Ambiguity

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Michael - 28 Nov 2006 10:03 GMT

Hi,

With the following sentence:

"Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."

Does the relative clause "which should be updated according to the
provided guidelines" refer to "change", "the robot", or "the robot's
belief state"? Should the sentence be rewritten?

Thanks,
Michael

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Leslie Danks - 28 Nov 2006 10:31 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> provided guidelines" refer to "change", "the robot", or "the robot's
> belief state"? Should the sentence be rewritten?

Is that really "persist" or should it be "resist"?

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Les

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Michael - 28 Nov 2006 10:54 GMT

> > Hi,
> >
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> --
> Les

Yes, it is persist. Maybe it should be "persist with" instead.

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Leslie Danks - 28 Nov 2006 11:16 GMT

>> > Hi,
>> >
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>>
>> Is that really "persist" or should it be "resist"?

[...]

> Yes, it is persist. Maybe it should be "persist with" instead.

Yes, I agree. As the sentence stands, the relative clause refers to "the
robot's belief state". I would also replace "to the provided guidelines"
with "to the guidelines provided".

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Les

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R H Draney - 28 Nov 2006 14:53 GMT

Michael filted:

>> > "Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
>> > state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."
>>
>> Is that really "persist" or should it be "resist"?
>
>Yes, it is persist. Maybe it should be "persist with" instead.

Don't you hate it when people transit a word they shouldn't?...r

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"Keep your eye on the Bishop. I want to know when
he makes his move", said the Inspector, obliquely.

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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com - 28 Nov 2006 23:39 GMT

> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > With the following sentence:
> > >
> > > "Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
> > > state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."

...

> > Is that really "persist" or should it be "resist"?
> >
> > --
> > Les
>
> Yes, it is persist. Maybe it should be "persist with" instead.

I'd probably say "persist in".

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Jerry Friedman

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Eric Walker - 29 Nov 2006 01:58 GMT

[...]

"Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."

> I'd probably say "persist in".

One has to suspect that the writer's intent was to convey the concept
of the state changed to becoming persistent; perhaps a simpler way of
putting it would have been to use "maintain" for "persist"--though in
fact, one cannot "persist" a change, only that state (or whatever) that
the change leads to.

I'd guess that the closest approximation in real English to the
original is something like:

"Whether the effects of a particular change would be maintained or
discarded would depend on the robot's 'belief state' as updated
pursuant to the guidelines provided."

That relies on some *assumptions* not explicit in the context. For
example, are we indeed to assume that the "belief state" is (or is
supposed to be) updated as an integral part of the change in
question--using the "provided guidelines" as the algorithm for the
updating--so that the robot uses at least a part of the consequences of
the change to decide whether or not to revert those consequences? Who
can say, but I don't see the Tardis around anywhere.

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Evan Kirshenbaum - 29 Nov 2006 05:27 GMT

> [...]
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> "persist"--though in fact, one cannot "persist" a change, only that
> state (or whatever) that the change leads to.

Believe it or not, the verb I most often hear (and quite probably use)
for the notion of making something persistent (as by writing it to a
disk, a database, or non-volatile memory) is "persistify".

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Eric Walker - 28 Nov 2006 11:24 GMT

> With the following sentence:
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> provided guidelines" refer to "change", "the robot", or "the robot's
> belief state"? Should the sentence be rewritten?

Last first: yes. It is not ghastly to have a trailing "which" clause
that could point at more than one antecedent, but the ambiguity must be
corrected by repeating the true antecedent--something like:

"Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
state, which state should be updated according to the provided
guidelines."

Mind, I'm not convinced that there is ambiguity in this particular
case, in that it's hard to see that clause modifying "change", and
pretty much impossible to see it modifying the (implied) noun "robot".

I have no idea what in all the world that sentence is supposed to mean,
in that I know of no transitive use of "persist", but that is not
relevent to the question asked.

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Don Phillipson - 28 Nov 2006 13:37 GMT

> With the following sentence:
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> provided guidelines" refer to "change", "the robot", or "the robot's
> belief state"? Should the sentence be rewritten?

Yes because it uses common words in a non-standard
way.
1. "Robot's belief state" is a phrase not used (except
possibly as a metaphor) by either software engineers
or philosophers of mind. We talk about updating
information and we talk about changing minds:
but we are uncertain what "belief states" might be
(viz. whether mental inferences or arrays of data or
something else).
2. "Persist a change" is not English syntax. The
verb Persist is usually intransitive. Common syntax
does not allow it to take noun Change as a direct
object.
3. "Provided guidelines" is sometimes written, but
"guidelines provided" is preferred as standard English.

Revise this sentence functionally: first remove it
completely, then replace only those parts the context
(before and after) requires in order to make sense
overall.

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Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

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John Dean - 28 Nov 2006 14:24 GMT

> "Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
> state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."
>
>Should the sentence be rewritten?

Oh yes

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John Dean
Oxford

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Mark Brader - 28 Nov 2006 18:52 GMT

Michael Dayzman:

> "Whether or not to persist a change would depend on the robot's belief
> state, which should be updated according to the provided guidelines."

> Does the relative clause "which should be updated according to the
> provided guidelines" refer to "change", "the robot", or "the robot's
> belief state"?

Clearly, the robot's belief state.

> Should the sentence be rewritten?

Only if (1) you did not intend the above answer to be correct or if
(2) you did not intend to be using "persist" transitively as jargon
for "to make persistent". This latter usage is unfamiliar to me, but
seems a natural jargon development if you have to talk about that
sort of thing a lot.

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msb@vex.net | in clear, active-voice English." -- US gov't memo

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Ambiguity