SecureCon, SciPy, Gaming/Blade Runner

[tcpip]

Gave my presentation at SecureCon yesterday. PDF of the slides available, notes coming soon. The medieval castle metaphor does work particularly well for network security; also caught up with catsidhe who was present. Unfortuntely have not been able to attend today, but have successfully fixed an install of NumPy and SciPy, which required some annoying modifications to the code.

This Sunday I start the アイヌ語のラットの伝説 game. Tonight playing Polaris, last night D&D 'Ralia where my wide-eyed Hobbit continues to play the idiot savant. Tomorrow expecting some more gaming goodness with imajica_lj, kremmen, hathhalla, ser_pounce all making appearances before we head to the Astor to see Blade Runner, the Final Cut.

Ahem: I'm a goose; that's next Saturday which of course I'm booked with severina_242 and _zombiemonkey. Better fix that..

Yesterday slotted in another three scenes to my online HeroQuest Glorantha game. Have also completed a review of a classic RuneQuest/Judges Guild module, Broken Tree Inn on rpg.net

I've been saying this for years: Without Words there are no concepts (from hasimir via flemco). 8 limbed girl has operation. A blunt and pithy assessment of the economic claims in the Australian election. Howard on being sorry, and keeping wages down. News just in: Howard heckled with 'scumbag' taunts.

Comments

Re: babel

[amazinggoatgirl.livejournal.com]

The study showed, quite conclusively imo, that "a people without terms for numbers doesn't develop the ability to determine exact numbers."

Ok, so they don't have words for numbers and they don't have math. Why does that mean that without words, they didn't develop the concepts? Couldn't it just be that they never had a reason or desire to talk or think about numbers?

Consciousness, as the etymology of the word indicates and as use was for hundreds of years (prior to Descarte) means 'shared knowledge'.

So then you're defining 'concept' as a unit of knowledge that more than one person knows, that can be communicated? Do you separate this from the concept of a 'thought?' If so, isn't that kind of circular?

I agree that it's easier to think about something that has a name. I don't think it's impossible to think about it without one, though. Can't you just use your own placeholder names? Like if I was thinking about something that I didn't know any name for, in my head I could just call it 'that-thing-you-were-thinking-about-last-Tuesday.'

+

[amazinggoatgirl.livejournal.com]

(We had a discussion about this study in language psych and decided that if the researcher had gone up to members of that tribe with a big bag of fruit and said, "Here, take fruit for each of your family members," and watched them divide it up to see if it would be divvied up according to some kind of serving size or at least that everyone got some and they couldn't even do that, then we would be much more convinced.)

Re: +

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

From Wikipedia:

"The Pirahã do not count with numerals. They use only approximate measures, and in tests were unable to consistently distinguish between a group of four objects and a similarly-arranged group of five objects. When asked to duplicate groups of objects, they duplicate the number correctly on average, but almost never get the number exactly in a single trial."

Re: babel

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Why does that mean that without words, they didn't develop the concepts? Couldn't it just be that they never had a reason or desire to talk or think about numbers?

Those two comments are not necessarily in contradiction, however it seems that despite many attempts to teach numbers they just don't "get it".

http://www.pnglanguages.org/americas/brasil/PUBLCNS/ANTHRO/PHGrCult.pdf


So then you're defining 'concept' as a unit of knowledge that more than one person knows, that can be communicated? Do you separate this from the concept of a 'thought?' If so, isn't that kind of circular?

"Thought" implies the cognitive capacity to model, which also requires consciousness and concepts. It is distinct to what Chalmers (1996) referred to as "Phenomenal consciousness" (P-consciousness) is simply mental experience.