaps not coincidentally, an operational and […]
