Taken to the extreme, succinctness may not lead to clarity.
It can lead to a paradox instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox
In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox or liar's paradox (pseudomenon in Ancient Greek) is the statement "this sentence is false." Trying to assign to this statement a classical binary truth value leads to a contradiction (see paradox).
If "this sentence is false" is true, then the sentence is false, which is a contradiction. Conversely, if "this sentence is false" is false, then the sentence is true, which is also a contradiction.
The statement "this sentence is false" is succinct, but is it clear?
It is succinct but it is neither clear nor precise because it is self-referential.
That is the problem of the liar's paradox:
The problem of the liar paradox is that it seems to show that common beliefs about truth and falsity actually lead to a contradiction. Sentences can be constructed that cannot consistently be assigned a truth value even though they are completely in accord with grammar and semantic rules.
Applications:
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two fundamental theorems of mathematical logic which state inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems for mathematics. The theorems were proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, and are important in the philosophy of mathematics. Roughly speaking, in proving the first incompleteness theorem, Gödel used a modified version of the liar paradox, replacing "this sentence is false" with "this sentence is not provable", called the "Gödel sentence G". Thus for a theory "T", "G" is true, but not provable in "T". The analysis of the truth and provability of "G" is a formalized version of the analysis of the truth of the liar sentence.
Thus, the foundation of mathematics and mathematical logic is nebulous and unclear. :cheese:
It seems quite clear, at least to me, that statements of any length can be unclear or can lead to paradoxes. In other words, the correlation doesn’t appear to exist.
Occam
By the way, Tim, topics tend to drift off course when they aren’t interesting to enough people. If you want this thread to get back on your title subject, you may want to write a post on your thought about it.
Occam
It seems quite clear, at least to me, that statements of any length can be unclear or can lead to paradoxes.
They can be, but it is not necessarily so.
It depends on what is the nature, content and structure of the statement, the context and the intention of that particular statement.
Examples:
1. The famous statement by Julius Caesar: "I came, I saw, I conquered" is succinct, clear and not paradoxical.
2. The statement "this object is round" is succinct, clear and unambiguous in meaning (shaped like a circle, cylinder or sphere) and not paradoxical. The object is not ovoid, triangular or squarish etc.
OTOH, if it is so, then your signature "Succinctness, clarity’s core" is no criterion to clarity at all i.e. it is trivial and unreliable wrt clarity. :)
In other words, the correlation doesn't appear to exist.
Of course not, if correlation is http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/correlation
:the relationship between things that happen or change together
Consequently, with no correlation and dependence between succinctness and "statements of any length can be unclear or can lead to paradoxes" we can also say the same wrt succinctness and clarity, without contradiction.
In other words, succinctness does not entail clarity as it could lead to........ :lol:
Actually, we are still on track (despite this digression) because if BAM! can and do emulate the human mind/brain in reality, it should be able to reason, reflect, discuss, debate, digress and argue from “all points of the compass” as humans do, after millions of years of natural evolution and development of their mind/brains for survival, for better or for worse.
BAM! implies that some humans now believe that (with sufficient scientific/technological knowledge/know how) it is possible and doable to emulate and elucidate how the human mind/brain functions, in totality. The issue of consciousness and the human mind/brain is not addressed at all or probably, it is considered as inconsequential. It is strong AI and all that it entails.
Consequently, there are two POV:
It is real and essential progress and promoted as the next wave whereby humans and their inventions/machines will merge to determine and control their evolution to the next level on the earth and beyond, whatever it may be. We, as mere humans, should accept this vision of our future as inevitable and cooperate to realize our destiny, without doubt or obstruction. Charming?
It is not necessarily progress, more likely it is naive human hubris, science fiction and the delusions of some naive “enlightened technocrats” but because it is precisely that, it could be dangerous and regressive suicide for countless humans who are helpless, misinformed, clueless and therefore have no influence in determining their own future against such forces.
The rationale for 2:
To accept 1 above is to diminish our humanity as it implies BAM! (with it’s false assumption of the sole role of neurons in the functioning human brain) and the spin offs of such research to future “intelligent” human inventions/machines is the only path to the future and that these human creations can supersede nature.
It implies that humans are obsolete and replaceable by their “superior creations” sooner or later.
It is reminiscent of the Borg’s motto “resistance if futile” and the destiny or future that it entails.
Fundamentally, it has all the hallmarks of a dogmatic scientific/technological religion, without a deity.
The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action.
