That sounds right. One of the interesting things about this is that it separates intelligence and thinking. So if we use a definition of intelligence like this: "intelligence is the ability of an agent to achieve its goals" (from https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-how-to-solve-it-by-george), then the ability of an agent to think and the ability of an agent to achieve its goals are not the same.
But I decided that Delueze-an words was way better placed to 'incorporate' or incarnate what the sciences of ecology, evolution (& mathematics of complexity) uncover in the record, in regard to the constraints of 'real-world' history, i.e. what a taphonomy as opposed to a genealogy can illustrate.
Whereas Derrida was actually repeating errors that analytics tech-tree-grind... the crunchy clunking grind of Différance being an example, like it really does fall from the sky in a phallogocentric moment, in truth, FFS.
I actually place Delueze as possibly outside both (at least in a poetic sense if not philosophical) the techtree grinding of analytics and the fan-fiction of continentals, who each repeat the one-note sambas that schools of psychology used to do (Freud, Rank, Jung) but not as one-ring to explain it all, but, one-trick ponies and atom bombs.
A friend once describe Deleuze as a metaphor-mine, and I really liked that.
Don't get me wrong, both tech-tree grinding and fan-fiction have their place.
I just think thinking of ourselves as fossils fossilising ourselves as we live living our lives, is a better understanding than the biting of our tongues trying to understand the play of differences that structure our production of vowels. Or bowels.
Well it made me an old fossil laugh.
That LLMs are just doing a Derrida is accurate. Not sure if I am doing that jig here though.
This is the first time I realized that I betray the concept of différance by pronouncing it in the French to distinguish it. I should really say it as "difference" and really lean into my (Southern) American accent every time I say either word "diffrEnce" and "diffrance." I guess ultimately, though, this would undermine the cache of using the word more generally-- to remind people that we have, in fact, read Derrida.
Have you by any chance looked at Vladimir Tasić's *Mathematics and the Roots of Postmodern Thought*? It goes over very similar ground trying to show how postmodernism and 20th-century mathematics can be understood as grappling with substantially the same issues. I've been meaning to write about it ever since I started my Substack.
I hope you write more in this vein, I'd like to see more humanities people engaging seriously with LLMs. Regardless of their economic impact or tedious debates about whether they are 'really thinking', I think they are quite interesting as objects, especially at the deepest levels of detail. If you've studied analytic philosophy the relevant computer science should be straightforward.
Supposing that AI could ever think seems a bit like supposing that life could ever come from inert matter
I think both of these ideas are going to go down together
isn't that where life did come from, according to modern science? (if you will pardon my pedantry)
That sounds right. One of the interesting things about this is that it separates intelligence and thinking. So if we use a definition of intelligence like this: "intelligence is the ability of an agent to achieve its goals" (from https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-how-to-solve-it-by-george), then the ability of an agent to think and the ability of an agent to achieve its goals are not the same.
I was thinking about all of this the other day.
But I decided that Delueze-an words was way better placed to 'incorporate' or incarnate what the sciences of ecology, evolution (& mathematics of complexity) uncover in the record, in regard to the constraints of 'real-world' history, i.e. what a taphonomy as opposed to a genealogy can illustrate.
Whereas Derrida was actually repeating errors that analytics tech-tree-grind... the crunchy clunking grind of Différance being an example, like it really does fall from the sky in a phallogocentric moment, in truth, FFS.
I actually place Delueze as possibly outside both (at least in a poetic sense if not philosophical) the techtree grinding of analytics and the fan-fiction of continentals, who each repeat the one-note sambas that schools of psychology used to do (Freud, Rank, Jung) but not as one-ring to explain it all, but, one-trick ponies and atom bombs.
A friend once describe Deleuze as a metaphor-mine, and I really liked that.
Don't get me wrong, both tech-tree grinding and fan-fiction have their place.
I just think thinking of ourselves as fossils fossilising ourselves as we live living our lives, is a better understanding than the biting of our tongues trying to understand the play of differences that structure our production of vowels. Or bowels.
Well it made me an old fossil laugh.
That LLMs are just doing a Derrida is accurate. Not sure if I am doing that jig here though.
Though I have studied some philosophy, this makes me realize I have not studied enough. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you George that is very kind - your lecture is superb
This is the first time I realized that I betray the concept of différance by pronouncing it in the French to distinguish it. I should really say it as "difference" and really lean into my (Southern) American accent every time I say either word "diffrEnce" and "diffrance." I guess ultimately, though, this would undermine the cache of using the word more generally-- to remind people that we have, in fact, read Derrida.
In my experience it is usually best to disguise the fact you have read Derrida
Have you by any chance looked at Vladimir Tasić's *Mathematics and the Roots of Postmodern Thought*? It goes over very similar ground trying to show how postmodernism and 20th-century mathematics can be understood as grappling with substantially the same issues. I've been meaning to write about it ever since I started my Substack.
I hope you write more in this vein, I'd like to see more humanities people engaging seriously with LLMs. Regardless of their economic impact or tedious debates about whether they are 'really thinking', I think they are quite interesting as objects, especially at the deepest levels of detail. If you've studied analytic philosophy the relevant computer science should be straightforward.