Disclaimer by the Binomial distribution function: "If you can't be true, I've got news for you. Just remember I can be Poisson."
Though she can act Normal as well.
When Stamford Raffles dropped the torch
He set the school ablaze
We faced the challenge of the day
To build the school again
It's so weird that the first topic in KI places such a strict definition on knowledge, yet they use that word so loosely later on. Aesthetic Knowledge. Religious Knowledge. Historical Knowledge. Scientific Knowledge. Bleagh.
How do you discuss language with words? If our ideas are solely constructed in our independent minds, and the same word used by different people referring to the same thing is only due to "coincidence", then language isn't reliable in communicating ideas. IMO, common perception is probably better. However, since our minds construct ideas based on our pre-existing ideas + mental templates given to us when we are born, different people will construct different ideas even when presented with the same image.
So perhaps, they is no reliable way to communicate ideas. While one can argue that mathematics and logic are inherent in us, there is no reason to assume that this is the case for everyone. Mathematical axioms are based on what is "obvious", yet the only way to check if someone if obvious to someone is to ask him. No other way. We can't conceive of another set of logic because all our thoughts are limited to the human mind, and we do notice that the only people to talk about logic with us are humans.
Consider this: surely, there can possibly be 4 dimensional space, if there is 1, 2 and 3 dimensional space? The math can describe it, yet we can't picture it; our minds are limited, and we can only compensate it with math.
In my opinion, we don't really gain anything new from math, unless we apply math to simulate and calculate stuff in the real world, then we learn about the real world. Math is a priori knowledge, it's all supposed to be obvious. Perhaps it is, to people like Fermat or Gauss or Euler. Some people find some things obvious, some people don't. You can't count on things like that for a basis for universal truth. It is only truth for people who find the axioms obvious.
Now, we can't even count on math or logic to communicate ideas unambiguously, how could we communicate ideas unambiguously then? Perhaps we can't, after all. We can only guess and check, and learning each word is just like finding out what fuzzy-wuzzy likes. It gets clearer with more tries, but it is never unambiguous. Even till now, while I think I know what fuzzy-wuzzy likes, nobody tells me what he likes, so I can never really know for sure.
So yeh, this means that nobody will ever know what is in your mind, or what you are trying to say. What then? I have no idea.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Comments by IntenseDebate
Posting anonymously.
2007-05-23T23:41:00+08:00
Yak
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