[jpt4]

My reply is an attempt to address the original comment with precision. To diagram its intended meaning:

> alternative theories of consciousness

"Any body of academic thought" [I accede the scientific legitimacy of the domain of discourse, rather than dismissing it.]

> know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic.

"whose paradigmatic communication medium" [This is the beginning of my challenge to the Original Commenter, by granting the information provided authoritative status, which they perhaps cannot fully defend.]

> On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions

"is video rather than text"

> it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity.

"is prima facie suspect" [The Original Commenter has asserted that discourse and engagement are important, yet provided only time consuming, low signal-to-noise sources of information.]

> As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2]

"Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?" [The only written citations are 1) generic and 2) ancillary to the core topic. I invite the Original Commenter to further his argument more substantively, without demanding exhaustive citations.]

[dj_mc_merlin]

OK, let me rewrite it:

> Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

> Academic content is usually in text, not video. Do you have links to written work from them?

Shorter and the exact same meaning. Also doesn't sound like you've been perusing your thesaurus all day.

[jpt4]

At minimum, this does not capture that I _am_ challenging the Original Commenter ("prima facie suspect") to more rigorously defend his position, but doing so respectfully. "One salient" written source is a carefully chosen framing: the OC cannot meet it by replying with support peripheral or meta to the main argument, but neither can he dismiss my request as burdensome, demanding multiple links.

The proposed revision suffers from its terseness, losing both nuance and completeness.

[dj_mc_merlin]

Communication is about being understood. Not about crafting the perfect sentence. Even if you craft the perfect sentence, that will be the perfect sentence _for you_, and it might be completely lost on many people, some perhaps even more intelligent than you.

The subtext of "Academic content is usually in text, not video" is "I don't trust this because it's in video, not text". Now if you say that is not clear, sure, but the subtext of your comment is "I opened a thesaurus and tried to seem smart", which is why this conversation derailed here. You can't ignore the subtext to craft a mathematically perfect sentence..

[jpt4]

> Communication is about being understood.

> The subtext of "Academic content is usually in text, not video" is "I don't trust this because it's in video, not text". Now if you say that is not clear, sure

Indeed, relying on the implicit when the explicit is sufficient [0] does a disservice to one's readers, in whose ability and charity to comprehend my surface text, without presuming confounding subtextual meaning, I have every confidence.

[0] It is not always; some things can only be gestured at, not grasped.

[tomrod]

Hear hear!

[tomrod]

> Communication is about being understood.

This assertion is in error. Communication is about transmitting information. What happens to that information after the transmissions is beyond scope of communication.

Don't get me wrong -- we have communication companies and classes named "business communication" and fields of inquiry titled "communication." Yet, the common trend to each of these is wrapping the transmission of information up in additional services. Analogous to how OpenAI and Mistral wrap up LLMs that you and I and anyone can run on our own into well-defined managed services. We use the term for these companies "Generative AI" or "LLMs" when in reality they too are wrappers around a much simpler concept.

[RaftPeople]

> This assertion is in error. Communication is about transmitting information.

It seems like you might possibly be leaving out the other 50% of communication (hint: it starts with an "r" and ends with "eceiving")

[lofenfew]

"Transmission" is per se bidirectional. The individual on the other end has received it, whether they understand it or can do anything useful with it is up to them.

[dj_mc_merlin]

> This assertion is in error. Communication is about transmitting information.

Even if you're correct you've just taken my words at their absolute meaning without trying to understand what I'm saying. If all you care when communicating is transmitting information you will not find much happiness in communication.

[spoiler]

I suspect you might be arguing with either an LLM, or someone using LLM help to write their responses...

[soulofmischief]

Some notes from the editor...

I do think there is a middle ground. Look at Bukowski as a good example of effective terseness.

On one hand, you can indeed rely on the precision of a large and unequivocal vocabulary, removing all doubt as to your intentions.

On the other hand, you can also rely on context and find beauty in conveying advanced meaning within a simpler interface. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".

There is a creative art to compressing meaning. As evidenced by the response to your first post, things can actually get lost in translation once you stray from the common vernacular in an attempt at precision. The more you can say with less, the more effective each word becomes.

With practice, you can communicate quite profound thoughts in a form that even the most uneducated among us can understand. Know Your Audience. We may be on Hacker News, but we are also on the Web. People encounter and digest a massive amount of text every day. Making them work a little less in order to understand you can be beneficial for everyone.

[mewpmewp2]

To quote the classic:

"Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick"

[lofenfew]

"If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter"

[tomrod]

No, the second approach's meaning is more obtuse. What does "usually" mean? Are there acceptable alternatives? If content is in an alternative mode of communication, is it acceptable?

These vagaries permitted in your revision are clear and inherent in the original commenter's motion. Therefore, I submit your adjudication of "shorter and the exact same meaning" is woefully superficial in it's drive for simplicity, to the point there is no thought left that is clear in the original garden. Further, exact and technical communication is what separates Hacker News commenting from the hordes of subreddits that thrive on imprecise babble.

[mewpmewp2]

Ah, indeed, for nothing epitomizes 'avant-garde scholarly dialogue' quite like a prolix disquisition elucidating the inherent inferiority of audiovisual mediums. Forthcoming: an erudite treatise on the unparalleled intellectual profundity of semaphore communication!

[tomrod]

Stupendous and eloquent amendment to today's compendium of literary appreciation.

[verisimi]

But you're using the word 'perusing'....!! Who's swallowed the dictionary now, huh?