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Probably not that good of an article, but it actually exists, only at Wired, so it is certain that it probably is worth reading. But only if you go in with no preconceptions.
Nobel laureate Richard Feynman once asked his Caltech students to calculate the probability that, if he walked outside the classroom, the first car in the parking lot would have a specific license plate, say 6ZNA74. Assuming every number and letter are equally likely and determined independently, the students estimated the probability to be less than 1 in 17 million. When the students finished their calculations, Feynman revealed that the correct probability was 1: He had seen this license plate on his way into class. Something extremely unlikely is not unlikely at all if it has already happened.
Bayesian probability is all well and good, until it runs up against actuality. But the point here is all about having a Beautiful Mind or π, and seeing patterns everywhere, and how if you see them in Big Data, the patterns are bigger. But no less crazy.
The Feynman trap—ransacking data for patterns without any preconceived idea of what one is looking for—is the Achilles heel of studies based on data mining. Finding something unusual or surprising after it has already occurred is neither unusual nor surprising. Patterns are sure to be found, and are likely to be misleading, absurd, or worse.
This approach to "science" can certainly lead to interesting results, as in this particular study:
A standard neuroscience experiment involves showing a volunteer in an MRI machine various images and asking questions about the images. The measurements are noisy, picking up magnetic signals from the environment and from variations in the density of fatty tissue in different parts of the brain. Sometimes they miss brain activity; sometimes they suggest activity where there is none.
A Dartmouth graduate student used an MRI machine to study the brain activity of a salmon as it was shown photographs and asked questions. The most interesting thing about the study was not that a salmon was studied, but that the salmon was dead. Yep, a dead salmon purchased at a local market was put into the MRI machine, and some patterns were discovered. There were inevitably patterns—and they were invariably meaningless.
Brings to mind (brains!) a certain Irish myth of the Salmon of Knowledge, and the parallel formation of the posthumous Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.
The problem has become endemic nowadays because powerful computers are so good at plundering Big Data. Data miners have found correlations between Twitter words or Google search queries and criminal activity, heart attacks, stock prices, election outcomes, Bitcoin prices, and soccer matches. You might think I am making these examples up. I am not.
There are even stronger correlations with purely random numbers. It is Big Data Hubris to think that data-mined correlations must be meaningful. Finding an unusual pattern in Big Data is no more convincing (or useful) than finding an unusual license plate outside Feynman's classroom.
New Myth: Big Data and the MRIed Dead Salmon of Pattern Imagination.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 14 2019, @07:46AM (4 children)
Yes, I can.
See? You can imagine it too.
Nothing random in it, that the inexorable destiny! (he says)
It's only that the Nazis are such special snowflakes (they can't help it, though, they are so predestined) they can't take it as a (white) man.
Nothing in Buddhism says you can't punch a Nazi in the face, it only asks you to do it in disregard with the fruits of your action.
E.g. falling of a rock on the Nazi's face will not count as bad Karma for the rock, 'cause the rock is dispassionate in its actions and derives no benefit from them.
(Large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 14 2019, @08:00AM (3 children)
Not sure where I am drawn on this: my fist as a rock falling on the face of a Nazi, with no passion or intent; or my fist falling upon the face of the Nazi as a Buddhist call to awaking, or a Christian act of kindness toward my errant brother. And I think that the Compassionate Buddhist Nazi Face-punch is only slightly less suspect than the Christian one? I say, when carrying water and chopping wood, one shouid just carry water and chop wood. And when one is punching Nazis in the face, one should just punch Nazis in the face, without regard to consequences or conversion. Just do it, as Nike says. Nike, by the way, is the Goddess of Victory. And some times, the only way to win is not to fight, but just to punch Nazis in the face.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 14 2019, @08:51AM (2 children)
If that Nazi didn't ask for awakening or kindness, is because his destiny didn't allows it.
Thus, the only proper way [wikipedia.org] to do it is as "right work done well". The Nike way, yes.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 14 2019, @09:14AM (1 child)
But how do we tell the Nazis destined to enlightenment by our fist, from those who are not! This an eternal question, posed most greatly by Mitchell and Webb in their sketch "Nazis [wikia.com], also on Youtube Nazi Channel, Are we the Baddies? [youtube.com] Best to take off, and nuke them from orbit, of punch the in the face.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 14 2019, @09:49AM
Why, do you make any distinction between the water you carry or the wood you chop?
You can be at pace (with yourself): the water you'll be carrying tomorrow is not the same water you carry today, 'cause it flows together with the wood and everything; so, the Nazi you'll punch tomorrow will not be the same one you punch today.
Pretty much like every man deserves a cup of wine and a cup of wine transforms a man into new one, your work will change the Nazi, but that shouldn't deter you from your predestined work nor your detachment from the passions (but not the world).
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford