A Troll on Karl Johan Street

Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write.

[worldmovingslow]

husband: I'm so glad we finally have our own place! You did such a great job decorating it, honey

fujo wife: Really? You don't think it's kind of...chintzy?

[tsarina-anadyomene]

i think AI is just making us see that things we thought were about truth and/or increasing the scope and power of instrumental reason actually realize a bunch of different values. Or maybe we've just lost what is magical about the Platonic ascent to truth. Schopenhauer repeatedly remarks that the most forceful experiences of truth are the ones we come to by our own power.

[tsarina-anadyomene]

The original point I was getting at was a little different but perhaps there's a deeper point here: there is something perhaps a bit spiritually robbing about pragmatist views about truth, and I think about even realist views about truth that have the character "if it works, then we know it's true." It's a bit like this characterization of practical reason that just says what we're trying to do is meet various goals. Setiya points out that this means the domain of possible ends and worthwhile activities is always shrinking and there is nothing left to sustain ourselves on. The world of instrumental reason is always swallowing itself up, and we have seen an incredible acceleration of this process. Murdoch and Schopenhauer are both intellectual descendants of Plato and seem to have a much different conception of what an experience of truth is—it's not just collecting a bunch of propositions for your proposition collection and it's not about being able to get what you want. Rather it's this moment of astonishing contact with something outside of yourself that fundamentally involves a kind of struggle against yourself. The operative concept is something like "communion." For Plato: "intercourse."

[sungodsevenoclock]

I don't know, I agree with the premise of the OP, but it seems like a distinct downgrade to me. And the second post is something we'd tell ourselves to cope with that downgrade. We were telling ourselves that what mattered to us was something universal, and instead it turns out to be something extremely parochial. It's fair to be disappointed.

And anyway, I don't know to what extent you even get the high unless you think you've figured out something that matters to more than just you...

[tsarina-anadyomene]

I suppose I'm not sure what makes those values "extremely parochial!" My initial impulse was to make a comparison with engagement theories in aesthetics: we don't just want to get the correct critical judgment, we want to arrive at it by our own powers. To skip ahead is just to miss out on the value of the enterprise.

But the second move is to say that grasping a proposition is actually a rather trivial way of grasping the truth. Another aesthetic metaphor: to actually understand a sculpture it's not enough to read a summary. You aren't in contact with "what it is" if you just get the summary. Herder: understanding a sculpture requires the use of our proprioceptive and kinaesthetic faculties. Coming up with the proof is a way of "seeing" the mathematical truth in the same way that proprioception is a way of "seeing" the sculpture—and both are appropriate to it.

Presumably the value of believing a true thing (or making contact with the truth) has something to do with me. The truth will be there whether I know it or not (supposing a simple correspondence theory). We should think there's something valuable about me believing it. The natural thought is that it has something to do with me. Maybe making contact with something beyond yourself is just good (this seems to me just plausible). But knowing some fact is touching when we could be grasping.

[sungodsevenoclock]

This seems to me to be ignoring the part that makes proving a mathematical theorem a different thing than, like, solving a "Clues by Sam" puzzle or whatever. It's not just about arriving at a "correct answer", it's also about taking part in an enterprise greater than yourself. Or you know, I thought it was about that, anyway...

[sungodsevenoclock]

I think there should be a rule that in order to feel smugly superior to the people who climb Mount Everest, you need to have climbed Denali or Kazbek or something. Mount Rainier at the very least.

[nobrashfestivity]

Lithuanian Film Posters

The 1968 poster for Feelings (Jausmai), by Vytautas Valius 

Our Small Sins (Mazos Musu Nuodemes), by Miroslavas Znamerovskis, 1979

The Beauty (Grazuole) from 1969, artist unknown

Have Mercy On Us (Pasigailek Musu), Miroslavas Znamerovskis, 1978

Game Without Trumps (Losimas Be Koziriu), by Vidas Dregva, 1981

Daydreams of Centuries (Simtameciu Godos), from 1969, artist unknown

Photographs: Marta Ovod

[tsarina-anadyomene]

i think AI is just making us see that things we thought were about truth and/or increasing the scope and power of instrumental reason actually realize a bunch of different values. Or maybe we've just lost what is magical about the Platonic ascent to truth. Schopenhauer repeatedly remarks that the most forceful experiences of truth are the ones we come to by our own power.

[tsarina-anadyomene]

The original point I was getting at was a little different but perhaps there's a deeper point here: there is something perhaps a bit spiritually robbing about pragmatist views about truth, and I think about even realist views about truth that have the character "if it works, then we know it's true." It's a bit like this characterization of practical reason that just says what we're trying to do is meet various goals. Setiya points out that this means the domain of possible ends and worthwhile activities is always shrinking and there is nothing left to sustain ourselves on. The world of instrumental reason is always swallowing itself up, and we have seen an incredible acceleration of this process. Murdoch and Schopenhauer are both intellectual descendants of Plato and seem to have a much different conception of what an experience of truth is—it's not just collecting a bunch of propositions for your proposition collection and it's not about being able to get what you want. Rather it's this moment of astonishing contact with something outside of yourself that fundamentally involves a kind of struggle against yourself. The operative concept is something like "communion." For Plato: "intercourse."

[sungodsevenoclock]

I don't know, I agree with the premise of the OP, but it seems like a distinct downgrade to me. And the second post is something we'd tell ourselves to cope with that downgrade. We were telling ourselves that what mattered to us was something universal, and instead it turns out to be something extremely parochial. It's fair to be disappointed.

And anyway, I don't know to what extent you even get the high unless you think you've figured out something that matters to more than just you...

[kvetchlandia]

Leonard Freed Summertime, Harlem, New York 1963

[miamaimania]

Frozen Moments: Norilsk, Siberia through the Lens of Christophe Jacrot

[argumate]

I'm sympathetic to the idea of funding the humanities and the arts but I think most of the arguments for doing so are overstated; they tend to either try and tie them to something we care about more, like national greatness or making loadsa money (or uplifting the human spirit lol), or threaten exaggerated risks of their disappearance, like failure of critical thinking and the collapse of democracy, which seems like a stretch that itself lacks critical thinking and is also (ironically!) ahistorical.

I think I would ground support for funding the humanities and the arts on the basis that they are rich and complex endeavours that bring great satisfaction (and torment) to those involved in them, and a better world even for those who aren't, who also benefit from having them around.

I suppose that's a proof by contradiction: go around saying there should be less art here, nobody should understand history, I think reading sucks so stop teaching people to write, music? forget it, linguistics? we don't need it, philosophy? too much talking, etc. etc. that's just super dumb, that's an impoverished world, I think failing to understand the benefits of having these fields really does demonstrate a blinkered lack of imagination; these things might not directly contribute to the work of material logistics or sound governance but one of the reasons we do that work is to support this work.

[sungodsevenoclock]

My low confidence opinion is that if you think AI superintelligence is very very likely to happen and very very likely to lead to human extinction and you want to prevent this, you should be trying to agitate for a Butlerian Jihad much more so than you should be trying to solve the problem of AI alignment.

Like I get that AI is also cool and can have lots of positive effects, but if you think AI superintelligence is very very likely to happen and very very likely to lead to human extinction and you want to prevent this, how cool it is kind of shouldn’t matter?

[sungodsevenoclock]

I think this is still true, and also true even if you replace "AI superintelligence is very very likely to happen" with "current level of AI intelligence exists" and "human extinction" with "large-scale disaster for human civilization".

[sungodsevenoclock]

Одиссей

Ночь ослепла от ливня, бушует чернильная пена, Небеса расхлестались, и льются на землю помои. О друзья, не пускайте, вяжите меня бечевою — Там, в саду, так протяжно, так страшно распелась сирена.

Словно ящерка вьется, двугрудая, скользкая, длинная, В разоренном кустарнике, брошенном в окна туманом. Чтоб не слышал я пенья, мне уши замажьте хоть глиною, Хочет музою стать, все твердит мне о дивном, о странном.

В пене встал океан, будто конь, перепуганный громом, Тучи — зубрами в пуще, смятенное небо заржало. Я — шальной мореплаватель, бездна бушует над домом, Сад свихнулся от пенья, пришел в исступленье от жалоб.

Понесло меня, Ноя, Улисса, -забросило в омут, В даль кипящих путей и в мое человечье хожденье. Дева-песенница — лунным светом течет ее пенье, Сладкой жалобой льется, струится и тает истомой.

Пусть мне кто-нибудь добрый монеты на очи положит, Самый добрый — пускай мне отравленный кубок протянет, Встань, моя Пенелопа, склонись у последнего ложа, Я вернулся к тебе — и опять меня в странствия манит.

Видишь? В окнах она все поет и все так же ярится, И глаза не отвесть от чешуйчатого наважденья. Слышишь? В паводок манит жестокая эта певица Зовом первой любви, от которого нету спасенья.

Океан принесла, чтобы выл под моими стенами, Повелела небесным громам грохотать надо мною. И поет все грозней, потому что любовь между нами, Чтоб навеки забыл я мечту о домашнем покое.

В сад откройте окно, там деревья кричат бесновато, Как утопленник в песнь поплыву, поплыву безрассудно! Пусть сорвется мой дом с якорей и помчится, как судно! О жена! О друзья! Мне поистине нету возврата!

—1959

Julian Tuwim, tr. David Samoylov

[radicarian]

The hoax took place in Florence in about 1409... The victim was a carpenter named Manetto, known as Il Grasso, "the Fat Man." Manetto specialized in carving ebony and owned a shop in the Piazza San Giovanni, not far from Filippo [Brunelleschi]'s house. He was prosperous and good-natured, but one day had the misfortune of incurring Filippo's ire after missing a social gathering. Never one to resist retaliation, Filippo resolved to exact his revenge for this perceived slight by persuading a wide cast of characters to convince Manetto that he had metamorphosed into someone else.... As Manetto closed his shop one evening, Filippo went to his house near the cathedral, picked the lock, slipped inside, and barred the door behind him. When Manetto arrived a few minutes later, he rattled the door and then, to his alarm, heard what sounded like his own voice (in fact, Filippo doing an impersonation) ordering him to go away. This impersonation was so convincing that eh retreated in bewilderment into the Piazza San Giovanni. There he met Donatello, who inexplicably addressed him as Matteo, and shortly afterward a bailiff, who likewise hailed him as Matteo and then promptly arrested him for debt. He was taken to the Stinche prison, where his name was entered in the jail book as Matteo. Even his fellow prisoners--all of them party to Filippo's prank--addressed him by this alien name. The carpenter spent a sleepless night, fretting over events but solacing himself with the thought that he was merely a victim of mistaken identity. This comfort evaporated the next morning when two strangers--the brothers of the real Matteo--arrived at the prison and claimed him as their kin. They paid his debt and liberated him, though not before chastising him for his supposed gambling and profligate living. More bewildered now than ever, he was escorted to Matteo's home on the other side of Florence, near Santa Felìcita, where his protests that he was not Matteo, but Manetto, appeared to fall on deaf ears.... He was then put to sleep with a potion supplied by Filippo and carried, unconscious, back across the river to his own home. He was laid on his bed in a reversed position, with his head at the foot and his feet at the head. Awakening many hours later, the poor carpenter was confused not merely by his position on the bed but also by the disarray of his house, for his tools had been completely rearranged. His perplexity grew with the arrival of Matteo's brothers... greeting him as Manetto and relating the curious story of how the previous evening their brother Matteo conceived the fantastic notion that he was someone else. The story was soon confirmed by Matteo himself--the real one--who arrived at Manetto's house to describe his puzzling dream of having been a carpenter. The disarray of the house was explained by the fact that in his dream Matteo noticed how his tools were out of order and in need of rearrangement.

Source: Brunelleschi's Dome, Ross King

What the hell was going on in 15th-century Florence. You miss a party and get elaborately mindfucked by a pissed-off goldsmith and his buddy Donatello. Manetto ended up moving to Hungary over this and who can blame him

[sungodsevenoclock]

I want to know:

Which side do you support when a new geopolitical conflict flares up?

The underdog

The ones who I have decided are less white

The ones who I have decided are more white

The side the USA is on

The side the USA isn't on

Um, have you heard of this thing called the "zeitgeist"? Hello?

Who I think is gonna win

Whoever didn't start this round

I keep a running tally of atrocities and switch allegiance accordingly

Whoever my pre-made full ranking of all geopolitical actors says is more good

I have some other way

Remaining time: 2 days 22 hours

[sungodsevenoclock]

I think it was someone at Crooked Timber who quoted his old Irish aunt saying that in every conflict, she tries to figure out which side is the Protestants and which side the Catholics, and to be honest most of us probably do some version of this.

[vaginawo0lf]

Visit Original Link

[transgenderer]

before visiting sf I'd claim it was not a real city. This is false! Upon visiting it became clear sf is distinctly a small city. Having visited Seattle, it is similarly clear this is not a city. It's perfectly nice! It's a lovely dense suburb. Maybe in 100 years?

[transgenderer]

@regexkind said:

You need to go someplace rural for contrast. I have no idea tf you're talking about

It's about...overflowingness. New York, sf, Berlin, Paris, these are places with too much there there To FIT. They're bursting. Seattle seems to have no trouble fitting a seattle in it. Seattle suffices for itself

[transgenderer]

@wildgifthorses said:

it sounds like your criterion for "real city" is "acute housing shortage", by which metric it is true nyc and sf outpace everywhere else in the US :p

I am failing to communicate! (Or perhaps I am being deliberately misunderstood. But you wouldn't do that, would you? You wouldn't profane that most sacred act, the attempt to communicate?)

It's not about scarcity, it's about abundance! It's about bounteousness! A sense there's something around every corner, under every stone. An unmappability. An infinite detail, fractal complexity. It's easy for European conurbations to be cities because they're old, theyre layered. Most Americans live somewhere with only one top layer to access. It's simple. It's comprehensible. Its accessible. It fails to confront!

[sungodsevenoclock]

Okay, I sympathise with this, but I also think it's somewhat of a skill issue.

Like did you know that French wikipedia has a page for every single street in Paris? And basically all of these have some amount of trivia or history or something? This was an amazing cheat code - you got to see these layers that I think you're talking about. And even if you didn't see them, it was an illustration that they were there. Anyway, at one point when I was living in Seattle, I lived at the same intersection that the bowling alley that the idiot-savant trader deuteragonist lives in is apparently located in Tom Robbins "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas". But I didn't know it at the time, which is too bad.

[sungodsevenoclock]

I want to know:

Which side do you support when a new geopolitical conflict flares up?

The underdog

The ones who I have decided are less white

The ones who I have decided are more white

The side the USA is on

The side the USA isn't on

Um, have you heard of this thing called the "zeitgeist"? Hello?

Who I think is gonna win

Whoever didn't start this round

I keep a running tally of atrocities and switch allegiance accordingly

Whoever my pre-made full ranking of all geopolitical actors says is more good

I have some other way

Remaining time: 2 days 22 hours

[sungodsevenoclock]

One thing that separates me out as a tumblr user is how often I repeat to myself "I need a man to stop the big truck from honk"

[sungodsevenoclock]

One of the people from my circle of physics friends in university moved back to Russia and became a Z-head, and another came out as lesbian and got really into social justice. This isn't that strange, but what was strange was being on 2014 facebook with both of them and one is talking about like whether Ukrainians are subhuman, and the other is talking about like how to talk about marginalized groups in a way that is sufficiently sensitive. And it's like "wow, it's not that a person engaging in one conversation would be an outlier in the other, it's like there is no overlap between these conversational spheres at all".

Anyway, that's what it feels like to see different portions of tumblr talk about AI on the timeline.