Zompist Bboard Again

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 10:30 pm BTW, determining that a computer, conventional or quantum, with unlimited resources can simulate a human brain isn't something I'd expect would win one an award. As you say, it is the kind of thing that is almost trivially true. What I was saying is that the opposite, determining that a conventional or quantum computer with unlimited resources can't simulate a human brain, would likely win one a Turing Award.

So far as I can see, Ares Land hasn't said such a thing. His original post, now 3 pages back, admits that simulating a brain is possible. He's talking about how efficient a computer brain could be and whether the brain = computer metaphor is useful.

Zju wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 6:15 pm Late to the train and even later to the discussion, but has anybody else read The three bodies problem / Dark forest? I so wish the books lacked the implicitly compulsory ccp propaganda sections author's impressions of various nations' inherent manners; the lack of editorial review really shows. Both books would the about 40% to 50% shorter and that would be a major improvement.

I did, but that was years ago. I liked the Dark Forest less, and I never got around to reading the third book.

As I recall, yeah, the characterization of non-Chinese characters was naive, though not worse than some Western authors.
In any case, I don't think it was really propaganda. In fact, aside from the section set during the Cultural Revolution (which I liked), I think it was relatively apolitical.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 10:30 pm BTW, determining that a computer, conventional or quantum, with unlimited resources can simulate a human brain isn't something I'd expect would win one an award. As you say, it is the kind of thing that is almost trivially true. What I was saying is that the opposite, determining that a conventional or quantum computer with unlimited resources can't simulate a human brain, would likely win one a Turing Award.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 10:37 pm So far as I can see, Ares Land hasn't said such a thing. His original post, now 3 pages back, admits that simulating a brain is possible. He's talking about how efficient a computer brain could be and whether the brain = computer metaphor is useful.

I have a quibble though: I personally think that (leaving asides consideration of practicality or efficiency) a human brain can be simulated to such a precise degree than it would be conscious - but it's probably one of these problems that feel trivial, but is incredibly difficult to prove formally.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 4:35 am

Zju wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 6:15 pm Late to the train and even later to the discussion, but has anybody else read The three bodies problem / Dark forest? I so wish the books lacked the implicitly compulsory ccp propaganda sections author's impressions of various nations' inherent manners; the lack of editorial review really shows. Both books would the about 40% to 50% shorter and that would be a major improvement.

I did, but that was years ago. I liked the Dark Forest less, and I never got around to reading the third book.

As I recall, yeah, the characterization of non-Chinese characters was naive, though not worse than some Western author.
In any case, I don't think it was really propaganda. In fact, aside from the section set during the Cultural Revolution (which I liked), I think it was relatively apolitical.

I think I've read somewhere that the translator(s) toned down some aspects of the book.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 4:35 am I have a quibble though: I personally think that (leaving asides consideration of practicality or efficiency) a human brain can be simulated to such a precise degree than it would be conscious - but it's probably one of these problems that feel trivial, but is incredibly difficult to prove formally.

To me the hardest part of this is that we don't really know how the human brain works, which renders the task of trying to simulate it or, for that matter, trying to prove or disprove anything about it practically impossible (aside from proving or disproving things about simulating physical systems in the general case).

On a whim, I just bought Daniel Okrent's Nine Innings: The Anatomy of a Baseball Game, although I know very little about baseball and, so far, haven't been all that interested in it. I thought perhaps I should know a bit more about a sport that's so popular in some parts of the world. I wonder how reading it will be like for me.

I just finished Julia Lovell's The Opium War. I had already known the basics about that war from watching the 1997 Chinese movie about it at some time in the 2000s, but I was curious to learn more about it. Great book! It describes the historical developments setting the stage for the war, the events leading to the war, the war itself, and, in the last couple of chapters, various aspects of Chinese history and Chinese-Western relations in the time since the war.

Two small remarks on minor aspects of the book: in the chapter on the Second Opium War, the pages describing the events leading up to that war seem to be mostly quotes from one specific other book, J. Y. Wong's Deadly Dreams; I don't think I've ever seen so many footnotes in a row that all started with "Ibid". And there is one small outright falsehood that's apparently based on the author not knowing enough about a mostly unrelated topic: When talking about late 19th century Western anti.opium campaigners, she writes: "self-prescribed consumption of opium was increasingly condemned out of hand in tones never applied to alcohol or tobacco." I guess she's not that familiar with the Temperance movement, which gathered steam at about the same time.

Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs

I generally find Egyptian intimidating and I have a lot of trouble getting into the grammar, but that's an highly accessible book and I highly recommend it.

Alain Badiou's The Immanence of Truths.

The good: Badiou argues that there are four kinds of "infinity": (my translations) Uniqueness, Solidarity, Expanses of wealth or power, and Closeness to the Absolute. These categories are direct interpretations of concepts of infinity found in the mainstream foundations of mathematics.

A free society allows all four kinds of infinity to breathe freely, whereas a conservative society creates false "finitude" by pitting the infinities against each other. For example, Uniqueness may be destroyed by appealing to national Solidarity that erects artificial barriers among people, authentic Solidarity may be destroyed by appealing to vast Expanses of capitalist wealth, and so on.

Whether you think these arguments are correct or not, I find them to be peculiarly evocative. They share abstract themes with notes I've jotted down in my private diaries years ago. It feels like whoever wrote this book "gets" me on a deep level.

The bad: As usual, Badiou thinks computation is conservative, and only proofs by reductio ad absurdum are politically radical. Many of these interpretations of the math are questionable to say the least.

The ugly: Although Badiou explicitly discusses the importance of compromise, it's not clear to me that he has distanced himself sufficiently from the extreme idealism that's characteristic of Maoists.

(Is this the second review of this book in the English language after Agent Swarm?)

Matabei & Kattch – "Feels Like Heaven"

Krigsgaldr by Heilung. It's now my favorite song again.

WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:50 am Krigsgaldr by Heilung. It's now my favorite song again.

I like the YouTube comments, e.g.:

When I die, I want to be an instrument in their band.

Before hearing this I lived in quiet retirement in a quant English village, where I would prune my Roses and trim my lawn. Now my garden is full of runes, a stone circle and trees, where I listen to heilung at full volume while waving deer antlers above my head. The neighbours are OK about it, putting it down to "that strange Pagan man at number 43", as long as I conduct my rituals between the hours of 8am and 9pm (10am on a Sunday).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:33 pm

WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:50 am Krigsgaldr by Heilung. It's now my favorite song again.

I like the YouTube comments, e.g.:

When I die, I want to be an instrument in their band.

Before hearing this I lived in quiet retirement in a quant English village, where I would prune my Roses and trim my lawn. Now my garden is full of runes, a stone circle and trees, where I listen to heilung at full volume while waving deer antlers above my head. The neighbours are OK about it, putting it down to "that strange Pagan man at number 43", as long as I conduct my rituals between the hours of 8am and 9pm (10am on a Sunday).

I actually read and remembered those ones!

Oh and I like Heilung's songs in general.

Ceridwen and Taliesin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOsPqOZvFq8

I've discovered that I can get news from India without having an apoplectic fit if I just listen to calm analyses produced for students: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... LemVv5s6J5

After unpacking some of my stuff, I had a thought: what got me into fantasy? It wasn't films[*]. It wasn't video games: I played The Legend of Zelda, but as far as fantasy goes, it's fairly lightweight. I wasn't tabletop RPGs, thought I did play some Dungeons & Dragons later. It wasn't even novels.

No, my introduction to fantasy was gamebooks, or "books in which YOU become the hero", as we knew them at the time. The Fighting Fantasy series, created by British game designers Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, was my gateway into heroic fantasy, with its wizards, thieves, elves, dwarves and goblins. Most books took place in an ISO standard fantasy setting, though some used a space opera setting instead, and one book featured car battles in a post-apocalyptic future (which I later realized was based on Mad Max). Confusingly, some books in the series were written by a completely different guy also named Steve Jackson.

I also loved the Lone Wolf series, which was the longest continuous saga. I also enjoyed Sagas of the Demonspawn, which was quite unusual for the format: it used third-person narration instead of the usual second-person; it was a bit more adult (the main character actually has sex once or twice); it was rather well-written compared to the others, though the rules were altogether too complex, more fit for a tabletop RPG than a simple gamebook.

[*] It seems to me that the Nineties weren't a great time for fantasy films. I can't seem to remember any high-profile film in the heroic fantasy genre between, say, Willow and Lord of the Rings. But maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Oh, I only [read/used/played with/worked with - what's the correct term here?] one such book back in the day, but I liked that one a lot. Unfortunately I don't remember the title.

Addendum:

Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:45 pm [*] It seems to me that the Nineties weren't a great time for fantasy films. I can't seem to remember any high-profile film in the heroic fantasy genre between, say, Willow and Lord of the Rings. But maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Not sure if there were any high profile movies coming from Hollywood in that genre at all before the early 2000s LOTR Trilogy, except The Wizard of Oz.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:59 am Oh, I only [read/used/played with/worked with - what's the correct term here?] one such book back in the day, but I liked that one a lot. Unfortunately I don't remember the title.

It depends on what you're doing with the book. The word for consuming a book as one does a piece of media is "read"; "play with" or "work with" sounds like you're writing it, or possibly editing it for somebody else. "Used" sounds like you either adapted it, or gave it some sort of non-reading purpose.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:04 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:59 am Oh, I only [read/used/played with/worked with - what's the correct term here?] one such book back in the day, but I liked that one a lot. Unfortunately I don't remember the title.

It depends on what you're doing with the book. The word for consuming a book as one does a piece of media is "read"; "play with" or "work with" sounds like you're writing it, or possibly editing it for somebody else. "Used" sounds like you either adapted it, or gave it some sort of non-reading purpose.

Given the context here, I’d say ‘used’ seems best to me.

I was assuming they read it, but given the confusion, maybe "encountered" might be a better word if they picked it up and read part of it, but didn't manage to finish for some reason or other, and it felt very novel (pun not originally intended, but acknowledged)?

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:17 am I was assuming they read it, but given the confusion, maybe "encountered" might be a better word if they picked it up and read part of it, but didn't manage to finish for some reason or other, and it felt very novel (pun not originally intended, but acknowledged)?

Umh, no, perhaps you're not familiar with the genre in question? You basically interact with the book. If you forgive me for using a rather crass metaphor, these books relate to old-school role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons the way masturbation relates to sex with someone else. You're basically playing a role-playing game where you're the only player character, and the book is kind of the DM.