Elmar Unnsteinsson

Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin.
Research Scientist, University of Iceland.

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

can I unfollow myself?

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@ParkerGames Thank you from my son, who makes drawings like this one every day :)

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

Mind and Language published an exchange between Rachel Goodman and me. I learned a lot from doing this and Rachel's comments are great. Not so sure about my attempted responses, but maybe the distinction between identity and 'fregentity' will catch on? https://t.co/EEtbtNTt8n

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

“If there is a King of Iceland, it is typically me.”

[Sam Berstler @sam_berstler]

@unnsteinsson The King of Iceland did it again. Some of my favorite people in philosophy.

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@keith_wilson And Google Scholar returns something like 2500 entries, all from recent decades it seems...

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

Does any other field use ‘Anglophone’ as their in-group marker? Anglophone linguistics? Anglophone psychology? Or is this yet another quirk of philosophers?

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@keith_wilson Well, Ngram at least suggest something different: https://t.co/lTsZaAxJUH

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@EdvardoTorres I think Grice taught us that, without using the Austinian term 'uptake,' and that for a long time people only read Strawson's explanation of this. But anyway, people also want us to believe what they say.

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

Don’t believe anything people say to you, because that’s exactly what they want you to do.

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

'Pamela' by TOTO (1988) is not as good as 'Pamela' by the Icelandic band Dúkkulísurnar (1984). Check it out. But you can now also read my responses to the (great) comments on my book, forthcoming in an Inquiry special issue. https://t.co/4R5hSWj1K7

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

I'm hiring a two-year postdoc in philosophy of language and mind, based at the University of Iceland. The postdoc will also be a Visiting Scholar at University College Dublin. Based on a grant @danielwharris and I received: https://t.co/MKwh5DkTGF

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

What is the most frequent number of minutes such that humans remember something that happened that many minutes ago? (Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years...)

[The Dissenter @TheDissenterYT]

New episode (888), with Dr. Elmar Unnsteinsson (@unnsteinsson) about his book, Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference. #Philosophy

YouTube: https://t.co/HQvFJ2SWwT
Podcast: https://t.co/cfB4ER9gZa

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

3rd try

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

Trying to get ChatGPT to design a brass plaque shaped like the word "mother" to use as a paperweight. Various failed attempts below...

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

2nd try

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@dioscuri Yeah, that’s a good analogy, but the LLM output is native-level which makes it very weird for it to propose impossible interpretations. Like treating a sentence in your native language as if it were Latin.

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

This remains my favorite example. Even ChatGPT-4 continues to propose what I take to be impossible readings of this sentence (see no. 2 below).

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

@dioscuri Right, what I find so interesting about the garden path sentences is that the error is distinctly non-humanlike (at least so it seems to me).

[Elmar Unnsteinsson @unnsteinsson]

But the ultimate Turing test is to be able to write an authentic dróttkvæði, and I have to say, ChatGPT-4 is getting very close!