Talk:2518: Lumpers and Splitters

Lumping and splitting doesn't just apply to groups of people. It describes the way people categorize things in general. Barmar (talk) 00:13, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I really thought this was about the different focus in individuals and other systems (notably AI research), to either pay attention to individual diverse detail, often involving great memory, or form patterns to generalize everything, often involving great ingenuity. It is the latter path ("lumping") where one used to imagine an AI transfering learning to its own processes ("meta"), and then taking off as a hyperintelligence that improves itself exponentially more rapidly. 172.70.110.173 00:16, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Whereas this could be a goid example for lumping and splitting, there are many. It is really about top-down vs. bottom-up with the added twist to emphasize the subjects doing those approaches and (in the main comic) applying those self-referentially. This meta aspect you mentioned makes it a more interesting fit, hmmmhh. --162.158.88.5 06:37, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been a lurker here for many years but I've never edited, so I don't know what's appropriate. Is it notable that the term "splitter" is used in the same sense in the movie "Monty Python's Life of Brian"? Maybe not, but if so, it would say something like "A notable use of the term splitter is in [LoB] when the 'People's Party of Judea' is used to satirize contemporary (1970s) factional communist parties." I've never heard the term lumper before this comic.172.68.133.139 03:14, 21 September 2021 (UTC)