6 ms·

> Not all writing is thinking Would love an example where you’re able to write without transferring your thoughts. Besides the obvious: fjcjfjrnjfjfifjfnrnakos

> Not all writing is thinking Would love an example where you’re able to write without transferring your thoughts. Besides the obvious: fjcjfjrnjfjfifjfnrnakosifnrbwkofgjrj

jampekka 10d ago
I did think about this while writing, and I made the compromise to accept that someone will nitpick about it to hopefully drive the point better for those willing to read it charitably. QED?
- jakelazaroff 10d ago
  What is the charitable interpretation? I am not being coy or sarcastic here; it is genuinely (forgive the claude-ism) unclear to me what your arguments are.
  - jampekka 10d ago
    With the last line I tried to condense (and oversimplify) about these ideas: Not all writing is thinking: That all, even a lot, of writing, or parts of writing, is such that it will develop one's thinking much. For example most stuff I have to write, the dozen emails a day, the funding application boilerplates, the reports are stuff that don't really need (or deserve) much thinking but they have to get written. And even in the writing that deserves attention, there is stuff like grammar and spelling and surface style that usually take quite a bit of time after the ideas have been written down already. Not all thinking is writing: for many cases writing is not a particularly efficient way to develop one's thinking, and e.g. visualizations, math, coding, discussions etc can be a lot better.
tomjen3 10d ago
When you transfer other people's thoughts. On this board, we are engaged in pursuits where the truth matters. A lot of writing is about showing that you belong to the right in-groups. That is better done by repeating their talking points than sitting down and coming up with an earnest way to show that you agree.
OroPla 10d ago
I can think of the following: (1) Translation from one language into another (2) Transcription from one medium (audio) into another (text) (3) Deception to obfuscate your thoughts (4) Posting things like "First!", "This.", "Just google it.", etc. (5) Textbook answers with no original thought.
- habinero 10d ago
  > Translation from one language into another Bad example, because translation is deeply creative. You can't blindly mill one language into another, because words and phrases and concepts and cultural references in one language frequently don't map 1:1. You have to find a way to convey meaning as closely as you can and not necessarily the words.
  - fc417fc802 10d ago
    Amusingly I absolutely abhor translations done by people who think the way you do. I want a translation that's as literal as possible and which provides the necessary commentary for me to understand any alien concepts, idioms, customs, etc. I absolutely never want "translated" cultural references. At that point the "translator" is nothing more than a shitty fan fiction author as far as I'm concerned. Of course the above requires actual work on the part of the consumer. I realize many don't want that, particularly when it comes to entertainment. So I appreciate that the other sort of "translation" exists but I think it's important to realize what exactly those are. Thankfully LLMs are more or less to the point of providing what I'm after in near real time.
    - thaumasiotes 10d ago
      But you aren't disagreeing with your parent comment. You seem to have a strong opinion that you are; that opinion is incorrect. Words refer to a broad semantic region, a phenomenon technically known as "polysemy". The range of a word in one language is always different from the range of analogous words in another language. This is a classification problem. And a translator must think about how to solve it. Imagine a Venn diagram with 20 circles that each overlap the other 19 to differing degrees. What does it mean to designate one of those circles as "the literal translation" of a foreign word?

> Not all writing is thinking Would love an example where you’re able to write without transferring your thoughts. Besides the obvious: fjcjfjrnjfjfifjfnrnakosifnrbwkofgjrj

jampekka 10d ago

I did think about this while writing, and I made the compromise to accept that someone will nitpick about it to hopefully drive the point better for those willing to read it charitably. QED?

jakelazaroff 10d ago
What is the charitable interpretation? I am not being coy or sarcastic here; it is genuinely (forgive the claude-ism) unclear to me what your arguments are.
- jampekka 10d ago
  With the last line I tried to condense (and oversimplify) about these ideas: Not all writing is thinking: That all, even a lot, of writing, or parts of writing, is such that it will develop one's thinking much. For example most stuff I have to write, the dozen emails a day, the funding application boilerplates, the reports are stuff that don't really need (or deserve) much thinking but they have to get written. And even in the writing that deserves attention, there is stuff like grammar and spelling and surface style that usually take quite a bit of time after the ideas have been written down already. Not all thinking is writing: for many cases writing is not a particularly efficient way to develop one's thinking, and e.g. visualizations, math, coding, discussions etc can be a lot better.

tomjen3 10d ago

When you transfer other people's thoughts. On this board, we are engaged in pursuits where the truth matters. A lot of writing is about showing that you belong to the right in-groups. That is better done by repeating their talking points than sitting down and coming up with an earnest way to show that you agree.

OroPla 10d ago

I can think of the following: (1) Translation from one language into another (2) Transcription from one medium (audio) into another (text) (3) Deception to obfuscate your thoughts (4) Posting things like "First!", "This.", "Just google it.", etc. (5) Textbook answers with no original thought.

habinero 10d ago
> Translation from one language into another Bad example, because translation is deeply creative. You can't blindly mill one language into another, because words and phrases and concepts and cultural references in one language frequently don't map 1:1. You have to find a way to convey meaning as closely as you can and not necessarily the words.
- fc417fc802 10d ago
  Amusingly I absolutely abhor translations done by people who think the way you do. I want a translation that's as literal as possible and which provides the necessary commentary for me to understand any alien concepts, idioms, customs, etc. I absolutely never want "translated" cultural references. At that point the "translator" is nothing more than a shitty fan fiction author as far as I'm concerned. Of course the above requires actual work on the part of the consumer. I realize many don't want that, particularly when it comes to entertainment. So I appreciate that the other sort of "translation" exists but I think it's important to realize what exactly those are. Thankfully LLMs are more or less to the point of providing what I'm after in near real time.
  - thaumasiotes 10d ago
    But you aren't disagreeing with your parent comment. You seem to have a strong opinion that you are; that opinion is incorrect. Words refer to a broad semantic region, a phenomenon technically known as "polysemy". The range of a word in one language is always different from the range of analogous words in another language. This is a classification problem. And a translator must think about how to solve it. Imagine a Venn diagram with 20 circles that each overlap the other 19 to differing degrees. What does it mean to designate one of those circles as "the literal translation" of a foreign word?