Comments on: Facts and Values

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:50:52 +0000

After an earlier post in the thread, I had someone concerned that there might be confusion between Turing Award and Turing Test. A CAPTCHA is probably the best know use of an attempt to create a Turing test.

I no longer work for the company. I don’t think they replaced me with a robot, but it is true that I am building daleks in the basement, so that is probably where the confusion arises.

By: Rosa Lichtenstein

Rosa Lichtenstein — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:03:26 +0000

Ok, fair enough.

By: Walt

Walt — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:00:24 +0000

stostosto: Nobody wants to spell it out explicitly, but alex and dsquared have discovered that the chief scientist at VeriSign is a robot.

By: Rosa Lichtenstein

Rosa Lichtenstein — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:57:18 +0000

So, what was so objectionable about my post that it was rejected?

Only a guess, but your pseudonym is (or was) notorious as a tax haven, and might therefore be a likely spam word – John Q

By: stostosto

stostosto — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:52:47 +0000

Also, I haven’t got a clue about what this is all about. And that’s an observation.

By: stostosto

stostosto — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:50:44 +0000

You can value a fact, but you can’t fact a value. And that’s a proposition.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:29:31 +0000

Oh, good. I suppose that means we are free, for the moment, from confrontation with the winners of Turing tests, as opposed to Turing awards…

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:46:19 +0000

#29: I haven’t checked the IP addresses (and indeed don’t know how to and if Kieran is remotely sensible, don’t have the requisite editor privileges either), but the Phillip Hallam Baker who is chief scientist at VeriSign does comment here occasionally, and so it is quite possible that he is joking.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:30:21 +0000

“a CAPTCHA thingie”? You don’t know much about the history of computing, do you? Or maybe you do, and this is some bizarre involuted sarcasm I can’t quite grasp?

By: JoB

JoB — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:24:38 +0000

Which goes to show (call it the Law of Yodaïsm) that any statement centering on just 2 nouns will tend to be funny, or deep (the quantum state is decided by the context).

I always thought I should read Sraffa; I’ll let that self-made obligatiob stand but count myself lucky never ever to have to talk to the prick.

(one proof point for the Law of Yodaïsm: the continueing vogue of haiku’s)

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:34:47 +0000

That is the ACM Turing Award, not a ‘Turing test’

Leave it to comp sci to conflate the name of their most prestigious award with a CAPTCHA thingie.

But returning to the original discussion, while facts and values might exist in some Platonic universe, all we can deal in are assertions. And while in the Platonic universe there may be ‘factlike’ and ‘valuelike’ assertions, the assertions we have require interpretation through a lens that is clouded by factlike and valuelike biases.

Perhaps Discovery Channel or TLC could do a reality TV series on the cave.

By: Tim Wilkinson

Tim Wilkinson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:39:38 +0000

Fact is value, value fact.

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:13:05 +0000

I know of at least one Turing award winner who has been known to pronounce Wirth’s name as ‘Worthless’.

Trying to write string handling routines in Pascal was impossible.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:46:26 +0000

Facts and Values…& Truth and Objectivity: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2009/09/facts-values-truth-objectivity_22.html

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:28:55 +0000

Wittgenstein on the exploding ethics book and fact/value distinction can be found here:

http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43866