Topic: Data Mining Reveals Fundamental Pattern of Human Thinking

+Cook My Own Breakfast !!IpftyHSqdT — 6.8 years ago #53,637

This is the article:

https://medium.com/mit-technology-review/data-mining-reveals-fundamental-pattern-of-human-thinking-7fc1d5e1d8b

So, it's quite interesting, but here is a problem I have with it. And maybe this is an objection that can be easily answered, since I find it difficult to imagine that none of the researchers thought about this.

They talk about how the frequencies of words correlate to how we process them. But then they seem to suggest that we use common words more specifically because they are simpler to process. But I am thinking - wait, can't the commonality of certain words, specifically words like "the" and "and", have more to do with how language works? I mean, if you look at language as a protocol, it has its rules and with English, for instance, "the" is there frequently not because it is faster to process, but because it is simply a pointer function. Like in JavaScript, where you need to use "this".

+Nugget Syntaxroll !Uvm54ORbmo — 6.8 years ago, 9 minutes later[T] [B] #567,751

I think it works both way - you use some common words more frequently becoz of the language structure, and since you use them much more it grows on you making them simpler to process in your brain.

·Cook My Own Breakfast !!IpftyHSqdT (OP) — 6.8 years ago, 33 minutes later, 43 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #567,752

Yeah, I thought about this as well. But then isn't it more difficult to draw conclusions on causation? I would totally buy the two-way logic, but they seem to be pushing in a specific direction...

+emo ducky !MwWb.dJjRc — 6.8 years ago, 5 hours later, 5 hours after the original post[T] [B] #567,768

cant even read dat w out logging in

·Cook My Own Breakfast !!IpftyHSqdT (OP) — 6.8 years ago, 43 minutes later, 6 hours after the original post[T] [B] #567,770

Yeah, sorry, that's Medium for ya. But you can just log in with your FB if you have it or Google.

+Anonymous D — 6.8 years ago, 33 minutes later, 7 hours after the original post[T] [B] #567,774

im not sure the commonality would apply to necessary conjunctions and determiners because they are ubiquitous to the English language in the same way as modifiers and suffices in others

·Cook My Own Breakfast !!IpftyHSqdT (OP) — 6.8 years ago, 26 minutes later, 7 hours after the original post[T] [B] #567,778

@previous (D)

My point exactly!

+Dead !Pool..v42s — 6.8 years ago, 2 hours later, 10 hours after the original post[T] [B] #567,802

With the amount of digital surveillance, everything about our daily lives could be predicted... In the 90s.

+maybe quack — 6.8 years ago, 16 hours later, 1 day after the original post[T] [B] #567,856

empiric research suggests that people eating lots of ice cream causes good weather

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