What a wonderful article. Very thought provoking. While reading, I was thinking about how generosity applies to how we come to make sense of language produced by LLMs. If the principle of generosity urges us to see Homer as the single composer of 'his' writing, is the same principle of generosity behind our tendency to think language produced by LLMs is produced by a single entity? And it is not until LLMs fail to meet our expectations, that we see them as something more like the editor of a collection?
Thank you! That's a great point about LLMs. Even when we're aware of how LLMs operate, we tend to read them as a single (albeit somewhat bland) voice. There's something about the act of translation that forces a narrative unity onto that which is being translated, even when we know that unity isn't 'really' there.
I was reminded of two things when reading this. The first is the practice of quoting the Bible (or any other source) outside of the original text's context. Often the meaning of that quote has a coherent meaning in the way it's being used, but not one it had in the original source. So while the coherent whole is definitely a good heuristic, I wouldn't say it's absolute. (Not I think absolutism was argued for.)
The other (admittedly somewhat off topic) is the many interpretations of quantum mechanics, all of which attempt to fit the quantum formalism into some coherent whole, but all of which (other than a straight out "shut up and calculate" stance) require throwing some aspect of common sense reality under the bus. Which one seems the most coherent appears to hinge on our metaphysical biases.
Agreed on quoting out of context. You sometimes see that sort of thing happen with inspirational quotes that circulate the internet, where that wasn't what the author meant, or at least the message is more complicated than the standalone quote makes it seem.
I think the quantum mechanics point is on topic, actually, but we get into that broad level of interpretation in later chapters. I wonder if someday there will come a tipping point which makes it clear which metaphysical stance is the most coherent, or if it will happen so gradually no one individual will recognize it as its happening...or if it never happens.
A lot of internet quotes are also commonly misattributed. I've become reflexively skeptical of anything attributed to Mark Twain, Einstein, Marcus Aurelius, Theodore Roosevelt, and a few others.
The problem with metaphysical convergence is someone can always hold out for new discoveries. So, for instance, the debate on whether reality is fundamentally deterministic or random seems unresolvable. There are QM interpretations to fit either, and even if there are scientific discoveries that seem to point in a particular direction, someone who disagrees with that direction can always hold out for future discoveries.
So true about the quotes. I generally don't read them anyway, but yeah, I'm not surprised they're misattributed.
Yeah, holding out for new discoveries can be used as a cop out, especially when the issue is really a philosophical problem rather than a scientific one.
Quite a jump from origins of language to literary criticism! The jigsaw puzzle analogy invoked for me the engineering/science notion of "elegance" and of Occam's Razor.
"Elegance" is hard-to-define but very similar to the presumably correct way of doing the puzzle. It's an appeal to our sense of parsimony and harmony. ("Baroque" and "Rube Goldberg" are opposites to the notion of elegance.) It's often (but not always!) a sign of a correct theory. Here it's a sign of a probably correct interpretation. (Except for unusual cases of pigs and pens.)
I also ponder whether a notion of "effort required to understand" could be meaningful here. It requires no effort to understand typical pigs in typical pens but does require some to wrap one's mind around unusual cases. The dissonance requires mental work, even gymnastics, to resolve.
Yes, Occam's Razor is very much at play here. And I would think effort required to understand plays some role. Imagine if we're looking at two essays make the same points, but one is wordy, overly careful, and relies heavily technical language whereas the other is written in simple English without the use of obscure terms. Assuming it's possible that they can make the same points, which I realize is controversial, which one is better? So yeah, I think there is something like a laziness principle lurking in the notion of elegance. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Even Geordie knows that!
This is a very interesting chapter, and connected to my current paper. Thank you for the upload.
In my current academic paper project, I'm arguing that "freedom," in the abstract, doesn't mean anything, and that when we speak of freedom we need a context (usually a shared tradition) to which we can refer. The confusion, which is quite common and explains why right and left wing people both consider themselves champions of freedom while directly contradicting each other on each point, arises from the fact that multiple freedom traditions exist, and that they share no "central concept."
I mention all of this because two of the most common "freedom" traditions are those that see freedom as being "from disorder." These include people like Cicero, Confucius, and practically all modern capitalist economists. These are opposed to the freedom champions who want to be "freed" from systems, and include all the Frankfurt School folks, Martin Luther, and practically anyone who describes him or herself as a liberation theorist. (Abby Hoffman is an extreme example.)
What's interesting is that your chapter seems to imply we need to side with Cicero and against Martin Luther when we charitably interpret an expression.
What a wonderful article. Very thought provoking. While reading, I was thinking about how generosity applies to how we come to make sense of language produced by LLMs. If the principle of generosity urges us to see Homer as the single composer of 'his' writing, is the same principle of generosity behind our tendency to think language produced by LLMs is produced by a single entity? And it is not until LLMs fail to meet our expectations, that we see them as something more like the editor of a collection?
Thank you! That's a great point about LLMs. Even when we're aware of how LLMs operate, we tend to read them as a single (albeit somewhat bland) voice. There's something about the act of translation that forces a narrative unity onto that which is being translated, even when we know that unity isn't 'really' there.
I was reminded of two things when reading this. The first is the practice of quoting the Bible (or any other source) outside of the original text's context. Often the meaning of that quote has a coherent meaning in the way it's being used, but not one it had in the original source. So while the coherent whole is definitely a good heuristic, I wouldn't say it's absolute. (Not I think absolutism was argued for.)
The other (admittedly somewhat off topic) is the many interpretations of quantum mechanics, all of which attempt to fit the quantum formalism into some coherent whole, but all of which (other than a straight out "shut up and calculate" stance) require throwing some aspect of common sense reality under the bus. Which one seems the most coherent appears to hinge on our metaphysical biases.
Agreed on quoting out of context. You sometimes see that sort of thing happen with inspirational quotes that circulate the internet, where that wasn't what the author meant, or at least the message is more complicated than the standalone quote makes it seem.
I think the quantum mechanics point is on topic, actually, but we get into that broad level of interpretation in later chapters. I wonder if someday there will come a tipping point which makes it clear which metaphysical stance is the most coherent, or if it will happen so gradually no one individual will recognize it as its happening...or if it never happens.
A lot of internet quotes are also commonly misattributed. I've become reflexively skeptical of anything attributed to Mark Twain, Einstein, Marcus Aurelius, Theodore Roosevelt, and a few others.
The problem with metaphysical convergence is someone can always hold out for new discoveries. So, for instance, the debate on whether reality is fundamentally deterministic or random seems unresolvable. There are QM interpretations to fit either, and even if there are scientific discoveries that seem to point in a particular direction, someone who disagrees with that direction can always hold out for future discoveries.
So true about the quotes. I generally don't read them anyway, but yeah, I'm not surprised they're misattributed.
Yeah, holding out for new discoveries can be used as a cop out, especially when the issue is really a philosophical problem rather than a scientific one.
Quite a jump from origins of language to literary criticism! The jigsaw puzzle analogy invoked for me the engineering/science notion of "elegance" and of Occam's Razor.
"Elegance" is hard-to-define but very similar to the presumably correct way of doing the puzzle. It's an appeal to our sense of parsimony and harmony. ("Baroque" and "Rube Goldberg" are opposites to the notion of elegance.) It's often (but not always!) a sign of a correct theory. Here it's a sign of a probably correct interpretation. (Except for unusual cases of pigs and pens.)
I also ponder whether a notion of "effort required to understand" could be meaningful here. It requires no effort to understand typical pigs in typical pens but does require some to wrap one's mind around unusual cases. The dissonance requires mental work, even gymnastics, to resolve.
Yes, Occam's Razor is very much at play here. And I would think effort required to understand plays some role. Imagine if we're looking at two essays make the same points, but one is wordy, overly careful, and relies heavily technical language whereas the other is written in simple English without the use of obscure terms. Assuming it's possible that they can make the same points, which I realize is controversial, which one is better? So yeah, I think there is something like a laziness principle lurking in the notion of elegance. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Even Geordie knows that!
Ha, so does Bentley. She never understands why we can’t cross an intersection diagonally.
In basic physics, there is a “least energy” notion. Systems try to find their lowest-energy states — round soap bubbles are the canonical example.
This is a very interesting chapter, and connected to my current paper. Thank you for the upload.
In my current academic paper project, I'm arguing that "freedom," in the abstract, doesn't mean anything, and that when we speak of freedom we need a context (usually a shared tradition) to which we can refer. The confusion, which is quite common and explains why right and left wing people both consider themselves champions of freedom while directly contradicting each other on each point, arises from the fact that multiple freedom traditions exist, and that they share no "central concept."
I mention all of this because two of the most common "freedom" traditions are those that see freedom as being "from disorder." These include people like Cicero, Confucius, and practically all modern capitalist economists. These are opposed to the freedom champions who want to be "freed" from systems, and include all the Frankfurt School folks, Martin Luther, and practically anyone who describes him or herself as a liberation theorist. (Abby Hoffman is an extreme example.)
What's interesting is that your chapter seems to imply we need to side with Cicero and against Martin Luther when we charitably interpret an expression.
Thanks for reading! Yeah, it's important to explain what you mean by freedom first. Words like that can be tricky.