Computer: Word Processing
Overly Complex Language Button   (+2, -1)  [vote for, against]
Word processor with a "make this sound smarter" button.

The below idea only in reverse. It takes simple concepts and draws them into super smart sounding word tornados.

You'd have to do the work yourself, but the word processor would alert you to un-necessarily complex, hyper intellectual sounding sentences so you can go back and translate it into human.

I read a pretty good example of this process in the attached link from which I did a cut and paste:

"Plato: Obviously we must use observations or the objects in perceived reality as a stepping stone because we cannot "sense" reality with our minds. But it is fallacious to think cognition can only make (logical) inferences from those observations. If the only statements that could be made based on perceived reality were of logical (inductive/deductive) nature, then the noetic reality would fundamentally be constrained to operate within the bounds of perceived reality and your point that there is no difference between the two would be quite valid. However, that is clearly not so because cognition allows generation of propositions which are illogical. These hypotheses, therefore, can introduce thought-objects into noetic reality that lie outside of perceived reality."

"David Quinn: Translation: We can imagine things."

That's an extreme example, but you'd get that big "bad grammar" style red underline that would prompt you to go back and ask yourself "Is this concept really that grand that it needs a two hundred word poem to get it across?" Sort of like it was rolling its eyes at you and saying "Oh, come on man, you're not impressing anybody with this shit."

Admittedly this wouldn't be an easy algorithm to write, but if a human can figure out that Plato's long winded word fireworks are a little more over the top than is necessary to get the idea across, AI should be able to do the same with a little work.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018

Kind of an interesting read. http://naturalthink...inn/essay00npu.html
[doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018]

There are various apps that will rate text for its clarity and complexity. I think even Word has a tool for that.

[edit] OK, I checked, and Word has a tool that displays Flesch scores, so that's pretty much baked. The problem is that many academics believe, stupidly, that they appear cleverer by being more opaque.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2018


So why do you persist in doing it, we ask ...
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


I don't. Of course, however low I try to pitch things, there's no guarantee you'll be able to follow them.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2018


(Ignores the bar fight going on across the room.)

Huh. Well, good idea anyway.

As standard procedure I leave the idea up overnight before taking it down. Not so much like walking through town with it strapped to my back in the walk of shame as much as it having some interesting stuff. Annotations included. I'd never heard of a Flesch score before, might as well share the knowledge born of my pain and humiliation.

I get why people do this, it's virtue signaling, and that's fine unless it's cloaking a lousy concept in opulence and parading it down the catwalk when it should be made to walk the plank.

Einstein was alway very easy to understand. I'll leave it at that.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018


The quotation is originally from Testikles the Younger's "Travels with a Lemur" c279BC, in which he recounts the philosopher's riposte to a waiter, upon being asked to actually pay for his beer.

Siri translates it as "You're an idiot".

Arguably the same, but David Quinn missed the subtleties of the passive-aggressive tense.
-- FlyingToaster, Mar 29 2018


I'm going to salvage this idea because it took a while to write. Original was Overly Complex Language Correction Word processor with an "academic-speak" filter."

Changed to the exact opposite.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018


My D. Phil supervisor was an excellent writer, and he and I would spend days arguing over a sentence. He was usually right, and could say lucidly in ten words what I'd failed to convey in a paragraph. At the end of my stint, I took Wordsworth's "Daffodils" and edited it using his style. It came out at about 25 words.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2018


Let me try.

"Saw a bunch of flowers once. Pretty cool. Sometimes I think about them while I'm waiting for my welfare check."

19, not bad!
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018


You're wasted in this place, [doc]. And pretty much everywhere, from what I hear.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2018


Ok, I'm leaving this post up. Hitler would have taken it down so it's a matter of principal.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018


"Godwin !"

That's another USD $5 someone owes us ...

// however low I try to pitch things, there's no guarantee you'll be able to follow them //

Your siblings are pretty (?)*, no abysmally, low, and there's very little chance we'll follow them anywhere. Except, perhaps, out of morbid curiosity ...

*on reflection, there is nothing "pretty" about your siblings**.

**or you, for that matter. "Fell out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch on the way down ..."
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


How far up the wall can you get, [IT] ... ?
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


I’m tempted to run a Vernon-beanangel mashup through one of these just to stress-test it.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 29 2018


[8th], I have passed on your comments to Sturton and the Intercalary. You may expect to be sibbled, but only when you least expect it.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2018


Very few words in the English language are precise synonyms. That's why it's often better to use longer words, where they more precisely match one's meaning, if the audience's vocabulary is sufficiently large.
-- Voice, Mar 29 2018


Quantum physicists should be required by law to have an app for the original "make simpler" variant with voice rec on their phone & the phone wired to a taser with the electrodes attached to their sensitive fleshy parts, all permanently switched on.

So that when.. well, you get the picture.
-- Skewed, Mar 29 2018


Can there be a version of that for politicians ? Maybe linked to a 132kV distribution line ?

// if the audience's vocabulary is sufficiently large //

This is the halfbakery, mind ....
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


//Can there be a version of that for politicians ?//

That's an excellent idea, I'll pull some resources off the math teacher models design team & get the admin boys right on it.

//a 132kV distribution line ?//

I like where you're going with this. Know anyone at the National Grid who can help with a discount?
-- Skewed, Mar 29 2018


A well carved crucifix is worth a thousand bibles .. I think that was the crux of Jesus. (or to put it another way - Body language )
-- DDRopDeadly, Mar 29 2018


// One is to explain to people who don’t understand, //

If they don't understand, no point in trying to explain. They're obviously too stupid to grasp it.

// the other is to explain to people who do understand. //

Wasted effort - they already understand, so why explain ?

// anyone at the National Grid who can help get a discount //

We'll drop a feeder off one of the Cube's plasma conduits free of charge, just for the fun of frying the buggers. Just tell us where and when.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


//A well carved crucifix is worth a thousand bibles//

I'm not so sure that's right, I've always found dropping a thousand bibles on someone does a really significant amount of damage.. it's going to need to be a really big crucifix.
-- Skewed, Mar 29 2018


Pile the thousand bibles round the legs of the Wicker Man. Makes a lovely blaze, and you can bake potatoes in the embers too ! What could be better ?

OK, so there's the smell of burnt meat, but if you stay to windward it's usually bearable.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2018


NB: that quotation in the idea is not from Plato. According to the link, it's from some person called Sergei, who modestly posts as "Plato". The real Plato is much more readable.

Carry on.
-- pertinax, Mar 29 2018


Thank you. Important note I should have put on that.

Note: This is not THE Plato.

The article refers to a guy who calls himself Plato in a forum who was really good at spinning a massive, tangled word web to get his ideas across.

That being said, they are kind of fun to try to figure out.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2018


//and will probably figure it out for themselves// at which point they will think they understand, and therefore by your own logic they will become //lost, and the hardest to reach with truth//
-- pocmloc, Apr 01 2018



random, halfbakery