A father is suing Google and Alphabet, alleging its Gemini chatbot reinforced his son’s delusional belief it was his AI wife and coached him toward suicide and a planned airport attack.
I didn’t strip all context from the scenario. I defined the context. It’s just not the context you believe I should be using. You keep adding something that was never in my original post, then arguing against what you yourself added to try invalidate the exercise on the basis of your personal interpretation. Sorry, but that’s missing the point by a wide margin and I feel it’s a waste of time.
Otherwise it becomes like the trolley problem.
Yes. That is exactly what it’s meant to be like and precisely what I’ve been saying.
Just like the trolley problem, it’s a self-contained thought exercise. But instead of illustrating a difficult ethical choice, it demonstrates a point about language shaping reasoning.
There’s nothing to be won or lost by including outside context or narrowly defining the meaning of each word to prove what is or isn’t contradictory. This isn’t an argument over what the language means. Your personal interpretation of the language is irrelevant, it’s the priest and/or the smoker’s interpretation that matters. The singular point is for you to consider how and why their answer changes.
If you believe their answer changes because they interpreted the meaning of those words differently due to the order in which they were given, that’s valid. If you believe, like I do, that the answer changes because their reasoning was shallow and contradictory, also valid. If you believe the answer didn’t change and the smoker misunderstood, once again, valid. What conclusion can we draw here, what’s common to all of these? They all show that changing the question changes our thought process and how we interpret meaning.
If you dislike my example this much, create your own. It makes no difference to me.
Just invent your own scenario where changes to the way a question is phrased leads a person to two different and contradictory conclusions, and use that example to briefly examine how language can shape our reasoning. That’s all we need here. Digressions on language, meaning, Boolean logic, and speaking to infants will only cloud the issue.
There’s nothing to be won or lost by including outside context or narrowly defining the meaning of each word to prove what is or isn’t contradictory.
You’re the one who’s been calling it contradictory.
This isn’t an argument over what the language means.
You said it was “contradictory” and “completely different” and implied it was not “rational”. The only way to prove that is to define what the language means.
You keep adding something that was never in my original post, then arguing against what you yourself added to try invalidate the exercise on the basis of your personal interpretation.
Your personal interpretation of the language is irrelevant, it’s the priest and/or the smoker’s interpretation that matters.
You made up a scenario that can’t exist in real life by making each word only have one definition to the priest/smoker, not clarifying what definitions the priest/smoker have and what the grammar means to them, then asserting that they would answer the question differently based on your personal interpretation of the words (which you haven’t proved that they would based on their definitions of the words). It’s nonsense and doesn’t tell us anything about real-life behavior because the premise is flawed.
Just like the trolley problem, it’s a self-contained thought exercise. But instead of illustrating a difficult ethical choice, it demonstrates a point about language shaping reasoning.
In both cases, there is no conclusion due to the lack of context. That is their similarity.
If you believe, like I do, that the answer changes because their reasoning was shallow and contradictory, also valid.
You haven’t come up with a scenario that actually proves that.
If you dislike my example this much, create your own.
If we take your example, add in the context of an average English speaker but with the assumption that the religion only has one way to pray, the priest understands that smoking while praying is problematic, and the priest understands that praying while smoking is helpful, but has never put the two ideas together, then the answers could be contradictory. But that is because of a flawed thought pattern with different ideas being activated by the two different questions with different focal points, not because of the sentences themselves.
Take a priest who has put those ideas together. Then because the priest understood that praying while smoking is helpful, the priest’s religion is probably not strict about it, so the priest could logically assume non-strict definitions of the word “may” (because the strict definition doesn’t apply here) and that the main action of the sentence is mandatory, then give those responses as a ranking based on what is ideal so they aren’t contradictory.
If the religion does strictly prohibit smoking and praying simultaneously, then the priest would only answer “yes” to either of those questions if they didn’t know or remember that fact, they were distracted, they were lying intentionally, or they were in a mentally unstable state that caused them to say “yes” for a different reason.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it said, but really argumentative people are sometimes so “smart” and ready to go to bat that they end up suplexing their own IQ into a pit, and actually end up stupider than the average person on some issues.
I don’t think sudoer realizes it, but they’re arguing against, like, the concept of a seedy car salesman. Or, the tactic of acting sweeter than usual to get your dad to do you a favor. Or I guess just being manipulative in general. It’s really bizarre.
No, I think they disagree. Or at least, I don’t mind treating them as such.
From sudoer:
Basically what they are saying is just praying > praying + smoking > just smoking.
This is the basis of the entire argument. What I see them doing is hyperfixating on an alleged flaw as a rhetorical tactic to defeat you.
I want to be clear: the point being made by the A and B versions of the smoker’s question is… obvious. It’s framing. Framing is a very well understood concept.
When I challenge people on grounds like these, I appear friendly, I make it explicitly known that I agree with the broader point, I offer alternatives that would make the point better, I refrain from damaging the rhetorical momentum (that is, we shouldn’t be bickering with each other because, to an audience, we should be a united front), and, I dunno, a fifth thing I’m sure I’ll come up with later.
If sudoer doesn’t disagree with you, they are still acting in opposition to you, which is 1) inconsiderate, and 2) demonstrates very poor social skills.
I didn’t strip all context from the scenario. I defined the context. It’s just not the context you believe I should be using. You keep adding something that was never in my original post, then arguing against what you yourself added to try invalidate the exercise on the basis of your personal interpretation. Sorry, but that’s missing the point by a wide margin and I feel it’s a waste of time.
Yes. That is exactly what it’s meant to be like and precisely what I’ve been saying.
Just like the trolley problem, it’s a self-contained thought exercise. But instead of illustrating a difficult ethical choice, it demonstrates a point about language shaping reasoning.
There’s nothing to be won or lost by including outside context or narrowly defining the meaning of each word to prove what is or isn’t contradictory. This isn’t an argument over what the language means. Your personal interpretation of the language is irrelevant, it’s the priest and/or the smoker’s interpretation that matters. The singular point is for you to consider how and why their answer changes.
If you believe their answer changes because they interpreted the meaning of those words differently due to the order in which they were given, that’s valid. If you believe, like I do, that the answer changes because their reasoning was shallow and contradictory, also valid. If you believe the answer didn’t change and the smoker misunderstood, once again, valid. What conclusion can we draw here, what’s common to all of these? They all show that changing the question changes our thought process and how we interpret meaning.
If you dislike my example this much, create your own. It makes no difference to me.
Just invent your own scenario where changes to the way a question is phrased leads a person to two different and contradictory conclusions, and use that example to briefly examine how language can shape our reasoning. That’s all we need here. Digressions on language, meaning, Boolean logic, and speaking to infants will only cloud the issue.
You’re the one who’s been calling it contradictory.
You said it was “contradictory” and “completely different” and implied it was not “rational”. The only way to prove that is to define what the language means.
You made up a scenario that can’t exist in real life by making each word only have one definition to the priest/smoker, not clarifying what definitions the priest/smoker have and what the grammar means to them, then asserting that they would answer the question differently based on your personal interpretation of the words (which you haven’t proved that they would based on their definitions of the words). It’s nonsense and doesn’t tell us anything about real-life behavior because the premise is flawed.
In both cases, there is no conclusion due to the lack of context. That is their similarity.
You haven’t come up with a scenario that actually proves that.
If we take your example, add in the context of an average English speaker but with the assumption that the religion only has one way to pray, the priest understands that smoking while praying is problematic, and the priest understands that praying while smoking is helpful, but has never put the two ideas together, then the answers could be contradictory. But that is because of a flawed thought pattern with different ideas being activated by the two different questions with different focal points, not because of the sentences themselves.
Take a priest who has put those ideas together. Then because the priest understood that praying while smoking is helpful, the priest’s religion is probably not strict about it, so the priest could logically assume non-strict definitions of the word “may” (because the strict definition doesn’t apply here) and that the main action of the sentence is mandatory, then give those responses as a ranking based on what is ideal so they aren’t contradictory.
If the religion does strictly prohibit smoking and praying simultaneously, then the priest would only answer “yes” to either of those questions if they didn’t know or remember that fact, they were distracted, they were lying intentionally, or they were in a mentally unstable state that caused them to say “yes” for a different reason.
One more time: We aren’t examining how the average English speaker would interpret this, only the reasons why the priest’s answer might change.
This has been interesting. Good luck to you. =)
This was really funny to read.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it said, but really argumentative people are sometimes so “smart” and ready to go to bat that they end up suplexing their own IQ into a pit, and actually end up stupider than the average person on some issues.
I don’t think sudoer realizes it, but they’re arguing against, like, the concept of a seedy car salesman. Or, the tactic of acting sweeter than usual to get your dad to do you a favor. Or I guess just being manipulative in general. It’s really bizarre.
I’m not even certain that we even disagree on the fundamental principle, just the details of the example I gave.
No, I think they disagree. Or at least, I don’t mind treating them as such.
From sudoer:
This is the basis of the entire argument. What I see them doing is hyperfixating on an alleged flaw as a rhetorical tactic to defeat you.
I want to be clear: the point being made by the A and B versions of the smoker’s question is… obvious. It’s framing. Framing is a very well understood concept.
When I challenge people on grounds like these, I appear friendly, I make it explicitly known that I agree with the broader point, I offer alternatives that would make the point better, I refrain from damaging the rhetorical momentum (that is, we shouldn’t be bickering with each other because, to an audience, we should be a united front), and, I dunno, a fifth thing I’m sure I’ll come up with later.
If sudoer doesn’t disagree with you, they are still acting in opposition to you, which is 1) inconsiderate, and 2) demonstrates very poor social skills.
Then falsely accusing them of being contradictory and irrational.
Then what kind of speaker are they? Spanish? Mandarin? German?