The Art of Asking and Answering Questions

[Phil8659]

If judgment were something difficult, it would never have evolved in humanity.
Today, as in the past couple of thousand years or so, so-called scholars have presented us with one form of obfuscated mess or other, one might say, in the history of western logic, the stupidity started with Aristotle.

So, following Plato, I show you how easy it really is. You can say the same things about the same things in every member of our Grammar Matrix, Common Grammar, Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry.


The Art of Asking and Answering Questions


https://youtu.be/YsLEYQ-_bfU

One can get the free pdf file here:
https://archive.org/details/meta-grammar

[Flannel Jesus]

If judgment were something difficult, it would never have evolved in humanity.

???

Mate, what? What does this opening sentence even mean? Creatures can't evolve to do difficult things?

[Radagast]

True, but raises some interesting questions. For example, has it evolved in creatures other than humans?

How about carnivores that engage in hunting in packs, using strategies? Where exactly they position themselves in the long grass, and when they decide to spring their trap and make their move on the herd grazing by the water hole, do these things involve judgement? If not, what do we mean by judgement?

[Walker]

True, but raises some interesting questions. For example, has it evolved in creatures other than humans?

How about carnivores that engage in hunting in packs, using strategies? Where exactly they position themselves in the long grass, and when they decide to spring their trap and make their move on the herd grazing by the water hole, do these things involve judgement? If not, what do we mean by judgement?

Judgement means, either/or. Without the burden of choice, animals follow the path of inevitability when hunting, which for them is the most efficient use of energy according to the creature’s capacities. For example, a fat-free cheetah doesn't get too many tries at food, so it lays around and conserves energy most of the time. Mamma predators wire the brains of cubs and pups in order to teach hunting. In captivity, the lioness likely teaches cubs the path to the cage door at feeding time.

I heard that pumas will also make kills but not eat them. Scientists discovered that they don’t leave the kill to rot, they leave it to distract the wolf pack, so the big cat can go chow down on another kill stashed away while the wolves are busy with their gift. Pumas do a lot of hunting for the wolves, by instinct. Puma instincts are likely shared by house cats living in civilization, let loose at night to terrorize the neighborhood creatures with its nightly tally of slaughters.

[Radagast]

Judgement means, either/or. Without the burden of choice, animals follow the path of inevitability when hunting, which for them is the most efficient use of energy according to the creature’s capacities.

So the wolves hunting in the wolf pack, for instance, will thanks to evolution inevitably follow the path which is the most efficient use of their energy? That makes sense.

So how then do they determine the most energy-efficient path to catching their prey?

If they just hang around waiting for a deer to wander into their lair, they will use very little energy, but they will also enjoy very little hunting success, because the deer can presumably smell them and it will be a long time before any wander in, so the wolves will all starve first.

If they just go tearing after the first deer they see, then they will use a lot more energy and may not be successful in catching the deer, which maybe can run even faster than them.

Hence a group strategy makes sense, with (for example) some of the wolves driving the herd of deer towards other wolves who are waiting in concealment. That uses only a moderate amount of energy but has a higher success rate.

So far, I'm with you. But determining the strategy which will use the least energy for the greatest hunting success - isn't that what we call judgement? I don't see how something that complex, which depends on an assessment of the opportunities offered by eg the wind direction and the local terrain, can be decided purely by instinct.

[Walker]

So far, I'm with you. But determining the strategy which will use the least energy for the greatest hunting success - isn't that what we call judgement? I don't see how something that complex, which depends on an assessment of the opportunities offered by eg the wind direction and the local terrain, can be decided purely by instinct.

I don't think it's that complex. Instinct can factor in prey size, number of prey, young or old, sick or healthy, upwind or downwind, distances, terrain, etc., to reach an unambiguous moment when the action begins. What works and doesn't work is learned from mamma and from trial and error, remembered and applied to similar situations not because of thought, but more like a broken field runner in American football relying on instantaneous body awareness of what's effective. A cheetah doesn't calculate in the sense of planning its energy requirement, it just instinctively rests and does only what's necessary with the cubs until it gets hungry and goes hunting, and if it misses in the hunt too many times, game over.

[Walker]

(continued)

For example, if you’ve ever played baseball, you know that when a high fly ball is hit and you’re supposed to catch it, in less than a second you know where you need to position yourself in order to catch it.

The rest of killing that hit is just getting there and making the catch if you can. You didn’t make any mental calculations to do it, but your body figured it out in less than a second by factoring in the sound of the bat, the ball speed, the angle, the height of the flight, the apex, all instinctive but probably not as accurately as an animal’s body would instinctively determine how to catch a flying insect.

[Walker]

So the wolves hunting in the wolf pack, for instance, will thanks to evolution inevitably follow the path which is the most efficient use of their energy? That makes sense.

Yes. Finding the food that the puma instinctively left for them is the most efficient use of the wolf pack's energy. They only need to trot to get to it, instead of sprinting and risking their health to a moose antler.

If wolves are not in the environment, like the housecat the puma will probably just keep making those extra kills and will probably double back now and then when hungry to see if they were eaten.

[Walker]

But Walker, my interest is pack behavior, not solitary predators …you know, can pack animals including pack mules communicate via weighing the pros and cons of possibilities before acting?

During the moment when the baseball outfielder’s body assesses the movements of what he’s hunting (the ball), he also gauges the movements of his pack, their positioning in relation to the quickly unfolding situation, and the target will quickly become the base runner after the ball, assessing in an instant because of familiar, finite parameters of the savanna where he has learned to hunt and all that really changes is movement. The team stands around individually assessing, and all of them reaching the same conclusion about what to individually do in their position when the action starts, assessing all in just a split second moment when action starts so movement energy is not wasted, like the hunting talents that get honed with teaching and practice until that cat is ready for the Bigs, like a young adult lion soon to head out into the world with other bachelors and form a pride of his own, if he’s leadership material. In the meantime he knows his position on Team Pride and even gets a role in the hunt now and then so he can see how the pros do it, how to behave when out in the weeds, and he learns how to curb those terrible hunger pains so he doesn’t start chasing a zebra out of turn and ruin the whole situation with a new reality of moving zebra stripe confusions.

[Walker]

Compared to Painting, the art of asking and answering questions can be two-dimensional pre-realism, Sgt. Friday realistic (just the facts, ma’am), or Impressionistic. Anything else is abstract expressionism or some other celebration of a reactionary style such as Fauvism.

Impressionistic art applied to Q&A is more in tune with the modern world because like a good joke it requires the input of the receiver’s known facts to understand the blurry parts, rather than relying solely on the transmitter to produce detailed renditions.

[Phil8659]

Nothing like a complete trip into the bananosphere.
The topic is the evolution of grammar systems used to process information, but somehow we are devolving into the choices a ladybug makes about the spots on her wings.

LMAO, the total inability to comprehend grammar systems. Nice going. chimps.

[Walker]

Nothing like a complete trip into the bananosphere.
The topic is the evolution of grammar systems used to process information, but somehow we are devolving into the choices a ladybug makes about the spots on her wings.

LMAO, the total inability to comprehend grammar systems. Nice going. chimps.

OP = somehow
The thread evolved towards clarity and away from arcane.