This seems tautological? If the military scout returns with reports of birds and ants, that is still an abstraction, but it isn’t relevant to the goal (as those words are commonly used). You seem to be defining a goal in terms of what the abstraction retains.
If the military scout returns with a poem about nature, then yes, that’s still an abstraction. The scout’s abstraction prioritizes information that is useless to the general’s goals, so we can guess that the scout’s goals are not well aligned with the general’s.
You seem to be defining a goal in terms of what the abstraction retains.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to fully specify goals given abstractions. But for a system subject to some kind of optimization pressure, knowing an abstraction that the system uses is evidence that shifts probability mass within goal-space.
Perhaps the scout had a goal of “provide a list of wildlife”
The abstractions used (specific sound waves standing in for concepts of animals, grouping similar animals together under single headings etc.) are still orthogonal to that goal. They are in service to a narrow goal of “communicate the concept in my brain to yours” but that answer gets you a strike on the Family Feud prompt “Name a goal of a wilderness scout.”
“Provide a list of wildlife” has subgoal “communicate the concept in my brain to yours” has subgoal “use specific sounds to represent animals”. “Provide a list of wildlife” is not a subgoal of “win the war”.
The supply train is delayed by an enemy attack. Shoring up supplies might be achieved by:
taking resources from the enemy.
hunting wildlife
Seemingly anything can be related to any goal, under some circumstance. “Provide a list of wildlife” might indicate whether there’s anything (or a lot of things) that can potentially be hunted. It can also indicate whether the enemy can subsist off wildlife if they are good at hunting.
Yes, I spoke too strongly. In the weighted causal graph of subgoals, I would bet that “provide a list of wildlife” would be less relevant to the goal “win the war” than “report #bombers”.
My point was less about weight, and more about conditions that make it relevant. Yes, this might treat relevant/not as a binary, but it is an abstraction related to action, for example:
‘orders are about a focus* (while someone scouting may act responsively to changing conditions)’. Arguably, scouting is open ended—the scout knows what might be important (at least if they see it). How things are done in practice here might be worth looking into.
*I’m making this up. The point is, actions can also throw stuff out.
This seems tautological? If the military scout returns with reports of birds and ants, that is still an abstraction, but it isn’t relevant to the goal (as those words are commonly used). You seem to be defining a goal in terms of what the abstraction retains.
You can make the claim that a useful abstraction must serve a purpose, without making the claim that all abstractions are useful.
If the military scout returns with a poem about nature, then yes, that’s still an abstraction. The scout’s abstraction prioritizes information that is useless to the general’s goals, so we can guess that the scout’s goals are not well aligned with the general’s.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to fully specify goals given abstractions. But for a system subject to some kind of optimization pressure, knowing an abstraction that the system uses is evidence that shifts probability mass within goal-space.
Perhaps the scout had a goal of “provide a list of wildlife”
The abstractions used (specific sound waves standing in for concepts of animals, grouping similar animals together under single headings etc.) are still orthogonal to that goal. They are in service to a narrow goal of “communicate the concept in my brain to yours” but that answer gets you a strike on the Family Feud prompt “Name a goal of a wilderness scout.”
“Provide a list of wildlife” has subgoal “communicate the concept in my brain to yours” has subgoal “use specific sounds to represent animals”. “Provide a list of wildlife” is not a subgoal of “win the war”.
Of wildlife and winning the war:
The supply train is delayed by an enemy attack. Shoring up supplies might be achieved by:
taking resources from the enemy.
hunting wildlife
Seemingly anything can be related to any goal, under some circumstance. “Provide a list of wildlife” might indicate whether there’s anything (or a lot of things) that can potentially be hunted. It can also indicate whether the enemy can subsist off wildlife if they are good at hunting.
Yes, I spoke too strongly. In the weighted causal graph of subgoals, I would bet that “provide a list of wildlife” would be less relevant to the goal “win the war” than “report #bombers”.
My point was less about weight, and more about conditions that make it relevant. Yes, this might treat relevant/not as a binary, but it is an abstraction related to action, for example:
‘orders are about a focus* (while someone scouting may act responsively to changing conditions)’. Arguably, scouting is open ended—the scout knows what might be important (at least if they see it). How things are done in practice here might be worth looking into.
*I’m making this up. The point is, actions can also throw stuff out.