This is a nice first pass at the common sense problems with interpreting FDA regulations. I imagine that those who have been dealing with this for some time aren't as confused as the author suggests we should be. On the first pass, for example, are human subjects involved? Do you interact with humans? No, then probably not. There are many subtleties after that, but it's not so bad as the poster suggests. I remember a comment one investigator told me about animal research, where he illustrated the problem by saying you can go into a grocery store and buy a leg of lamb and do anything you want with it, but don't call it research!
This review of Matti Eklund's book, Alien Structure: Language and Reality, made me wonder if an alien language is even possible. Wouldn't any representational system need to use logic? When the reviewer asks, "if we wish to know whether a given language is alien, we will need some way to connect its sentences with propositions" then doesn't that mean alphabet, grammar, axioms and rules of inference that are computable (whether or not sensical)?
Analytic writing goes back to Newton and Leibnitz, but the psychology of thinking in terms of synthetic or analytic propositions derives from Kant. He added synthetic in an attempt to illustrate something outside of direct experience, but there are still problems with Kant.
Recommended by Scott Aaronson who writes, "My friend Leopold Aschenbrenner, who I got to know and respect on OpenAI’s now-disbanded Superalignment team before he left the company under disputed circumstances, just released “Situational Awareness,” one of the most extraordinary documents I’ve ever read. . . Leopold sets out his vision of how AI is going to transform civilization over the next 5-10 years."
The author doesn't consider, or comment on, or maybe doesn't know about, Voeglin's thesis that the Hebrews exemplify a bringing-about of order out of disorder with a reflective understanding about the importance for the future of mankind, and making a record in that regard, i.e., History