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Maybe we could acquire subtle insights into a character that are not inherent in the code. Sometimes the subtle is pivotal. The emotional envelope of the supervisor is subtle, but pivotal. To re-present that scenario we would need an improv actor who was aware and consistent. Not an easy assignment, and one easily sidetracked into playing to the audience. It was useful to a point and relatively easy to code; simple Javascript.
I have high hopes that Versu will go much beyond this without, perhaps, being much more difficult to code. Okay, I will now try to be quiet, contain my enthusiasm, and give others a turn to talk. Presently we use improv with participants acting from their given goals until they reach an inevitable impasse inevitable given conflicting objectives. Then we introduce a character strength e.
Switch character strengths again and monitor the character interaction to see whether they bet past the impasse, negotiate based on objectives or get to underlying interests. So, it will be interesting to see whether this could be used to develop rich character interaction for character education.
For instance, if I have a stereotypical grumpy old man, can I write him for a can-I-have-my-frisbee-back scenario, then place him or key elements of his persona in a ship-sinking scenario? I see no reason at all why it should not be possible. Yes, characters can be transferred from story to story.
The character would then bring with it its interaction preferences, habits, even generalized dialogue about its personal history; and could be further customized to have story-specific interactions. Again, I have a longer discussion in draft form. This is good news. Modular generic characters allows for the creation of a library of characters. That makes it easier to populate a scenario with a supporting cast and devote more attention to the major roles. There are a lot of parallels: And just how many episodes do that have between them.
Values underly character and character drives conflicts, sets up numerous pursuits, reveals oh so many human foibles. Who knows, maybe there could be a shared stock-character set or character exchange. Certainly there are libraries of generic scenarios and I am working with a set of two dozen character strengths based on Peterson and Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues [Handbook and Classification, American Psychological Association and Oxford U.
Well — the other thing to bear in mind is that the system I used to write the existing episodes! As Harry Stottle noted, character is established by actions. Moreover, the precise meaning of any trait is defined by its effect on decisions.
When you and I talk about promiscuity, we each entertain slightly different interpretations of that word. For conversational purposes these differences are not significant, but when you put that concept into a computer, you must quantify it, and then differences in interpretation can lead to serious problems. Inside the computer, promiscuity is not what I think it is, or what you think it is, or even what the OED says it is. Inside the computer, promiscuity is a term used in a calculation leading to a decision.
But as you increase the number of bits of resolution, and use it in a larger number of calculations, it becomes more difficult for people to apply. You may think that promiscuity is the tendency to engage in sexual behavior, but inside the computer, promiscuity is defined by its uses:. Emily, the method you describe is a standard method in AI and has been applied successfully to many problems. The core problem with this method is that it works best with long combinations of a few fundamental actions.
For example, the algorithms that drive the Mars rovers are ideal applications of goal-seeking AI. However, as the number of unique verbs required to achieve a specific goal increases, goal-seeking algorithms start to have problems. The other problem with these methods is that they are designed for boolean calculations; when the calculations become probabilistic, things go to hell very quickly. I do retain some hope that multi-layered goal-seeking techniques can solve the problem, but as yet the definition of the layers remains for me an insurmountable obstacle.
This is a reading activity, after all. My eyes must not be as good as yours — and I am using the retina iPad. This stupidity should disqualify her from public office. Corbyn has at least grasped the connection between our foreign interventionism and home-grown terrorism. Monday May 29, 5: We were talking — as many now are — about how in the world it was possible for 60 million Americans not just to vote for Trump, but, after days of demonstrated disaster and incompetence STILL to support him. The other 6 in 7 are clearly impervious. Which made us wonder what would make the base desert him.
Which took us onto the obvious and sinister parallel with Hitler. Or should I err on the side of caution and either fire up my VPN and the Iron incognito browser or Tor; one or two other reasonably secure browsers are available, but the VPN is essential before mounting such a provocative search? Or just forget it altogether? Barely A Whimper and, as Edward Snowden put it, in the same article:. It goes further than many autocracies.
Even friends of the Tories have long acknowledged its failure. And I have to say that a great deal of the blame for this sorry state of affairs lies in the hands of the British voter. In any other country, this would have prompted riots in the streets. Here it went down with barely a shrug. That itself has to be a legacy of the failure of popular protests in the recent past to have the slightest effect on the State.
Consider, for example the 2 million who marched against the Iraq War before the Blair government ignored popular opinion and collaborated with the Americans to assist the illegal invasion of Iraq. One of the many reasons that we opposed the Iraq invasion was that we strongly suspected that it would lead, inexorably, to precisely the kind of global chaos we are now witnessing and, occasionally, suffering. It is utterly mind-blowing that twats like Fallon still refuse to acknowledge the link between our growing catalogue of disastrous overseas interventions and the wave of European Terrorism mounted by disaffected jihadis.
That refusal to face the facts renders May and her party demonstrably unable to confront global terrorism. In that respect, Labour, or, at least, Corbyn, scores well because he does acknowledge the link between our foreign adventures and home-grown terrorism. If the answer is yes, whatever other merits they may have, they clearly cannot be trusted to protect your most important interests. Sunday September 4, 5: The normal mode of All Governments is to avoid disclosing any information which might be used against them while trying to appear as open and transparent as their citizens demand. It can be defined thus:.
The Accountability Theatre in that situation consists of the fact that, at no point, can any potential auditor either see the raw data without the consent and collaboration of its custodian, nor, even if permitted to see it, to verify that it is complete and unedited. The entire process, in other words, is based purely on faith that the State can do no wrong, a ship which sailed at least a century ago. What MPs are stuck with, regarding Parliamentary Expenses is a direct result of recognising that they cannot get away with the normal Accountability charade in respect of their expense claims.
Accountability Theatre Sunday September 4, 5: It might be a specially vetted Jury and it may often choose to sit in Camera in order to protect genuine National Security. The character would then bring with it its interaction preferences, habits, even generalized dialogue about its personal history; and could be further customized to have story-specific interactions. Which do you think is more needed to advance the state of the art? Most of the responses I saw looked specific to the situation, suggesting a directed graph architecture, but I saw two situations in which it appeared that there were some generic responses as well. Which took us onto the obvious and sinister parallel with Hitler.
Hence, for example, we know that both Jeremy Hunt and Amber Rudd each submitted claims of just 27 pence for two short car journeys. This level of disclosure is considered necessary so that the public can be convinced that proper scrutiny of expenses claims is taking place. And, frankly, it looks like they do a pretty good job. In the sense that no frivolous claims are ever likely to make it through a pretty rigorous checking system.
It is also a useful distraction from the unpublished detail of much more serious matters we ought to be demanding. On the basis of a detailed warrant application and advice from officials in my department I must be satisfied that the benefits justify the means and that the proposed action is necessary and proportionate. The warrant application gives me the intelligence background, the means by which the surveillance will take place, and the degree of intrusion upon the citizen.
Neither the Security Service nor other intelligence agencies, nor the police, nor other law enforcement agencies, can undertake sensitive surveillance without providing these details and gaining my approval. Ministerial oversight — which I share with the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland — is a crucial safeguard to make sure that the most intrusive powers are used only when they are necessary and proportionate.
Now then, how long do you think it would — or should — take to make a thorough assessment of the validity of just one such warrant application? Checking the content of the intelligence and, if necessary, its provenance; considering whether that content, in context, justified spying on a citizen; considering the means and degree of espionage being recommended; investigating whether the individual has previously been targeted and what, if any parallels there are between the circumstances of that targeting and the one being proposed; verifying that the appropriate risk assessments have been made and properly recorded; verifying and justifying the proposed cost etc.
It is impossible to answer such questions without a detailed academic study, which we will, of course, not be permitted to make, but an intelligent guess has to be between one and five days of pretty intensive study. Yet, as MP David Davis pointed out in , Theresa May was required, during the previous year, to approve up to 10 warrants a day — and that was just for phone interceptions.
I have no doubt she was sincere and believed that what she was doing actually constituted meaningful oversight. I doubt she has the faintest idea how to seriously examine the validity of those warrant applications. All she needs to do is feed the monkey.
Why on earth are we supposed to trust that arrangement? Their ultimate answer to that is the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee , which, ostensibly has the power to question everybody and see everything. It is very important the ISC maintains public confidence as a scrutiny committee. The ISC is designed to be Accountability Theatre and, on this occasion, they panicked and fluffed their lines. Normally, they would have made a big show of visiting GCHQ, interrogating its mandarins in both public and private, and, after a few months of due consideration, announced their august whitewash.
But the veil slipped for a few moments and those of us who were paying attention spotted the naked Emperor. It may surprise you but I am not going to take issue with any of their arguments for Surveillance. Given the right circumstances, there is NOTHING which can be definitively ruled out as a legitimate counter-measure for a State to employ in defence of its citizens. Point out that the clue is not proof that the problem is solvable. It may be a red herring. Reasoning is like joining the dots.
It is all about making connections, step by step, between different points in a chain to reach a conclusion. Sometimes, in order to establish a route, you need to know the starting point and the end point. So, it can sometimes be logically fruitful to tell your class the answer but to withhold the reasons why it is the answer. Explaining the answer then becomes the task for the class and they have a clear end-point to navigate towards.
To make things a little more challenging you could give them a choice of answers with the stipulation that they must justify the answer they choose. This is a process-orientated style of teaching rather than goal-orientated. Try the following puzzle in this way and see how the children deal with it much better than if you simply give them the problem, which will often leave them very confused. Use this puzzle with the problem-solving procedure I described in an earlier issue of Teach Primary Vol.
There are two brothers at the fork and you know that one of them always lies and the other always tells the truth. What single question could you ask them that will reveal the correct path to take? This knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning. To transform your teaching try the following experiment for the next week. Begin by adopting the following principle: This problem is solved if you place the inner-tube in water. It is as if the water examines the inner-tube for you.
The process of questioning acts like the water revealing exactly where new information needs to be introduced but only where it is necessary to do so. Teaching does not consist only in asking questions; at some point you will need to teach your students something. Just teaching, however, results in passive students; questioning engages students actively by requiring that they think in order to consider and then respond ; the dialogue that follows between the teacher and student builds their understanding.
So, clearly you want to maximise the thinking, the considering, the responding, the dialogue and therefore the understanding among your students. Adopting the principle of question maximisation will help to achieve this. The point at which you can think of no further questions that you can ask until the student has some further information, is the natural point to introduce the information.
But do so asking questions where you can and by introducing the relevant information step-by-step; followed, at each step, by a question to engage the student with the new information. Next time a student asks you a question ask yourself the following question: If you succeed, notice how much better they understand than if you had just told them. I think the collective noun is a ponder of philosophers. It will hopefully build some bridges between the different sections of philosophy education. We have people from the primary sector, secondary schools, university lecturers and professors, and philosophers in the media.
There are footballers and Monty Python fans! And this whole event is about making more people aware of philosophy. Bizarrely, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this event that is all about reason. The day is of course also about enabling kids from all backgrounds and ages to benefit from doing philosophy — and this has never been more important, since providing access to philosophy to youngsters is under threat even at university level.
Buy Harry Stottle - Philosopher of The Manor: Read Kindle Store Reviews - www.farmersmarketmusic.com Add: The King's Manor, York YO1 2EP, England. Prof. of Philosophy, since , and Dir., Inst. for the Advancement of Philosophy for (with Ann M. Sharp) Instructional Manual to Accompany Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, ; Lisa.
The critics say that we should focus on the foundational skills and not waste our time with new-fangled subjects. Well, first of all, philosophy is hardly new-fangled but secondly and more importantly: What could be more foundational than concepts and reasoning? Understanding how things connect to one another and learning to critically evaluate what is presented? Reading, writing and arithmetic count for very little if children do not reason — if they do not think. So, deepening understanding through reasoning skills and habits will improve the 3 Rs not hinder them.
The Cambridge Primary review, which came out last year, says as much: The reason the Cambridge review gave for this was that education does not deepen understanding; it teaches to the test. I would like to finish with a quote from the 16 th century writer Michel de Montaigne. I would like to have seen them teaching us our steps just by watching them without budging from our seats, like those teachers who seek to give instruction to our understanding without making it dance.
Our sponsors and partners: Stephen Law for donating copies of his books The Philosophy Files. And finally, thanks to all of you who came to this fantastic event today. Is philosophy relevant to the 21st Century? Repetition of stimulus and Task Question TQ: Echoing gives everyone time to think about the last comment, and to make sure everyone has heard it.
Peter aids Carter and Luke in linking their ideas. Jack and Ellie — she asked him a really good question.
Clarification question used for Charlotte to understand atoms. Peter refocuses the question by quoting Charlotte more accurately than she did herself.
Peter allows Charlotte to respond generally. Peter seeks the less frequent contributors this gets Luke to put up his hand. His objective is definitional. Discussion dries up in places due to the eristic dynamic. Honeycomb dynamic — each child responding directly to the adult, rather than each other no dialectic.
Grant shows some exasperation because he has an agenda and the children are perhaps not fulfilling his aim. Putting words in their mouths: He has to keep rephrasing his questions until a child responds.
Children are no longer talking to each other but each one to him. These kids are particularly good at dealing with his questions but many other children would simply dry up under this pressure. Grant flicks from one idea to the next where the children are not sure of the rhetorical value of having done so e. Remember in a philosophy session to always go deeper: An emergent discussion — the children are deciding on the direction rather than the facilitator, the facilitator keeps the discussion within the realms of philosophy, and uses techniques to deepen thinking and reasoning.
I like speaking about what I think is right, but I also like finding out what other people think about it. Philosophy is mainly all about thinking and I really like thinking because I think all the time. We do questions which are hard. It helps you understand the question and be more open-minded. I just like solving the questions. Trying to get the answer. I like when we finish the discussion and solve it and we have loads of different answers.
It makes you think really deeply. Anarchy in the UK: The discussion is rigged. Socrates has the answers from the outset, so he can lead the slave into giving the answers. Does the teacher need to know the answer? Tell the children that the problem may or may not be solvable. It is for them to decide. Emphasise that if they give up then no answers will be given by you: Make sure you that each attempt is witnessed by everybody in the room by drawing on the board for example. Offer no advice but only tell them where they have broken the rules or stipulations. If they ask questions then direct them to the board to try it out.
Make the clue as minimal as possible with as little explanation as possible for example simply point to an attempt that includes an important clue. Do not put anyone on the spot but try to choose people who have not yet had a go. If they solve the problem then congratulate everybody who had a go and ask the person who solved it where they found their clues very probably from other attempts. Ask those who are familiar with the problem to remain silent for the task. Variations depending on the problem: You may decide to provide them with paper.
You may decide to let them talk it through with each other. You may decide to have them solve it in silence simply by watching each other. If the problem involves something on the board then all attempts should be recorded for all to see throughout the process. Originally published in Teach Primary magazine.