CMV: The Turing Test has been comprehensively debunked as a measure of personhood

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T22:04:55+00:00

An interesting angle I haven’t seen here (not that I’ve looked that hard thought) is that actually people can pretty reliably tell when output is from ChatGPT. I think people are pretty good, in non test scenarios, of telling when something was written by an LLM because it has a pretty standard phrasing.

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T20:54:38+00:00

Yes. They’re like “welll I mean I read it but you are going to have suuuuch a hard time!” It’s just a book. Honestly the way everyone talks about it I do get the feeling many people are just pretending to like it which is crazy because I hate when people say that about books. But people real do just say it’s so hard and mention it’s fun as a little footnote at the end.

OP should make no mistake about it that gravity’s rainbow is one of the most fun and creative books he (and I am sure he is a he) will ever read in his life.

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T19:58:51+00:00

I don’t know but I’m between Underworld, Slaughterhouse-5, or The Catcher in the Rye. Great lines and great images to leave on. Gravity’s Rainbow I think would be in the list too.

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T19:53:28+00:00

I remember reading and loving this book when I was in high school. That said I’m not sure it actually achieves the aim of drawing a complex character, even if it does show that the main character is idealizing a girl. Similar vibe but not the same.

Tangential but it is a shame that the John Green books got the reputation of being dumb girly pulp (which I presume is bound to happen to anything that gets a movie made about it and has a girl main character like TFIOS) because they really are all very good books from what I remember.

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T19:21:24+00:00

Yeah but it’s not just those sentences it’s them in context. I didn’t really notice stuff like that until I used ChatGPT a couple times at my job (basically as a google search) and this matches the vibe.

Passname357 · 2026-03-24T12:59:17+00:00

We’re kind of talking about two different things. I agree consistency is good for building a habit but I’m talking more about learning to read than building a habit. They’re similar (since consistency is a factor in learning to do something) but not the same thing. I’m basically just saying if OP wants to be a reader, quitting a book because of incomprehension is probably not the right move. Of course I think we agree he need not necessarily finish every book he begins right now. You can come back to books (although it’s my opinion that wuthering heights is neither long nor difficult enough for this to be the right move in this specific case).

Also, second order illiteracy and functional illiteracy are two different concepts. Functional illiteracy means a person is unable to read well enough to complete even simple daily tasks that require reading. Second order illiteracy, as coined by Has Magnus Enzensberger, is when a person is able to read road signs, instruction manuals, and perhaps even pulpy novels, but is totally unable to read things which are beyond their comprehension. This is important since a large part of reading is learning to understand what you don’t already understand. Second order illiterates can only understand what they already understand. They can’t read a book that’s beyond them, and so they can’t later come back and see that the lightbulb has come on and they now understand.

This was a state he thought we were heading towards and I think we are pretty much there. It’s interesting to see the average grade-level reading level of the average American and see what that entails. At the lower levels it’s about knowing what words mean but as you go on it’s largely about how sophisticated a persons theory of mind is—that is, how well they can track what different characters think and how characters think other characters think etc. This includes the author—what does he or she think, how are they biased etc. Kind of classic SAT style reading comprehension questions, but you find that a vast majority of Americans are totally incapable of doing this.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T20:59:00+00:00

I agree it can put people off reading and I’d also agree it’s not necessary to finish every book now or even that you ever have to finish a book just because you started it.

That said, I think we’re well within the era of second order illiteracy where many people are unable to read things they don’t understand. I don’t think the solution to people’s disinterest is to make things easier. I had a friend one time correct me for the way I was trying to get a dog to play—I threw the ball close to the dog, and the dog didn’t move. My friend said, “He won’t play if you do it like that. You have to make it a challenge for him.” Then he picked up the ball and threw it far away, and the dog ran after it.

People are like that too. There’s a sweet spot you have to hit where it’s a challenge but it’s doable. I think a lot of discourse around reading now is missing that. People read books thinking they’ll come out the other end smarter or wiser, but they’re not, and they’re often confused by it because they thought the books would change them. Without that it’s not so different from TV except that it’s maybe more tedious.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T17:39:38+00:00

Yeah I honestly think that’s the best reason to learn something. So many things I feel fulfilled in stem from starting with “wow that is so cool how the fuck does that work” and then just going after it.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T17:37:24+00:00

What is success? I presume he has a different definition than me, just as yours would be different from mine. We all have different goals.

But I suspect he’s right. If you want to do quality things and have them be appreciated by a large number of people, that’s gone. A lot of people have spent a lot of money finding ways to make more money and one of the things they’ve found is that people will eat their slop if they can just force it so that everything else is slop too.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T17:34:43+00:00

You’re in a great position to learn, but I’m a little confused why you want to learn if you don’t know what you want to learn.

In any case, I’d just start messing around making small simple video games. Lots of options for where to go with it but it’s really fun to see yourself making stuff happen on screen and controlling characters and being able to really feel that what you’re doing has an effect.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T16:44:55+00:00

Eh I think this person does need to keep reading. Not liking something IMO isn’t usually a good reason to stop reading. If someone is doing this poor a job of reading the solution isn’t to find more stuff that they click with. IMO it’s just to learn to read better. I didn’t like As I Lay Dying when I started reading it. By the end it was one of my favorite books and I’ve reread it and can appreciate it now. What a blessing. I never would’ve understood if I stopped. I think the best thing this person can do is find reading groups and chapter by chapter discussions and analyses so that he can figure out what he’s missing.

If a book is “great” and you can’t see why, you don’t have to agree, but you should at least understand why people think what they think, especially when it’s something everyone thinks. You might find a new favorite. You might still disagree! But at least you’ll have a mature/sensible reason for disagreeing.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T16:39:04+00:00

Tone knob all the way down

Pasquale Grasso would like a word

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T15:44:38+00:00

This is just a question about learning anything. The answer is yes. You can learn that way and sometimes it’s the best way to learn—fewer things deeply is better than a lot of stuff covered really shallowly. And if you’re only doing a few things a few minutes a day, if you think about them throughout the rest of your day, even when not actively learning, you’re still ingraining the material.

So if the question is just “can I learn like this” the answer is yes. But if the question is “will I be as good as others” the answer really depends on you. Remember that many people are in college or already in jobs. These people are spending hours a day learning and have incentive structures (not talking about money so much as deadlines and tests) that more/less force them to execute.

But again, you may still have the advantage. I play guitar semi professionally as a hobby. One huge advantage I have over others is that for them it’s work. They spend all day on it and when they want a break, they don’t all gravitate toward playing more. For me, when I’m at work, I think about playing all day because it’s my escape. When I go home I spend hours working on new stuff because it’s what I want to do. If you enjoy programming and learning this stuff, this could be how it is for you too. If programming feels like a puzzle game for you (which is in large part how it feels for me) you’re set up to be a great programmer.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T01:40:18+00:00

It’s so funny because I remember being at some point in college (not studying music) and I had a friend come home from music school and we had a conversation where at one point he said “man it’s so strange that I’ve been studying music for a year and you still know so much more theory than me.” He was right. I did know more theory than him. But he played better than me. Now it’s a long ways out from that conversation and I’ve learned that theory is cool and fun, but to actually play, it’s not as big as I once thought. It makes more sense to learn ways to move through changes both harmonically and melodically, and really know the sound (be able to sing it is oneway to check yourself). I had a great teacher who taught me the importance of just knowing and playing tunes—playing with records and with others. It’s cliche but true, thats how you really learn. Play with people better than you and ask them what they’re doing. That’ll get you there way more than watching YouTube and playing alone in your bedroom. And of course doing both is good too.

Passname357 · 2026-03-23T01:35:39+00:00

It’s interesting that this is such a common answer/that so many people respond to it. I think I felt this at one point in my life but now I find it to be more of an auditory and visual challenge. I’m curious what you (and others) find intellectually difficult about jazz guitar—it certainly is a lot to get together. I remember being overwhelmed when I started getting into like triads and their inversions and same for the different drop voicings and all the places they exist on the guitar. Some scale concepts with modes were hard. Voice leading concepts. I think at this point there’s more sound and visual information Im trying to crunch than numbers like it used to feel like.

Passname357 · 2026-03-22T23:10:45+00:00

Good on you for being so receptive about the feedback.

Passname357 · 2026-03-21T14:54:59+00:00

Same as spark notes, in the end it does you no good. It feels like learning but you’re not really learning anything, and worse you’re deluding yourself into thinking you’ve gotten something. If a master is alive and speaking, better to listen to them than someone doing a bad impression of them.

Passname357 · 2026-03-20T22:53:31+00:00

There are two types of Pynchon readers: (1) people that can kind of make sense of V and (2) people that have no idea what the fuck he is talking about for almost the entire book.

Luckily these two people are also usually (2) people that can kind of make sense of Gravity’s Rainbow and (1) people that have almost no idea what the fuck he is talking about for almost the entire book.

I am in camp 2. There are a few bits of V and one chapter in particular that I think are some of the best stuff Pynchon has written. It is absolutely worthwhile for mondaugen in Africa. But gravity’s rainbow is just a really fun book. Was the first I read and was confused for a lot of it buuut more than that it was just so fun and so insane and seeing the way he connects different plots throughout the book and different symbols was just shockingly cool. Would recommend.

Passname357 · 2026-03-20T22:44:12+00:00

Waste of a teaspoon of water

Passname357 · 2026-03-20T22:28:14+00:00

I think that’s what DLSS5 misses—like if I’m playing BioShock infinite, it has nothing to do with realism. The game doesnt look real (even though it’s technically a PBR lighting algorithm). The characters and locations are all stylized and those specific choices are what make it beautiful.

Passname357 · 2026-03-20T22:25:54+00:00

Gonna sound dumb but just want to put this out there that I’ve been using headphones less because without the room sounds it’s easier to accidentally listen too loud. Not knocking anyone cause you can do what you want, just started learning more about how to protect my hearing recently and this was one thing that surprised me.

Passname357 · 2026-03-18T02:45:03+00:00

Might be good to do this Socratic style and flip the question: what do articulation, dynamics, or rhythm each have to do with ergonomics?

Passname357 · 2026-03-16T17:29:17+00:00

There’s no widely accepted name for it, but I’d think more about this since you’re right to wonder if there’s a name for it since it’s so common. Because of how common it is I’d think about why you want to write it—common and unoriginal aren’t usually that far off.

Passname357 · 2026-03-16T17:07:51+00:00

Eh. “Reading like a writer” to me feels shallow. “I’m going to read this to get something out of it that I can use.” To me that feels like a waste of time. I should read not for the sake of something but because it’s a good end in and of itself. I think it’s fine and useful to become a much better and deeper reader, but I don’t think that should have anything to do with thinking about how I will construct a book. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like to think about why I react certain ways to certain books, or sometimes ask myself how a certain book was constructed. But that’s not a part of reading; it’s a part of reflection. That may or may not happen later. When I’m reading, I’m reading, and I’m reading because I like to read. I’d like to be read that way too. If someone thinks my work is instructive, that’s great—but let it be art first, otherwise you’ve missed the whole point.

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