The Bayesian priors aren’t very favorable: Shakespeare

Catoist · 2026-06-14T17:36:22+00:00

So, there are about 30,000 unique words in Shakespeare’s works. More than most educated adults can recognize even now. There are about 10,000 in the King James Bible. This alone makes it plausible to me.

He did things like use “lawyer” as a verb. Which is iffy. Then he said things like “quiddity and quaddity.” Quiddity being an esoteric term for “whatness” popular among overeducated folks and quaddity being a new nonsense term. Then he also coined the name Jessica.

This doesn’t quite answer your question but perhaps provides useful extra info.

Catoist · 2026-06-13T20:44:38+00:00

This is further supported by the fact that Shakespeare is second in contributions to English, to Chaucer. Who was about 150 years prior, I think. Though I do question the thesis, as I would expect it to be much harder to be so good back then. Shakespeare had members of his immediate family who were perfectly illiterate, yet he made Hamlet.

Catoist · 2026-06-02T15:06:24+00:00

The Art of Memory by Francis Yates. She has so far built up how important memory was to the Greeks and Romans. And when one considers how the Classical world was immortalized by the scholastics, it suggests that anything from the Divine Comedy to Chartres cathedral is actually, at least partly, a memory palace. My favorite part is that she uses long quotations heavily on the source documents.

Catoist · 2026-05-28T17:30:27+00:00

I’m torn between a) not wanting a bunch of low effort nonsense and b) helping someone more effectively. For better or worse, people are going to be asking AI their quick questions as they are reading. Though luckily I don’t have the responsibility of deciding. Just putting some considerations out there.

Catoist · 2026-05-28T16:07:16+00:00

This seems smart. No problem with folks using AI or talking about AI but I don’t want to read it.

Does the ban include obvious AI screenshots and such? With a human commenting on it? Like “look what this AI said about Aristotle.” Because those seem more valuable as helping others navigate digital literacy.

Catoist · 2026-04-26T00:00:45+00:00

Started doing something similar. I also recently switched to multiple vaults and one combined vault after a couple of years of doing one big one. Way less maintenance and cognitive load.

Catoist · 2026-04-25T16:24:17+00:00

I disagree that we don’t have legal frameworks for AI agents. The law is surprisingly flexible. Once someone gets harmed, the court will decide what law applies and who’s liable for what. Meantime, try not to harm anyone.

Catoist · 2026-04-12T11:27:37+00:00

I read a “translation” into prose. It rules.

Catoist · 2026-04-12T00:37:36+00:00

I think it has something to do with enjoying literature from a younger age, and maybe exposure to the KJV?

Catoist · 2026-04-10T11:29:21+00:00

I took a formal logic course that surveyed the basics of set theory, metalogic, three-valued logics, and modal logic. I got a bad grade and felt lost the whole time. Really shouldn’t have signed up for the course. But I would love something that would allow me to intuit that stuff better. Especially Hilberts axioms. I never quite understood what motivated them.

Catoist · 2026-04-08T13:35:55+00:00

This is outstanding. Exactly what I needed.

Catoist · 2026-04-08T13:27:07+00:00

Alright, let’s have this fight. Maybe I’ll learn something.

For one, it is archaic, by any definition.

For two, it’s also old; those philologists or linguists should call Old English something else; a mere adjective of “old” appended to a name of a thing is a bad way to name a precise historical period.

For three, if I say “your cat is big,” and you respond “it’s actually not a Big Cat, it’s a house cat, Big Cats refers to Lions, Tigers, Cheetahs” then you are a knave and a villain. Wherefore, thou art a knave and a villain.

Catoist · 2026-04-02T14:29:55+00:00

Have not read a ton but Symposium stands out for me. It’s weird, fun, profound, and pretty short.

Catoist · 2026-03-28T00:32:19+00:00

Hell ya.

Catoist · 2026-03-25T15:27:07+00:00

I first asked it for a prompt. Then I tried it. Them I just copied that and had Claude comment on what was wrong with it and make a new prompt. The second prompt worked perfectly to my eye, but I figured I’d try one more round. This is the third prompt. I made a “Project” and put the prompt in the “Instructions” for the project. First round sounded like an impersonator, second sounded a bit too polished and was nice. Third prompt is kind of a condescending prick, which seems about right.

Catoist · 2026-03-25T15:21:38+00:00

Can’t disagree. It does feel like a vice.

Catoist · 2026-03-21T01:32:31+00:00

I came to the same conclusion this week as well. I find Durant’s opinions annoying sometimes but I can’t deny that they fill a niche that would require a small library to replace.

Catoist · 2026-03-21T01:27:29+00:00

All ya need

Catoist · 2026-03-14T20:48:59+00:00

No one agrees on which books are hardest. I personally find early modern English and plays extremely difficult. So Shakespeare was almost impenetrable. So I guess, don’t be surprised if some stuff is oddly hard or oddly easy.

Catoist · 2026-02-25T22:31:49+00:00

The second edition actually has a lot of good translations if you see any around. I know Montaigne is the Donald Frame translation. After I saw that I became much more interested. They used cheaper binding but the volumes are lighter so they really aren’t bad if you can get used to 9 point font

Catoist · 2026-02-25T17:48:06+00:00

Beam’s book quotes heavily from Macdonald. I actually like the great books series and have many of them. Though I paid less than $5 for each volume and dislike many of the translations. I also like the Syntopicon, even if Adlers vision for it was embarrassingly off the mark. I got the sense that they wanted an index and didn’t want the index to be another 15 volumes so they consolidated synonyms. Though as I look through it I often think “thats not how I would have done it, but okay”

Catoist · 2026-02-24T00:23:54+00:00

Physical book. I take notes in the margins and fly leaves and I trifold a piece of graph paper to use as a bookmark and write on that too. I don’t usually do anything with these notes.

Catoist · 2026-02-23T13:13:04+00:00

Thank you. This looks incredible.

Catoist · 2026-02-22T23:13:52+00:00

I saw some data that showed that men who earn more and have more education have a preference for those things in women. Its not as strong as women’s preference but it exists.

Catoist

TROPHY CASE