Simulated Conversations
I am experimenting with text analysis based techniques to simulated interesting conversations between authors (or, the written works of those authors!)I seed the conversation with a topic and let the program take over which generates the conversation. The conversation that happens is really a search for most relevant sentences using word similarity and decaying the importance of what is said earlier without completely losing it.
Let's start off by discussing with these authors whether they think computer think. It is interesting - though somewhat tangential. The context in which we read these sentences gives them an altogether different meaning from which they were originally written for. Which, in itself is something to think about.
You: do computers think?
Guy de Maupassant: Do you think that they love me?
Bertrand Russell: I do not think the truth is quite so picturesque as this.
Shakespeare: Do you think there is truth in them?
Bertrand Russell: I do not think this theory is adequate, but I think it is suggestive of truth, and not so easily refutable as it might appear to be at first sight.
Guy de Maupassant: I do not think so.'
Does God Exist?
That's the sort of think you would ask a super-intelligent computer! And what it might reply may just surprise you. Here, of course we get just a conversation.
Blaise Pascal bringing faith to Mark Twain and Charlotte Bronte!
Blaise Pascal : If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth.
Mark Twain : I die with faith in God, and with loving thoughts of you.
Blaise Pascal : This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.
Shakespeare : God-a-mercy, old heart!
Charlotte Bronte : I will give my heart to God," I said. "
Blaise Pascal : If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth.
Blaise Pascal : If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth.
Charlotte Bronte : "I believe; I have faith: I am going to God."
However, he does not have much success with Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde
Blaise Pascal : If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth.
Shakespeare : A god on earth thou art.
Oscar Wilde : Is not God wiser than thou art?
Blaise Pascal : If there be a God, faith in God must exist on earth.
Shakespeare : Great God, how just art Thou!
Shakespeare : Thou art no friend to God or to the King.
Oscar Wilde : Who art thou to give away the secret that God hath told thee?
Oscar Wilde : Is not God wiser than thou art?
Meaning of Life
Meaning of Life
What better to ask these wise men and women than the meaning of life?
Nietzsche : So to live that life no longer has any meaning: _this_ is now the "meaning" of life.... Why be public-spirited?
Somerset Maugham : There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end.
Mark Twain : During these six years I have been living a life of peaceful ignorance.
Shakespeare : Life, living, all is Death's.
H G Wells : To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been devoted.
Charles Darwin : During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms.
Somerset Maugham : "Life wouldn't be worth living."
Mark Twain : That was, to make up her mind that life was not worth living upon the present terms.
Somerset Maugham : Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present.
Mark Twain : "Now, at last, life will be worth the living.
I declare the winner of this discussion to be Somerset Maugham who asks us to live in the moment.
Nietzsche : So to live that life no longer has any meaning: _this_ is now the "meaning" of life.... Why be public-spirited?
Somerset Maugham : There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end.
Mark Twain : During these six years I have been living a life of peaceful ignorance.
Shakespeare : Life, living, all is Death's.
H G Wells : To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been devoted.
Charles Darwin : During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms.
Somerset Maugham : "Life wouldn't be worth living."
Mark Twain : That was, to make up her mind that life was not worth living upon the present terms.
Somerset Maugham : Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present.
Mark Twain : "Now, at last, life will be worth the living.
I declare the winner of this discussion to be Somerset Maugham who asks us to live in the moment.
Good And Evil
The distinction between Good and Evil is so nebulous - if you believe these very fine gentlemen and lady.
Nietzsche : Many things in your good people cause me disgust, and verily, not their evil.
Mark Twain : "Evil is not mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with Good.
Shakespeare : Are you of good or evil?
Nietzsche : and is good perhaps evil?
Blaise Pascal : Change of good into evil and the vengeance of God.
Nietzsche : Verily, a new good and evil is it!
Jane Austen : The evil which brought such good to her!
Nietzsche : Good acts are sublimated evil.
Jane Austen : evil to some is always good to others.
Just wait for Jane Austen in the end!
Bertrand Russell : Belief as a positive phenomenon, if it exists, may be regarded, in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after debate, an acceptance, not merely of THIS, but of THIS-RATHER-THAN-THAT.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he exists?
John Locke : And he that can doubt whether it be less, will as certainly doubt whether it be a part.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he is awake, whether he is being pinched, or whether he is being burned?
Charles Darwin : , though I doubt whether it was worth while.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he doubts?
Charles Darwin : I doubt whether this letter will be worth the reading.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he exists?
Jane Austen : I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else.
Belief and Doubt
Just wait for Jane Austen in the end!
Bertrand Russell : Belief as a positive phenomenon, if it exists, may be regarded, in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after debate, an acceptance, not merely of THIS, but of THIS-RATHER-THAN-THAT.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he exists?
John Locke : And he that can doubt whether it be less, will as certainly doubt whether it be a part.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he is awake, whether he is being pinched, or whether he is being burned?
Charles Darwin : , though I doubt whether it was worth while.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he doubts?
Charles Darwin : I doubt whether this letter will be worth the reading.
Blaise Pascal : Shall he doubt whether he exists?
Jane Austen : I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else.
Reality and Dreams
Discussion in Reality and Dreams - Blaise Pascal's "dream upon dream" seems to be the inspiration for the movie Inception!
Blaise Pascal : The reality excludes absence and pain.
Somerset Maugham : He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.
Charlotte Bronte : It was half dream, half reality.
George Barnard Shaw : Rome is a madman's dream: this is my Reality.
Lewis Caroll : "The good I fancied I could do is vanished like a dream: the evil of this troublesome world is the only abiding reality!"
Mary Shelley : The prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life.
Nietzsche : (For in a dream we look upon that dream as reality, that is, we accept our hypotheses as fully established).
Blaise Pascal : In short, as we often dream that we dream, heaping dream upon dream, may it not be that this half of our life, wherein we think ourselves awake, is itself only a dream on which the others are grafted, from which we wake at death, during which we have as few principles of truth and good as during natural sleep, these different thoughts which disturb us being perhaps only illusions like the flight of time and the vain fancies of our dreams?]
Charlotte Bronte : It was half dream, half reality.
Mark Twain : We have been in a half-waking sort of dream all the time.
Charles Darwin talks about the struggle for existence but Nietzsche takes it a step further
Charles Darwin : A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase.
Nietzsche : Nietzsche says that to speak of the activity of life as a "struggle for existence," is to state the case inadequately.
Charles Darwin : Natural selection follows from the struggle for existence; and this from a rapid rate of increase.
H G Wells : The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars.
Charles Darwin : But when the struggle for existence becomes severe, that variety which is best adapted to the conditions of existence always supplants that which is imperfectly adapted; therefore by Natural Selection the sterile varieties of the two forms will become established as the only ones.
Nietzsche : The second is passive, defensive,--to it belongs the "struggle for existence."
Charles Darwin : The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.
Blaise Pascal : The reality excludes absence and pain.
Somerset Maugham : He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.
Charlotte Bronte : It was half dream, half reality.
George Barnard Shaw : Rome is a madman's dream: this is my Reality.
Lewis Caroll : "The good I fancied I could do is vanished like a dream: the evil of this troublesome world is the only abiding reality!"
Mary Shelley : The prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life.
Nietzsche : (For in a dream we look upon that dream as reality, that is, we accept our hypotheses as fully established).
Blaise Pascal : In short, as we often dream that we dream, heaping dream upon dream, may it not be that this half of our life, wherein we think ourselves awake, is itself only a dream on which the others are grafted, from which we wake at death, during which we have as few principles of truth and good as during natural sleep, these different thoughts which disturb us being perhaps only illusions like the flight of time and the vain fancies of our dreams?]
Charlotte Bronte : It was half dream, half reality.
Mark Twain : We have been in a half-waking sort of dream all the time.
The Struggle for Existence
Charles Darwin talks about the struggle for existence but Nietzsche takes it a step further
Charles Darwin : A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase.
Nietzsche : Nietzsche says that to speak of the activity of life as a "struggle for existence," is to state the case inadequately.
Charles Darwin : Natural selection follows from the struggle for existence; and this from a rapid rate of increase.
H G Wells : The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars.
Charles Darwin : But when the struggle for existence becomes severe, that variety which is best adapted to the conditions of existence always supplants that which is imperfectly adapted; therefore by Natural Selection the sterile varieties of the two forms will become established as the only ones.
Nietzsche : The second is passive, defensive,--to it belongs the "struggle for existence."
Charles Darwin : The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.
Nietzsche : Without pleasure, there is no life; the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life.
What are you talking about?
A very literal minded discussion on what are we talking about?
Mark Twain: What are you talking about?
Lewis Caroll: "What are you talking about geraniums for?
Somerset Maugham: "Then what are you talking about?"
Oscar Wilde: "What are you two talking about?"
Mark Twain: "What are you talking about?
Somerset Maugham: "What on earth are you talking about?"
Mark Twain: "Why, what are you talking about?
Lewis Caroll: 'You don't know what you're talking about!'
George Barnard Shaw: They don't know what they're talking about.
Mark Twain: There--don't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about.
George Barnard Shaw: I simply don't know what you're talking about.
Mark Twain: "I know what I'm talking about!
Guy de Maupassant: "I know what I am talking about.
Mark Twain: --I don't know what you are talking about.
George Barnard Shaw: What was I talking about, Ridgeon?
Oscar Wilde: You don't know what you are talking about.
Somerset Maugham: "Do you know what I'm talking about, Sally?"
Mark Twain: You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know what you are talking about.
Jane Austen: And what does talking ever do you know?"
George Barnard Shaw: You know you're talking nonsense.
Guy de Maupassant: "But you are talking nonsense!"
Oscar Wilde: Oh, that is nonsense; you are always talking nonsense.
Lewis Caroll: 'You insult me by talking such nonsense!' '
George Barnard Shaw: You are talking the greatest nonsense; and you know it.
Lewis Caroll: "What are you talking about geraniums for?
Somerset Maugham: "Then what are you talking about?"
Oscar Wilde: "What are you two talking about?"
Mark Twain: "What are you talking about?
Somerset Maugham: "What on earth are you talking about?"
Mark Twain: "Why, what are you talking about?
Lewis Caroll: 'You don't know what you're talking about!'
George Barnard Shaw: They don't know what they're talking about.
Mark Twain: There--don't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about.
George Barnard Shaw: I simply don't know what you're talking about.
Mark Twain: "I know what I'm talking about!
Guy de Maupassant: "I know what I am talking about.
Mark Twain: --I don't know what you are talking about.
George Barnard Shaw: What was I talking about, Ridgeon?
Oscar Wilde: You don't know what you are talking about.
Somerset Maugham: "Do you know what I'm talking about, Sally?"
Mark Twain: You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know what you are talking about.
Jane Austen: And what does talking ever do you know?"
George Barnard Shaw: You know you're talking nonsense.
Guy de Maupassant: "But you are talking nonsense!"
Oscar Wilde: Oh, that is nonsense; you are always talking nonsense.
Lewis Caroll: 'You insult me by talking such nonsense!' '
George Barnard Shaw: You are talking the greatest nonsense; and you know it.