27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
The Boundaries of a Game Versus Boundaries of Other Kinds...
What does it mean to say that games take place within set boundaries established by the act of play? Is this really true? Is there really such a distinct boundary? In fact there is. Compare, for example, the informal play of a toy with the more formal play of a game. A child approaching a doll, for example, can slowly and gradually enter into a play relationship with the doll. The child might look at the doll from across the room and shoot it a playful glance. Later, the child might pick it u...Folksonomies: gameplay
Folksonomies: gameplay
1 
notes
notes30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
The Question of Methodology
The methodological question. In a previous book I gave a
good deal of thought and analysis to the methodological importance
f°r work in the human sciences of finding and formulating a first
s t eP. a point of departure, a beginning principle.11 A major lesson I learned and tried to present was that there is no such thing as a
merely given, or simply available, starting point: beginnings have
to be made for each project in such a way as to enable what follows
from them. Nowhere in my experien...Folksonomies: methodology
Folksonomies: methodology
1 notes
notes22 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Nettlesomeness
...Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes. Carlsen has the highest nettlesomeness score by this metric, because his creative moves pressure the other player and open up a lot of room for mistakes. In contrast, a player such as Kramnik plays a high percentage of very accurate move... 1 notes
notesA characteristic of chess players. A measure of how often they make moves that cause their opponent to make mistakes.
19 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Lojban for Experimental Linquistics
Lojban is a predicate language, with no distinct nouns, verbs, or
adjectives. What are the linguistic (communicative) properties of such a system? The answer has been partially explored through symbolic logic. But do people, when thinking linguistically, mimic in any way the processes of formal logic? What effects would a formal-logic– based language have on those linguistic thinking processes? Is the resulting language susceptible to the same analysis as natural language, in terms of the v...Folksonomies: language artificial
Folksonomies: language artificial
1 notes
notesNatural languages lack the controls necessary for experimentation, but an artificial language works for testing Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
11 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Solution to Russel's Paradox
An analysis of the paradoxes to be avoided shows that they all result from a kind of vicious circle. The vicious circles in question arise from supposing that a collection of objects may contain members which can only be defined by means of the collection as a whole. Thus, for example, the collection of propositions will be supposed to contain a proposition stating that “all propositions are either true or false.” It would seem, however, that such a statement could not be legitimate unles...
1 The paradox that a set of sets that do not contain themselves must contain itself.
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Hedgehogs Do Worse the More Information They Have
Academic experts like the ones that Tetlock studied can suffer from the same problem. In fact, a little knowledge may be a dangerous thing in the hands of a hedgehog with a Ph.D. One of Tetlock’s more remarkable findings is that, while foxes tend to get better at forecasting with experience, the opposite is true of hedgehogs: their performance tends to worsen as they pick up additional credentials. Tetlock believes the more facts hedgehogs have at their command, the more opportunities they ... 1 notes
notesThey selectively take in the information to reaffirm their biases.
23 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Watson/Holmes Modes of Thought
As Holmes reminds us,
“Like all other arts, the Science of
Deduction and Analysis is one which can
only be acquired by long and patient study
nor is life long enough to allow any mortal
to attain the highest possible perfection in
it.” But it’s also more than mere fancy. In
essence, it comes down to one simple
formula: to move from a System Watson–
to a System Holmes–governed thinking
takes mindfulness plus motivation. (That,
and a lot of practice.) Mindfulness, in the
sense of cons...Folksonomies: mindfulness
Folksonomies: mindfulness
1 notes
notesWatson is on autopilot, Holmes is mindfulness.
17 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Knowledge Must be Combined With Honesty
Knowledge and ability must be combined with ambition as well as with a sense of honesty and a severe conscience. Every analyst occasionally has doubts about the accuracy of his results, and also there are times when he knows his results to be incorrect. Sometimes a few drops of the solution were spilt, or some other slight mistake made. In these cases it requires a strong conscience to repeat the analysis and to make a rough estimate of the loss or apply a correction. Anyone not having suffic... 1 notes
notesResearchers must apply honest rigor to their work; otherwise, their results are detrimental to society.
28 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Problem with Reductionism
The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their is...Folksonomies: reductionism holism
Folksonomies: reductionism holism
1 notes
notesIs that we also need to look at phenomenon in the context of their web of interactions with other phenomenon in the world.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
How Scientists Differ from Clerics
When more evidence is garnered, whether through the analysis of additional characters, through the discovery of new specimens, or by pointing out errors and problems with the original data sets, new trees can be calculated. If these new trees better explain the data (taking fewer evolutionary transformations), they supplant the previous trees. You might not always like what comes out, but you have to accept it.
Any real systematist (or scientist in general) has to be ready to heave all that... 1 notes
notesThey must discard incorrect beliefs when facing new evidence.
