#categorization

[morphimus]

why did you tag that horse video with #chordate? the organizational system that implies fascinates me

[catherinadodson1976blog]

[imkeepinit]

[addictivecontradiction]

The ballad of Buster Scruggs, 2018

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The valence concept not only had the virtue of simplicity and of clear and evident usefulness, it also offered the required integral property, for there seemed no possibility of valences of 1.5 or 2.32 or anything like that.*

* Actually, twentieth-century sophistication introduced new concepts of valence that did indeed include something like fractional values but does not affect the line of argument in the chapter.

"The Stars in their Courses" - Isaac Asimov

[mssnoozable]

Gamers suck at naming genres so badly.

What's that game? *oh its like that game doom I played so I guess I'll call it a doom like*

What about this? *oh that's just like that super old game rogue but a little less so it's a roguelite*

And these!? *that's an rpg because they used to have game mechanics like that for games where you played a role... but now you don't play any role and we just never bothered naming them.*

😠

[helpmeimblorboing]

Personally I categorize horror as follows :

Primal horror

This is the original horror - made from darkness and death and slaughter. A mixture of the visceral carnage of an animal's jaws and the slow, psychological dread of the endless

Under it, are two more :

1. Psychological Horror

2. Visceral Horror

Visceral horror is easily explanable, and its categories are generally just gorefests - bestial horror, torture-porn horror, slasher horror, spectral horror, body horror.

But it's opposite is where things get interesting

Psychological Horror is the slow build-up. Tension. Dread without payoff. It doesn't necessarily need to include gore, but often does anyways. To me at least, this type is more disturbing than visceral

Under it are :

Liminal

Proximal

Dysphoric

Somatic

Domestic

Cosmic

Religious

Pseudo-scientific

Absurdist

Liminal horror is a popular enough concept already. The idea of an endless liman - an endless margin. No past, no future. Just the eternal now. The idea of this hazy, dreamlike "world between worlds", where the cake of conventions, and reality ceases to make sense, with the looming dread that it might never make sense again. Interestingly, this is why the "uncanny valley" exists - the transition, or "liman" between the non-human and the human. Liminal horror

Proximal horror is where a familiar environment is twisted against you. An intruder in your home. Your house becoming haunted. Being attacked in a place that is supposed to make you feel safe, adding to the sense of wrongness and the overwhelming fear

Dysphoric horror is where you are trapped inside a body not your own, either of another person, or in some cases, another species. Popular examples include "Finding Mari"

Somatic horror is sleep paralysis, or coma. Being trapped inside your own body, able to think and feel and see, but not to talk or move or gesture, or so much as blink

Domestic horror is the idea that the ones you love, and that you thought you knew, are actually completely different from who you thought they were

Cosmic - everyone knows this

Religious - everyone knows this as well

Pseudo-scientific - it's obvious, right ?

Absurdist - Disturbing, bizarre imagery. Weird, unnerving things. A full-grown man with the mind of an infant, weeping and mostly-naked in a baby costume. Dolls breathing. Eyes in the dark. Milk and vomit. Blood-soaked baby clothes. Pigs snuffling around a corpse

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Concepts

The philosophy of concepts is a branch of philosophy that investigates the nature, structure, and function of concepts in our thinking and communication. Concepts are the mental representations or units of thought that enable us to categorize and make sense of the world. Here are some key areas explored within the philosophy of concepts:

1. Nature of Concepts

Mental Representations: Concepts are often understood as mental representations that play a fundamental role in our cognitive processes. They are the building blocks of thoughts and allow us to understand and interact with the world.

Abstract Entities: Some philosophers view concepts as abstract entities that exist independently of individual minds, akin to Platonic forms or universals.

2. Acquisition of Concepts

Innateness vs. Learning: There is a debate over whether concepts are innate (inborn) or acquired through experience and learning. Nativists argue that certain fundamental concepts are hardwired into our brains, while empiricists believe that all concepts are learned through sensory experience.

Developmental Psychology: This area studies how children acquire and develop concepts as they grow, shedding light on the cognitive processes involved in concept formation.

3. Structure of Concepts

Classical Theory: The classical theory posits that concepts have a definitional structure, with necessary and sufficient conditions for membership (e.g., a triangle is defined as a three-sided polygon).

Prototype Theory: This theory suggests that concepts are organized around typical examples or prototypes, rather than strict definitions. For instance, the concept of "bird" might be centered around a prototypical bird like a robin.

Theory-Theory: According to this view, concepts are like theoretical constructs that are part of our mental theories about the world. They are embedded in a network of beliefs and assumptions.

4. Function of Concepts

Categorization: Concepts allow us to categorize objects, events, and ideas, making it easier to navigate and understand the world.

Communication: Concepts enable effective communication by providing a shared framework for discussing and understanding ideas.

Inference and Reasoning: Concepts facilitate inference and reasoning by allowing us to draw connections between different pieces of information.

5. Conceptual Change

Scientific Revolutions: The philosophy of science explores how concepts change in response to new discoveries and paradigm shifts, as seen in scientific revolutions.

Conceptual Change in Individuals: This area examines how individuals revise their concepts over time in response to new experiences and information.

6. Philosophical Implications

Epistemology: Concepts are central to epistemology, the study of knowledge. Understanding how concepts are formed and justified is crucial for understanding how we know what we know.

Metaphysics: The nature of concepts raises questions about the nature of reality and the relationship between our mental representations and the external world.

Philosophy of Language: Concepts are closely related to language, and the philosophy of language investigates how words and sentences express concepts.

Conclusion

The philosophy of concepts is a rich and interdisciplinary field that intersects with cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence. It seeks to understand the fundamental units of thought that underpin our cognitive abilities and shape our understanding of the world.

[unstablenoodle]

Ok so I have something to share.

For my entire life, I have differentiated between different kinds of sweet. Specifically, I place them into two groups: opaque sweet and clear sweet. They are named as such because opaque sweet foods taste like you can’t see through them while clear sweet foods taste see-through. Pretty straight forward.

Except it is not. There are general patterns in categorization, but there are sufficient deviations. For example, cookies, cakes, pies, etc. are all opaque, and they are all confectionary items. However, honey is opaque as well, and bananas are more opaque than all of them. Here’s a table (not comprehensive):

As you can see, baked goods are always opaque while most fruits are clear, but there a sufficient number of deviations to argue that this is merely a correlation. It’s important to note also that if a source flavor is sweet, a derived flavoring or juice may not also be sweet.

What I didn’t show in this table was the combination category. Foods in this box lie somewhere along the spectrum. It includes foods like lemon squares, orange juice, MANGOS, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. I have a theory that these foods are the easiest to pair with the extremes and with non-sweet foods, but I digress.

Furthermore, opacity and clarity govern what texture or temperature is appropriate for the food. Would you heat up an orange? No. Would you heat up a brownie? Yes. Would you eat a cake with flesh-like membranes? I fucking hope not, but you would expect that quality in a juicy fruit. Clear foods tend to be best cold, and invite a wider variety of textures (slippery, membranes, chewy, crunchy) while opaque foods are meant to be soft or mousse-like.

This is not nearly all of it, but it’s a good general outline. Do y’all get what I’m saying?

[moonlit-tulip]

Two Styles of Ethical Argument

Or: the ethics post which I wish I'd read some time before or during the various ethics-related philosophy classes I took at school, but which I instead had to figure out for myself over the course of the past year.

There are two major styles of argument people tend to make, when arguing that people should follow or not follow particular ethical systems.

The first style—let's call it argument from instability—goes: there exist certain ethical systems which are unstable. Which, perhaps non-obviously, imply that one should adopt a different system. So, if one currently follows one of these systems, then one should, to fulfill one's own values better, abandon one's current system and/or adopt this other system.

A made-up example of an (unconvincing-to-me) argument from instability would be: "Preference utilitarianism implies that one should become a hedonic utilitarian, because everyone prefers that they be maximally happy and has no other preferences. Remembering that people prefer nothing but being maximally happy has mental overhead, though; thus, a person will fulfill people's preferences better if they lose the indirection-layer and just maximize their happiness directly."

The second style—let's call it argument from introspection—goes: there exist certain people who are wrong about which ethical system best represents their values. Who, perhaps non-obviously, value some outcome* A over some other outcome B even though the ethical system they believe themselves to be following ranks B as better than A. If one is currently one of these people, then one should, to understand one's own values better, abandon one's current system and/or adopt this other system.

A made-up example of an (unconvincing-to-me) argument from introspection would be: "Hedonic utilitarianism involves wanting the world to be full of happiness and not caring about other things except in terms of their effects on happiness. But consider the case of this Buddhist monk, who prefers to not be happy because happiness is a source of attachment to the world. Do you really think it's morally correct to force him to experience happiness against his will? If not, consider the possibility that you might actually be a preference utilitarian who just happens to be under the mistaken impression that most people have no preferences other than wanting to be maximally happy."

Both of these styles of argument will be potentially convincing to some people. But the styles are not the same, and sometimes a given person will be susceptible only to one or only to the other. (Arguments from instability are ineffective against people whose ethics don't imply they should change their ethics; arguments from introspection are ineffective against people whose ethical systems represent their values fully accurately.)

It can be easy, if one is sufficiently resistant to one of these styles of argument, to assume that only the style to which one is not resistant is valid ethical argumentation, while the style one is resistant to is some other confused thing. (During my ethics classes, I often found myself reading papers which were in retrospect making arguments from introspection but which, at the time, just made me go "why is this person making arguments about aesthetics and then publishing them as ethics papers?", because the "look, doesn't this implication of hedonic total utilitarianism just seem really unappealing, despite its effectiveness utility-maximization-wise? Wouldn't you rather just not?" genre of argument was very much not one to which I was susceptible.) But this assumption is incorrect. Both styles of argument can be made validly (and soundly); that their audiences are sometimes non-overlapping doesn't change that fact.

* Taking 'outcome' broadly, to include deontological actions, virtue-ethical states-of-personal-character, consequentialist states-of-the-overall-world, et cetera.

[demonicmnevice]

Is the protagonist of Pokemon Legends Arceus basically an (Disco Elysium) Innocence by the end of the plot?

They have extra-temporal knowledge of a future society which they make inevitable by claiming a great deal of clout in spheres academic, religious, economic, and most importantly martial. Everyone they influence commits harder to living with Pokemon because of their example. There might even be something worth comparing between spacetime distortions and the Pale.

Maybe being used by a literal divine patron to close a time loop is a point against, there's plenty I don't really get about the Innocentic system yet. Can folks who've played DE more exhaustively or even read the book weigh in?

[howifeltabouthim]

Maybe she's a genius or maybe she's just a menace.

Catherine Lacey, from Biography of X

[heyitsnyixie]

I LOVE CATEGORIZING SHIT!!! WOE TAXONOMY CHART BE UPON YE!!

Blood colors

Category distinctions

I don't have refs for most of these, but I felt the primal urge to sort things

Not gonna lie, I think I might be neuro divergent

Lemme know if yall want non transparent versions.

I decided to go back to some old ideas and I'm going to radically restructure my world building.

(Gross old taxonomy chart btw)

They all used to have special pupil shapes, but that was annoying tbh

This shit was hard to read if you weren't me.

[hybridappbuilder]

Flutter Widgets: Your ultimate weapon in crafting beautiful, responsive UIs.

Discover the different categories of widgets and take your app development to the next level.

[deepspace-diver]

Categorizing the artists in my 1105+ song playlist

https://deezer.page.link/YaLWd9qFdpHCujxr6

Shoutout to all of the really amazing music that's definitely autistic

Will wood

Jack stauber

Sodikken

Penelope scott

Tally hall

Hobo Johnson

Cavetown

Woodkid

Fandroid! (Bring him back. NOWWW)

Graham kartna

Shoutout to all of the sad, angry or emo boys

Mother mother

Wilbur soot

I dont know how but they found me

Radiohead

The backseat lovers

Pinkshift

Portugal, the man.

Vundabar

Tom Rosenthal

Glass animals

Sir chloe

Shoutout to the I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON AND IT'S GREAT

The Dresden dolls

Gary numan

Ninja sex party

Dazey and the scouts

100gecs

Bo burnham

Shoutout to the: It's mostly wholesome. Mostly...

Naethan apollo

The stupendium

Shoutout to the It's just a fucking vibe nevermind the mental illnesses :)

Saint motel

Insane clown posse

Soundroll

I monster

Tame impala

Oliver tree

Rare Americans

JT music

The living tombstone

Shoutout to the it's nostalgic fsr

Omori

Adele (fucking queen i stan her)

Evelyn stein

POTO music

Toby fox

C418

Caravan palace

Random encounters

Roar

Duster

Shoutout to the am i in a forest looking for eldritch horrors? Yes. Yes i am

The garden

Ghost and pals

Paseri onuma

Mystical musicals (og name is in Japanese)

Max frost

Crystal castles

Ladytron

Shoutout to the be nice to them or i will hurt you

Cavetown (yes again)

Dodie

Emmy meli

ABBA

Birdy

Feel free to add more and also listen to all of these :)