Socrates vs ChatGPT

 I suggest one read Gorgias, Plato's work about Socrates and the Sophists. For example in the introduction of Gorgias:

SOCRATES: He hardly seems to me to be answering the question. 

GORGIAS: Why don’t you question him then, if you like? 

SOCRATES: No, I won’t, not as long as you yourself may want to answer. I’d much rather ask you. It’s clear to me, especially from what he has said, that Polus has devoted himself more to what is called oratory than to discussing. 

POLUS: Why do you say that, Socrates? 

SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asks you what craft Gorgias is knowledgeable in, you sing its praises as though someone were discrediting it. But you haven’t answered what it is. 

POLUS: Didn’t I answer that it was the most admirable one? 

SOCRATES: Very much so. No one, however, asked you what Gorgias’s craft is like, but what craft it is, and what one ought to call Gorgias. So, just as when Chaerephon put his [449] earlier questions to you and you answered him in such an admirably brief way, tell us now in that way, too, what his craft is, and what we’re supposed to call Gorgias. Or rather, Gorgias, why don’t you tell us yourself what the craft you’re an expert in is, and hence what we’re supposed to call you? GORGIAS: It’s oratory, Socrates.6 SOCRATES: So we’re supposed to call you an orator? 

GORGIAS: Yes, and a good one, Socrates, if you really want to call me “what I boast myself to be,” as Homer puts it.

SOCRATES: Of course I do. 

GORGIAS: Call me that then. 

SOCRATES: Aren’t we to say that you’re capable of making others orators too? GORGIAS: That’s exactly the claim I make. Not only here, but elsewhere, too. 

SOCRATES: Well now, Gorgias, would you be willing to complete the discussion in the way we’re having it right now, that of alternately asking questions and answering them, and to put aside for another time this long style of speechmaking like the one Polus began with? Please don’t go back on your promise, but be willing to give a brief answer to what you’re asked. 

GORGIAS: There are some answers, Socrates, that must be given by way of long speeches. Even so, I’ll try to be as brief as possible. This, too, in fact, is one of my claims. There’s no one who can say the same things more briefly than I. 

SOCRATES: That’s what we need, Gorgias! Do give me a presentation of this very thing, the short style of speech, and leave the long style for some other time.

GORGIAS: Very well, I’ll do that. You’ll say you’ve never heard anyone make shorter speeches.

What do we see. Socrates asking questions of Gorgias. Not asking Gorgias to explain something external to himself alone but to expostulate on some existential issue.

Read Plato and his Socratic tales, that capability is absent in ChatGPT. All ChatGPT can do it regurgitate and sort what it has been fed. It cannot answer a Socratic dialog.

The Dangers of ChatGPT et al

 I have tried out this system a couple of times. It is a truly frightening interrogation system and records and analyzes your psyche. 

How? Simply if you pose a question, the question itself is telling. Then the answer often prompts another question yielding more insight into you way of thinking. I tried this in reverse, as one would in an intel interrogation. The result was chilling. It clearly understood my approach and reflected everything thereafter. 

Now as we ask it we also force it to learn more about the topi and about us. All too often the questioner is forced to reveal a great deal about themselves.

We now also understand that this system shares our dialogs with others allowing massive psych profiling. 

My advice, stay away!

Masks Redux

 In an article by some teacher at Columbia in the NY Times  the author attacks the initial assertions of the Cochrane Report on masks having arguable efficacy in Covid. The author notes:

The debate over masks’ effectiveness in fighting the spread of the coronavirus intensified recently when a respected scientific nonprofit said its review of studies assessing measures to impede the spread of viral illnesses found it was “uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.” Now the organization, Cochrane, says that the way it summarized the review was unclear and imprecise, and that the way some people interpreted it was wrong. “Many commentators have claimed that a recently updated Cochrane review shows that ‘masks don’t work,’ which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor in chief of the Cochrane Library, said in a statement. “The review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses,” Soares-Weiser said, adding, “Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.” She said that “this wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize,” and that Cochrane would revise the summary.

 The author concludes:

Masks are a tool, not a talisman or a magic wand. They have a role to play when used appropriately and consistently at the right times. They should not be dismissed or demonized.

 Regrettably this teacher of information policy, an area I often see as less science and more politics, misses some truly fundamental scientific issues. We have for the past three years addressed these issues. Some are:

1. We really do not know how this virus spreads. The virion is minuscule and it may be in aerosols and aerosol science is extremely complex.

2. The spike protein seems to be the means of attachment yet it mutates at a phenomenal rate. Thus from the early days of alveoli attachment to the more recent nasal attachments we still wonder how this thing infects.

3. Do masks work? I trust my Lab mask which is an inhalator and with it I can work to Level 2. Yet this virus may even find a way around that.

4. There have been no real trials. Thus conclusions are at best based upon some sort of self reporting. 

5. I spent last Monday at Weill Cornell. Masks required. I watched hundreds of patients. Loose masks, noses not covered, those blue paper masks are useless, not a single N95 etc. 

Thus based on facts the efficacy of masks is still way up in the air. It is a talisman.

NASA Image from Webb

 

Half a Cop?

 

My father was a NYC Police Officer as was his father. Sixty years total between them. Back in those days police officers had to be 6 feet tall or taller, physically well fit, and if you look at the above they did not carry nearly 100 pounds of gear, just a 38 and a night stick.

I had the opportunity to pass thorough the Times Square subway station yesterday and I saw about a dozen NYC Police Officers. Average height 5' 5" and average BMI 32+. Add the equipment and they looked like large fire hydrants. Worse yet they looked at best like "half a cop" as my sister once noticed. They waddled as they clustered in groups of 3+ while checking out their smart phones most likely on social media. 

The NYC police have truly fallen into disrepair. Take some felon, there is likely no way the half a cop could catch up wit them and worse could stop them. Perhaps that is the why the Courts and DA have become so lenient. 

I think it would help to return to more fit police officers. Also it would help if they did policing. Back in the "old days" as I learned from a mass of POs one looked at people as they passed by. What type of shoes, did the trouser match the shoes, were their eyes shifty, etc. Then is one was concerned follow up, immediately. But alas that is no longer policing, it I guess is that we are supposed to feel safe with all those blue half cops.

Extrachromosomal DNA and Cancers

 

We have just posted a Technical Report on extrachromosomal DNA, ecDNA. These are small circular DNA segments that contain proto-oncogenes that are often transcription factors enhancing malignant cells. They are just another element in what we see as cancer cells. They have been known for decades but with new techniques and instruments their impact has become more understood.

It should be noted that NCI awarded a substantial grant in this area last year to a group of the authors referred to.

Amazon An Example

 Almost a third of my packages are delayed, lost, misplaced. Here is the latest example. 

Step 1: Delay due to weather? What weather. It is sunny and in the 50s! The delay was as shown next.

 

 

Step 2: Below is the delay. From Staten Island to Newark. 

Step 3: Below shows the 12 mile path. Across the Goethals Bridge and up the NJ Turnpike. I used to do this as a kid on my bike in the mid 50s.

So what is up with Amazon. Their statement is grossly false and the problem is the shipment is misplaced again. 12 miles in 48 hours. Not a people problem but a systems problem. Really need new management in my opinion.