28-06-2019, 02:10 PM
Torsten, I fully agree with all this.
My point was that, to me, the conclusion does not follow from the evidence, in a logical sense. However, I may be missing some information. In essence, to judge from the value of a fractal dimension whether a text is meaningful or not, one needs some criterium about possible fractal dimensions of meaningless and meaningful text.
For the present conclusion, one needs some confidence that a meaningless text cannot have, or is very unlikely to have, a particular fractal dimension. And that is not clear to me.
Montemurro (and Zanette)'s work is different since it uses a criterium that is a bit better understood, namely key words. However, in this particular study I have the problem that they ignored that Herbal A and Herbal B have the same illustrations but completely different key words, so also their conclusion is for me not on such a strong footing.
It is a very different story if a conclusion is clearly formulated as a statement of opinion of the authors. If there is no claim to have demonstrated anything, there is much less to be challenged.
All the stuff about the tropes of bungling experts vs. bright newcomers, or the delving into people's (overt or hidden) motivation is only distracting, and while it can be annoying, it is best ignored as much as possible.
My point was that, to me, the conclusion does not follow from the evidence, in a logical sense. However, I may be missing some information. In essence, to judge from the value of a fractal dimension whether a text is meaningful or not, one needs some criterium about possible fractal dimensions of meaningless and meaningful text.
For the present conclusion, one needs some confidence that a meaningless text cannot have, or is very unlikely to have, a particular fractal dimension. And that is not clear to me.
Montemurro (and Zanette)'s work is different since it uses a criterium that is a bit better understood, namely key words. However, in this particular study I have the problem that they ignored that Herbal A and Herbal B have the same illustrations but completely different key words, so also their conclusion is for me not on such a strong footing.
It is a very different story if a conclusion is clearly formulated as a statement of opinion of the authors. If there is no claim to have demonstrated anything, there is much less to be challenged.
All the stuff about the tropes of bungling experts vs. bright newcomers, or the delving into people's (overt or hidden) motivation is only distracting, and while it can be annoying, it is best ignored as much as possible.