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sharps
assign words a value on a spectrum of generality to specificity | |
The word wall is overall more general compared to floor ( a floor being the horizontal wall) therefore wall would have a lower sharp value than floor or even slab. Livid, being more nuanced, would have a slightly higher sharp value than angry.
A sentence can now be summed for a value. A more specific
sentence will have a higher average value. Of course, people use sentences differently so the number of words in the sentence maybe taken into the calculation.
The measure does depend on context but saying floor when pointing to carpet or lino still gives a scale of specificity of the word used compared to use in a construction or building context where wall and floor are almost comparable.
A dictionary could have a sharp value entry which sums the average word's use glob or cloud.
Now we have a sharp metric, let's evaluate, high profile, accurate say.
Unblocking and recovering the inner artist
https://en.wikipedi.../The_Artist%27s_Way [blissmiss, Nov 03 2019]
Just
https://www.google....yA5oQ4dUDCAY&uact=5 Not sure where the adverb usage actually comes from (etymologically...) [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 13 2019]
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I attended my online Friday morning group of blocked
artists
yesterday, and 3 of them have their PHd's in economic
related
studies. They got to takling about all kinds of variables,
and
ifinities and on and on. I was lost. I had to nod and pretend
like I had some notion of what they were discussing to
appear
smarter than I am. |
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This idea is having the same effect on me. I'm just sitting
here nodding while life goes right over my head. Please, my
neck is getting sore, help. |
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(And why, pretel, isn't the wall the vertical floor, I ask you?) |
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//blocked artists// What, exactly, is a blocked artist? |
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As to the idea, I can't be sure but it seems to relate to an
epistemological ontology predicated on emphatic noumena. |
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//What, exactly, is a blocked artist?// Something to do with diet, one would imagine. |
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I can see this being useful for computer learning of quite short sentences. Two or more sharp words could be too unrelated and destroy the context though. |
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What would probably happen is that any short sentences containing overally general words, or any longer sentences with some mix of sharp+sharp or sharp+general items would require that the computer ask questions until a sharper or sharpest word is provided instead. |
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There's a limit to the value of more specific words. One trades the cost of understanding immediately and precisely for the cost of remembering unusual words. Furthermore generally communication should be suited to the less intelligent people. We already use longer and more specific words when the audience is expected to be smarter or better educated in the topic at hand. One tells a child "that's not good for you", an adult "that has too much saturated fat" and a doctor "The combination of carbohydrates and saturated fat has been shown to cause atherosclerosis" |
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Or, in Sturton's case "Are you going to finish that?" |
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With a child's brain being more absorptive and plastic, there's probably a psychological sharp term, wouldn't it be more intelligent to say "That combination of carbohydrates and saturated fat has been shown to cause atherosclerosis" to the child. For population as a whole. But since your also teaching context, a lot of extra information via other means is needed. |
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[blissmiss] I consider the word 'floor' to be sharper because it has fewer uses than 'wall'. Wall seems more generic, used more widely. It's like saying a box is a crate. A specific box can be crate but not all boxes are crates. |
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Admittedly, on a space station. the walls are vertical floors but this is a specific case not a definition for all floors. The sharpest would be a new word for a vertical floor and the most generic would be the word 'there'. |
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Admittedly, If the context is perfectly known, a generic word can be very, very sharp. |
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//less uses than 'wall'// fewer uses. |
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gr: changed
//epistemological ontology predicated on emphatic noumena.// There's A sharps and B sharps. Definitely an A sharp statement. |
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I think specificity is diluted a bit when trying to make an explanation with a wide context. |
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MaxwellBuchanan, see link. |
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And I'm still not understanding this idea. So I shall continue to
say "ahhhh", and nod. What the hell. |
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[wjt], you might find it interesting to look at
ontologies, I think theyre relevant to this idea,
naming and identifying relationships between
concepts. |
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You might say that floor and wall are subsets
of planar structural element, so are lower-
level/more specific. At the top level youll have
something like all things. |
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These models can be useful for machine knowledge
systems, but also because if youre forced to
precisely define a concept, you find the edge
conditions: e.g. is a wall necessarily planar? Is a
floor necessarily structural - and that gives some
ideas for novel solutions. Could you have a non-
structural floor? It wouldnt be very useful, so
structural integrity is probably a fundamental
requirement of all floors. Could you have a non-
planar floor? Well, it could be quite weird, but not
necessarily impossible- so perhaps its a solution to
a problem: so new idea - non-planar floors. |
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How do you define a word? Written orthography only abstractly mirrors spoken utterances, and divisions between semantic units is heavily language-dependent. There is also a whole level of communication that is non-verbal. "The exterior wall of the bathroom" is sharper than "wall", but <points> is sharper still. |
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This idea and subsequent discussion is also very noun-centric. At a certain point you run up against problems of object boundaries and identities. One brick does not form a wall; two bricks neither. At what point does a linear arrangement of bricks become a wall? Does the act of walling require an actual wall, or can one wall something in with non-wall objects? The fire wall on my computer does not involve planar structural elements. |
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Sounds like you need some Education, [poc]; maybe even a bit of Thought Control, too. |
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We have a special offer on Dark Sarcasm today, if you're interested. |
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Just not in the classroom... |
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//see link// Hmm. Seems a bit woo-woo to me. What
happens when someone unlocks the door to their inner artist,
only to discover there's nobody there? |
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//new idea - non-planar floors// Old houses have them.
Buggers to tile. |
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Tree-frog to zebrafish. I win. |
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No, you're in Nidd. No parallels after a diagonal. |
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[Frankx] Pushing the meaning envelope of a word will just dilute the current meanings specificity. Look at Physicists and their word spin. Why name something to confuse a concept?. A word conveys information dependent of it's meaning the more pointy that information is, the more specific. A new concept should have a new word. |
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/At what point does a linear arrangement of bricks become a wall//
On completion payment else it's a job, or work.There's probably no specific word for a partially constructed brick wall. |
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[pocmloc] Context is important because of multiple meaning such as 'fire wall'. Each separate sharp value will be down graded when it is not the main use meaning of the word meaning. In the computing context, fire isn't a fire. Everything has a level of specificity even pointing. Even words that construct grammar can be grouped and rated against each other, even if some have the same value. |
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[blissmiss] Sorry I can't explain this word valuing system very well. Don't worry, this idea might just not be for you.All good. Probably, the true target for the thought might not even be on this site and be a conversation of a conversation. |
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//No, you're in Nidd.// But I have a Get Out of Nidd Free
card. |
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As to the idea, I now sort of get it. But can you, [wjt], give
an example of how it might be useful? Also, doesn't the
specificity of a word depend on context? For instance, the
word "deck" might be quite nonspecific without context (a
ship's deck; a deck of cards; a deck of records), but if I'm
talking about ship-building it becomes more specific. And if
I'm talking about (say) the area where cars park on a
particular ferry, then "deck" becomes more specific still,
especially if I say "THE deck". |
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Likewise, "alchohol" might be quite broad ("they don't serve
alcohol" - any alcoholic drink); somewhat broad ("a
hydrcarbon with a primary OH group is an alcohol") or very
specific ("this wine's alcohol content is 14%" - i.e. it means
ethanol). |
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In English, multiple short words are strung together to create this context. "alcohol" => "some alcohol" =>"the alcohol" => "this alcohol". Other languages manage this kind of variety through inflection, case endings, mutation, eclipsis, etc. |
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As I said above, how do you define a word? |
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// There's probably no specific word for a partially constructed brick wall. // |
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Not a single word, no; but definitely a phrase: "contract dispute" ... |
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Ha ha. It's called a ha ha. |
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//Likewise, "alchohol" might be quite broad//
That's the trouble with English; lots of meanings for the
same word, lots of words with the same meaning... it's a
mess, really. (I'm not multi-lingual enough to know if other
languages are any better, but I suspect some (er, most...)
are.) |
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When trying to explain or say something the context is usually fixed, except here, where clever context changes are prized. |
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[Max] A wine with 14% methanol would be very unnatural. I was thinking speeches, where sharps could cut between emotive waffle and the needed pointy say. Sharps might also help getting short accurate sentences. A thesaurus could have word sharp values for their co factored contexts. |
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Really, the idea came out of trying, long ago, to decide between two synonyms.There are two different words so must have at least two accurate uses. |
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I was directed by some speaker giving a speech on speech
yesterday, to no longer use the word "just". She said it
diminishes everything it refers to. I think I get that. |
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// so must have at least two accurate uses. // |
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No, because usage is context-sensetive. There is no absolute meaning in a human language; you only get it in proper (machine) languages, where AND, OR, XOR have very specific, tightly defined and unambiguous meanings. |
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Machine languages have to be incapable of ambiguity. |
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I don't think that would be a just decision though, to follow that advice. |
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A word can still be grey, it's just that for some contexts it is a more specific shade of grey than it's other contextual implementations. |
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//no longer use the word "just". She said it diminishes
everything it refers to.// |
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"I've just won the Nobel Prize"
"I'm just about to leave"
"It's just after 5pm"
"I've just got here"
"There's just one left"
"She's just advised me not to use the word "just" |
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"I've just won the Nobel Prize" - this is an acceptable usage,
but needs an !
"I'm just about to leave" - just -> almost
"It's just after 5pm" - just -> a bit
"I've just got here" - just -> recently
"There's just one left" - just -> only
"She's just advised me not to use the word "just" - just ->
recently
I think [pocmloc] did it better, using the completely other
definition of "just" (as in "morally correct"). |
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// "I've just won the Nobel Prize" |
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So you didn't win anything else? |
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^ Obviously not, if just means barely. |
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Just won it , rather than something more exciting like theft or fraud. |
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[ns], most of your examples replace "just" with a weaker word
or uglier phrase. "I've recently got here" could be in the last
24 hours. "I've just got here" means you've stepped out of the
car a minute ago. "It's just after 5pm" is eleganter than "it's a
bit after 5pm". |
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[MaxwellBuchanan]; yes, pretty much. Although (ironically...)
"eleganter" is, itself, inelegant... |
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"Dimished do it!"
"What?"
"Diminished fucking do it!" |
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I suggest you reach for "just" as for a scouring pad, when
something needs to be "diminished" by the removal of some
distracting accretions. |
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If you're "giving a speech" (viz., a monologue), then you can avoid
it by not allowing irrelevances to accrete in the first place.
However, this excludes dialogue, and also excludes even
monologues which try to address other points of view. |
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Therefore (perhaps unfairly) I suspect the speech expert quoted
by [bliss] of not being such a good listener. |
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You just hit the nail on the head, perty. hahahaha, that
doesn't dimenish it, it actually seems to enhance. So you are
right. Now if I could just, hahahaha, remember who said
that. |
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