Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

Ragabul wrote:The question is whether or not there is a discrete human thing called "logic" that allows us to circumvent our biological wiring and point ourselves at goals we choose (hopefully because they are more sensible than what our base impulses are pushing us to do) or if we just have a very elaborate and sophisticated evolved response that feels like "logic" even though we are really just doing what our impulses want and rationalizing after the fact.

We think there is. And as the sole frame of reference for any thought, the human mind has a distinct sense that there is a natural world, that are we part of, and a logical world, which is constrained by the former, but exists independently. A box within a box.

In programming, we can manifest higher-order behavior in scripts from layering lower-order goal seeking. In an RPG, we can directly script an NPC to follow a set routine. We can add variation to the routine, pseudo-random behavior, and special events, all to create the perception of complexity. Or we create low-level impulses and needs, with the tools needed to realize them, and set the NPC into motion. Instead of "Every morning at 8 AM, sit at your table and eat breakfast for an hour," we give the NPC a hunger variable. We creates rules such that hunger of a sufficient value must be sated, unless a higher mortality concern is present. We establish "food" as a thing that sates hunger, and that "sitting nearest the place where food comes from" is required to eat. We layer these primitive concepts, and end up with the NPC waking up at 8 AM and sitting at their table to eat breakfast for an hour. They might behave exactly as they did if tightly determined, but sometimes not. They'll wind up in different places, doing different things at different times, and giving a limited impression of agency. Unexpected behavior will occur, they'll get stuck in places, do weird things, and "break."

Here's the thing though. Computers are pure logic devices, definitionally deterministic. Everything is the result of a 1 or 0 layered to sufficient complexity. Software breaks because we are not logical enough to fully map out the consequences of our own code. If I instill every NPC with that food-seeking impulse, then they might beeline towards the nearest food source when sufficiently hungry, and that may be inside someone else's home, which sets off their danger sense, which results in combat, which results in a town swiftly murdering itself in the pursuit of bread. So now I must create a sense of property rights for my NPCs, which in turns results in a new murder spree. However, we made computers and everything that runs on them. For them to be purely logical, we must possess a sense of what logical is and how to represent is. We're self-evidently not purely logical, or even particularly so. But we're aware of it, indulge, and create.

It's a circular idea. If we're not logical, than we're just like the NPCs we create in video games, only far more complex. The root drives are the same thing, low-level impulses layered to sophistication. But that's a logical reductionist inference to make based on evolution, a logical theory, and chemistry, a logical field of study. But we cannot think beyond that frame of reference. So we're either logical because we can conceive of it, or, we're the illogical results of logical processes, in which case we're mindlessly logical, or we're the illogical result of illogical processes, and we've somehow manifested this bizarre illusion of logic in a reality which has none.

I think the answer is both but that the bulk of what humans do is following impulses followed by rationalizing. Most "logic" is really just rationalizing. That is what the madman is doing in your dinner-bell example. He jumps to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy and then he goes looking for evidence to support his conclusion. He does not look around impassively seeking evidence and then base his conclusion on what evidence he finds.

I think of it like baking, and logic is the vanilla extract. A subtle flavor that permeates all of it. You cannot un-add the vanilla once its baked. You might add too much, too little, or mix it poorly, but there's vanilla in that cake.

The madmen will be the equivalent of pouring from the bottle into the batter and then directly into the oven.

We are *super* at rationalizing. The smarter you are, the better you are at it in fact which is why many of the most partisan people are actually really smart. A smart person who desperately wants to believe something will be able to come up with all the best reasons for believing it, but it doesn't make what they are doing any more "rational" than the madman or dumb person talking about microchips and aliens. Either way, they make their decision and *then* they find the evidence.

It's not impossible to short circuit this impulse, but it's really hard and most people don't even realize they are doing it. The process feels like they are thinking logically even when they are not.

That's a very rational conclusion to make. Is it?

In the case of microchips and aliens, I tend to think it's an issue of expressing themselves poorly. Why do they think there's aliens probing people then dumping them in cornfields? If we fairly assume aliens don't do that, then we have this earnest belief with no actual cause. But they're damn sure aliens do so and have probably done so to them. They're trying to express something here that isn't translating to us. What primed them with the thought of alien abductors and probing? Why corn fields? Why them of all people?

If we took them seriously, but not literally, there's probably a good answer buried in there. And that answer is probably a rational conclusion of whatever structural flaws their brains might have and whatever experiences in life they've had. But that we can reason all of this, and debate it, again requires that capacity.

Deano wrote:
If you aren't getting the big titty & ass mods are you really doing it right?

Titty modders are the last, unsung heroes. Doing what developers will not. I salute them.

Got a whole "duality of man" thing going on in this reply.

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:32 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXphCPpbCt0

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GFhKmr7rl4

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQByKBuBn9M

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuisGr8p14E

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROY7ieCcWWc

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTMOcaxGpo8

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:34 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoZAAebhnxs

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:34 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2io6xFD1VY

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:34 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_wrs9NlEfI

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 4:34 pm

► Show Spoiler

Postby **Ragabul** » August 27th, 2021, 5:12 pm

@ thinking stuff

I've heard it described as slow thinking and fast thinking. Fast thinking is the thing you are doing while you are driving under normal conditions on a route you know. You are paying attention *sorta* but your brain is really mostly thinking about what you will eat for dinner or the music playing on the radio. And yet you drive home day after day doing that and don't wreck. Slow thinking is what you are doing when you are lost with nothing but a road atlas that said the obscure county road you are trying to hit is about 3 miles up the road and there's overgrown bushes and it's night so you can barely see road signs. You may be hungry and there's still probably music playing but you are not paying any attention to that at all.

Fast thinking is easier and is actually pretty good at producing "logical" results which is why we relegate so much of what we think about to it. But a lot of time is logical in some evolutionary caveman kind of sense and not really in the way we want.

A silly example: I was pruning trees earlier. (You have to prune multiple times a year here because the growing season is so long). I've been putting this off because it's really hot so now the yard is a jungle. Anyway, I usually pile the branches up in this one spot in the back corner and wait to either take them to my dad's place to dump them in the woods or to eventually extremely begrudgingly haul them off to the city location for tree waste which is obnoxiously far away and you have to wait in a 30 minute long line to get into. Curbside tree waste pickup is only every other month and I *always* forget to put the damn things out so I just gave up on it.

Regardless, realistically me piling branches there means there will be a big ugly pile of branches sitting there for weeks to months that I forget about and then get stressed out every time I remember because getting rid of them is annoying.

So while I was pruning, I was just letting branches fall and actively *not* gathering them up because lizard brain was subtly thinking about how annoying that big pile of branches would be. I was halfway done with the chore before I realized what I was doing. I *have* to gather them up or I can't mow. Lizard brain just has to deal.

Lizard brain was being perfectly logical after a fashion. Hauling them away sucks and I don't want to do it. It's a mostly pointless expenditure of energy I don't even get dopamine or whatever for.

Postby **Dragaros** » August 27th, 2021, 5:34 pm

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:31 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIz2XW8kO8U

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:31 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCR-hlvZAlQ

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:31 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btl6QG4VIwg

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:31 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Okes7Z5RDU

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:31 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gL3ubprHTk

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:32 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJK12lEVXgU

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:32 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Io2_pwNQWU

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:32 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ttBeT-shVM

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 10:32 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDr4l1DdRCU

Postby **Mazder** » August 28th, 2021, 12:23 pm

Does anyone know if there are galactic standardised time/dates for Mass Effect?
Because age is relative to the star you're orbiting and the rotational speed of the planet so...how is that calculated in Mass Effect for ages? Especially given how there are different "aging rates" between the aliens.

Postby **Ragabul** » August 28th, 2021, 6:14 pm

What were those dang news updates that used to pop up on the ME2 main menu for about a year after it came out? I seem to vaguely recall that those might have had some kind of faux galactic standard date or time on them and I think the wiki has them archived, but I can't remember what the faux news agency was called. Searching for "news" with ME2 just keeps returning actual ME2 news.

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:15 pm

Mazder wrote:Does anyone know if there are galactic standardised time/dates for Mass Effect?
Because age is relative to the star you're orbiting and the rotational speed of the planet so...how is that calculated in Mass Effect for ages? Especially given how there are different "aging rates" between the aliens.

I found this:

https://scienceofmasseffect.tumblr.com/ ... ar-revised

Does that help?

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:16 pm

Ragabul wrote:What were those dang news updates that used to pop up on the ME2 main menu for about a year after it came out? I seem to vaguely recall that those might have had some kind of faux galactic standard date or time on them and I think the wiki has them archived, but I can't remember what the faux news agency was called. Searching for "news" with ME2 just keeps returning actual ME2 news.

You mean these?

https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Cerberus_Daily_News

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:16 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbvRoX7ygEQ

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:17 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXzaFPtncso

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:17 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJXAXuNzys

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:17 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtG2tfvz0n0

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:17 pm

"Elden Ring 8-27-21 screenshots."

Postby **Dragaros** » August 28th, 2021, 6:17 pm

"Saints Row devs 'not backing down' over reboot criticisms"

Postby **Ragabul** » August 28th, 2021, 6:19 pm

Yes, those. I forgot it was Cerberus so of course they are using human dates.

Postby **Deano** » August 28th, 2021, 6:21 pm

Dragaros wrote:"Saints Row devs 'not backing down' over reboot criticisms"

They say "It's new" but it's art style is boring fortnite esque clone and the general theme looks like Watchdogs Legion which isn't exactly an inspirational game. I'm really not surprised when I see AAA game developers acting like this nowadays, they just seem so out of touch.

It's worth noting this attitude was the same as EA (a way bigger company with far more reach) for Battlefield V and that game failed, they already made Agents of Mayhem, so again not surprised.

Postby **Ragabul** » August 28th, 2021, 6:27 pm

Kinda funny: https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/ ... -economics

Apparently that fast and slow thinking analogy I used earlier might be dodgy. Or at least the concept of "priming" from the work of the dude who put that idea forward is. Still reading to find out more about it.

*Edit* I knew that social psychology was sort of on the ropes the last few years but there's seems to be two different questions going on. The first is:

Is there a pile of cognitive processes going in the brain that you don't have focused control over most of the time that effect what you do?

And

Are these moldable with a bunch of catchy gimmicks that social psychologists like?

That first one can be true no matter what the answer to the second one is. And that's the one that really matters. (And is also insufferably hard to answer as most such questions are).

Postby **Vol** » August 28th, 2021, 7:34 pm

Mazder wrote:Does anyone know if there are galactic standardised time/dates for Mass Effect?
Because age is relative to the star you're orbiting and the rotational speed of the planet so...how is that calculated in Mass Effect for ages? Especially given how there are different "aging rates" between the aliens.

For those sorts of things, I always assumed the translators handled it, since they're already parsing the meaning of spoken speech. So yes, every time/date is standardized to the person hearing it.

1) "I am 235 years old (in Thessian years)."->"I am 250 years old (translated into Earth years)."

2) "I am 235 years old in Thessian years."->"I am 235 years old in Thessian years."
"What is that in Earth years?"
"Oh, I am 235 (in Thessian years)."->"Oh, I am 250 (translated in Earth years)."

That's how I picture it working.

Ragabul wrote:Kinda funny: https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/ ... -economics

Apparently that fast and slow thinking analogy I used earlier might be dodgy. Or at least the concept of "priming" from the work of the dude who put that idea forward is. Still reading to find out more about it.

*Edit* I knew that social psychology was sort of on the ropes the last few years but there's seems to be two different questions going on. The first is:

Is there a pile of cognitive processes going in the brain that you don't have focused control over most of the time that effect what you do?

And

Are these moldable with a bunch of catchy gimmicks that social psychologists like?

That first one can be true no matter what the answer to the second one is. And that's the one that really matters. (And is also insufferably hard to answer as most such questions are).

The soft sciences really getting hoisted by their own petard. Though physics has some shit to answer for with the whole dark matter theory.

On that note, you and Theo going to be alright with the hurricane?

I forget where I read it, but it was a book by a practicing biologist of some flavor, and he made a case that a lot of modern science is hurtling into brick walls, where more and more effort is being spent to try and torture theories and conclusions from unresponsive data. Computers helped introduce massively larger data sets, the means to glean patterns, but as we can see, the practicing human element is not all that trustworthy. Don't recall the specifics, but I do remember walking away with the impression that a 15th century noble would have a better grasp on human psychology than some practicing psychologists today.

As for thinking, responding to stimuli is a pretty basic definition of life, which should extend up to highest order life. If I'm shown a bunch of words in short succession {potato, oil, fryer, salt, McDonalds, crispy, golden-brown}, I'm going to think of french fries and hash browns. If you do the same thing to a 5 year old that's never heard of french fries, the "priming" fails. To steal from CS Lewis, if you ask me what medicine looks like, I'll describe a pill. If you ask a child, she might say, "red." So yes, we can be compelled to think of specific things, which is obvious. Being compelled to act on them, however, seems reserved for the executive "self."

It's like the chestnut that advertising works on everyone, and if you think it doesn't work on you, you're the most vulnerable. That's silly. It works on making me think more often about something I would already do, so it works to the extent of ensuring I don't forget something I enjoy or might want to try, but any causal connection reads more like trying to shoulder responsibility for a lapse of willpower. Otherwise no one should ever be able to quit something that they enjoy.

Postby **Ragabul** » August 28th, 2021, 8:09 pm

Vol wrote:On that note, you and Theo going to be alright with the hurricane?

Should be fine unless something is *very* wrong with the models. Not looking good for Lafayette. It's as I said on how fast they can build up in the gulf. It was not even a tropical storm a couple of days ago. It went to hurricane last night and will likely be a cat 3 or 4 by tomorrow at landfall. And looks like New Orleans will get to test their fancy surge gates they built post Katrina again.

As a cool aside, I will often look at this interesting moving model of global winds: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/w ... ,22.66,909

Picking out the hurricanes and typhoons on it is both sobering and interesting.

more thinking stuff

I've been pretty skeptical of the deep meaningfulness of the "one easy trick" variety of this stuff for a while now. But I admit I'm intensely skeptical of the overall human capacity to not act like humans because we keep doing the same things over and over over and have done since we have records more or less. And yet we also all go around wringing out hands going "why do we keep doing dumb thing XYZ?!" A simple answer to this is that we don't have as much control over what we do as we think we do and/or what we really want is notably and consistently misaligned with the "ideal" and we keep finding clever excuses to do what we want instead.

Postby **SciFlyBoy** » August 28th, 2021, 9:12 pm

Mazder wrote:Does anyone know if there are galactic standardised time/dates for Mass Effect?
Because age is relative to the star you're orbiting and the rotational speed of the planet so...how is that calculated in Mass Effect for ages? Especially given how there are different "aging rates" between the aliens.

"Commander Shepard, age 6, became the first Human Specter today..."

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