Precision

[EyeKhan]

Is it true that the value we attach to the work we - humanity - do is in large part gauged by the level of precision represented in that work?

I hypothisize YES. Precision is a fundamental characteristic of what humanity, in general, considers valuable work.

Art, literature, music, science, engineering, architecture, sports of all kinds, warfare, everything I can think of is regarded better with greater precision.

Con arguments? I can think of a few, like impressionism. Monet's paintings, on the surface, don't look precise. Jackson Pollack's paintings don't appear precise. But I argue appearance is deceiving in those cases. They are precise works.


Note: I'm sure some would say this is not a serious enough topic to be in Debate & Discussion. I thoought some about it and concluded it passed muster. For those that disagree, ok. Its here, though.

[GGT]

I wouldn't say it's Precision that we value, at least not all the time. Maybe Quality or Excellence. Or being unique and new (as in art and music).

[Illusions]

This is pretty much going to be a completely wasteful conversation as you've set forth a hypothesis, based on a vague idea, centered on a word which you have improperly defined and are using, or at the very least using vaguely, and have, and will continue to in the future, defend it using subjective interpretation. This is not how you prove or disprove a hypothesis. I actually don't know how to go about even discussing this there is so much wrong with it fundamentally. If you wish to proceed:

1. Define precision in your own words, and what you think it means, and then explain why whatever you think it means is better than its actual definition.

2. State that its your opinion, not a hypothesis, unless you're willing to actually debate this on objective terms and concede that you're wrong when someone musters the facts to back their counter-argument. Remember however that opinions can be countered by facts as well. I could have the opinion that gravity is the result of invisible pixies pushing people towards the Earth, but I would be wrong.

3. When citing what you believe to be a "precise work" explain how it is precise, objectively if you want to "hypothesize" or subjectively if you want it to be your opinion, according to the definition you provided us with from #1.

[Wraith]

Is it true that the value we attach to the work we - humanity - do is in large part gauged by the level of precision represented in that work?

I hypothisize YES. Precision is a fundamental characteristic of what humanity, in general, considers valuable work.

Art, literature, music, science, engineering, architecture, sports of all kinds, warfare, everything I can think of is regarded better with greater precision.

Con arguments? I can think of a few, like impressionism. Monet's paintings, on the surface, don't look precise. Jackson Pollack's paintings don't appear precise. But I argue appearance is deceiving in those cases. They are precise works.

So, basically, you've defined "precision" such that your statement is a truism?

[earthJoker]

Con arguments? I can think of a few, like impressionism. Monet's paintings, on the surface, don't look precise. Jackson Pollack's paintings don't appear precise. But I argue appearance is deceiving in those cases. They are precise works.

I think punk music would be a better example. Or maybe Dadaism.

Anyway I somehow agree, of course as an engineer, precision is a crucial part of my work.

So, basically, you've defined "precision" such that your statement is a truism?

[RandBlade]

Precision is something that is necessary but not sufficient and I'm not sure what we're supposed to be discussing or debating here, I doubt anyone will pipe up and say that inaccuracy is more important

[EyeKhan]

I wouldn't say it's Precision that we value, at least not all the time. Maybe Quality or Excellence. Or being unique and new (as in art and music).

How are you defining precision? I'd think its a requirement for quality in most things, if not everything made by human endeavor.

[EyeKhan]

This is pretty much going to be a completely wasteful conversation as you've set forth a hypothesis, based on a vague idea, centered on a word which you have improperly defined and are using, or at the very least using vaguely, and have, and will continue to in the future, defend it using subjective interpretation. This is not how you prove or disprove a hypothesis. I actually don't know how to go about even discussing this there is so much wrong with it fundamentally. If you wish to proceed:

1. Define precision in your own words, and what you think it means, and then explain why whatever you think it means is better than its actual definition.

2. State that its your opinion, not a hypothesis, unless you're willing to actually debate this on objective terms and concede that you're wrong when someone musters the facts to back their counter-argument. Remember however that opinions can be countered by facts as well. I could have the opinion that gravity is the result of invisible pixies pushing people towards the Earth, but I would be wrong.

3. When citing what you believe to be a "precise work" explain how it is precise, objectively if you want to "hypothesize" or subjectively if you want it to be your opinion, according to the definition you provided us with from #1.

Don't forget, you don't have to post here if you don't like the topic.

With that understanding as a base for going forward, perhaps you can try to be a little nicer. Maybe you are trying and this is the result? Hard to tell, so whatever.


Here's what dictionary.com defines precision:

pre·ci·sion

   /prɪˈsɪʒən/ Show Spelled[pri-sizh-uhn] Show IPA
–noun 1. the state or quality of being precise.

2. accuracy; exactness: to arrive at an estimate with precision.

3. mechanical or scientific exactness: a lens ground with precision.

4. punctiliousness; strictness: precision in one's business dealings.

5. Mathematics . the degree to which the correctness of a quantity is expressed. Compare accuracy ( def. 3 ) .

6. Chemistry, Physics . the extent to which a given set of measurements of the same sample agree with their mean. Compare accuracy ( def. 2 ) .

Also:

World English Dictionary
precision (prɪˈsɪʒən) — n

1. the quality of being precise; accuracy

2.( modifier ) characterized by or having a high degree of exactness: precision grinding ; a precision instrument

And some synonyms from thesaurus.com:

Main Entry: precision Part of Speech: noun Definition: accuracy
Synonyms: attention, care, carefulness, correctness, definiteness, definitiveness, definitude, exactitude, exactness, fidelity, heed, meticulousness, nicety, particularity, preciseness, rigor, sureness

Now, here is my hypothesis, which until proven by whatever means is in fact an opinion, if you're not exact and precise and meticulous in your art, your sport, your cooking, your job, and whatever else you might do with your mind and your hands, your work will be less valuable. Conversely, our most valued endeavors require a great deal of precision. Literally anything will do as an example.

[RandBlade]

How are you defining precision? I'd think its a requirement for quality in most things, if not everything made by human endeavor.

How are you?

There's no point being precise about poor quality. You can be very precise if your standards are wrong it's still going to be bad though.

EG I heard of one company nearby where everything built was supposed to have 2 of a certain part in it, the business was failing so to cut costs the owner changed it surriptitiously to having just 1 of each part in it instead. Now it was very "precise" - precisely one of each. Exact same every time, couldn't get much more precise than that. But it was also awful quality.

Precision is absolutely meaningless on its own.

[EyeKhan]

So, basically, you've defined "precision" such that your statement is a truism?

Is that an actual question? How odd that Illusions gushes about how completely wrong my OP is and you state simply its worded to be obviously true.

[wiggin]

I doubt I'll stick around for long on this one, but a corollary to RB's 'necessary but not sufficient' is this: It inevitably costs more to make something precisely. I am an engineer, so I define precision as the 'scatter' or deviation of a given value from data point to data point. Thus, if I manufacture meter sticks, and all of them are 1.02 meters long within 1 micron, that's precise (not particularly accurate, but certainly precise).

Obviously this costs more to make for very high levels of precision (lower levels of precision as oftentimes cheaper - e.g. the switch from hand-tooling parts to machine tooling saved a lot of money on labor and also was more precise). So in that sense, yes, we 'value' precision. It also makes many manufacturing processes easier - if you have very small tolerances on your parts in, say, a car.

That being said, precision is not 'valued' in that it always is useful or improves the actual utility of a product. Generally there is a minimum precision necessary for a product to consistently work as designed. But beyond this, you rarely get significant performance improvements out of further gains in precision. In that case, you're just adding cost without adding value. For that matter, it might actually detract from its value, as a product can get overdesigned - if the pieces are generally quite precise, the designer might make the required tolerances so small that even very small faults are poorly tolerated.

I would go further to suggest that precision in other more vaguely defined fields (e.g. music) is largely irrelevant. Music that sounds precisely the same every time it is played is frequently labeled as 'mechanical' or uninspiring. In fact, many forms of music (e.g. jazz) embrace improvisation and variations on a theme from performance to performance. Similarly, warfare doesn't just need to be precise - it also needs to be accurate, which is probably more important. In sports, it doesn't matter if you execute every play identically if you can't actually do it correctly (and for that matter, changing up a play in an unexpected way is probably one of the most effectively non-precise moves out there).

Bottom line, I think you're confusing the term 'precision' with something else - elegance, perhaps? And if you do choose to discuss a different term, please define it first.

[EyeKhan]

I think punk music would be a better example.

I was just thinking that same thing. I was also thinking of forms of dance, say like a mosh pit or something. The dance can be dismissed as not particularly valuable, and I've never been a fan of punk music, so . . . . But that is a good point. Jazz might be another one with its improvisation. But the precision comes into the actual playing, even if they do improvise as they go. They're not being sloppy about it.

Or maybe Dadaism.

Had to look that up:

Dada or Dadaism (ˈdɑːdɑː, ˈdɑːdɑːˌɪzəm) — n a nihilistic artistic movement of the early 20th century in W Europe and the US, founded on principles of irrationality, incongruity, and irreverence towards accepted aesthetic criteria

Interesting. I don't know enough to comment, though Wikipedia had some examples for da da work. Was it random and sloppy, or was it carefully designed to be counter-cultural for the time? And how valued was it / is it beyond a counter-cultural curiosity?

Precision is something that is necessary but not sufficient and I'm not sure what we're supposed to be discussing or debating here, I doubt anyone will pipe up and say that inaccuracy is more important

That's pretty much what DW meant. And as far as being sufficient, it probably depends. Maybe the correct idea here is that being precise in any discipline is the core criteria for skill???

How are you?

See above.

There's no point being precise about poor quality. You can be very precise if your standards are wrong it's still going to be bad though.

Precisely bad? Well, putting on my Six Sigma hat, a very precise process that's producing consistently bad product is much better than a variable process that's delivering results all over the place. Much easier to fix too.

Precision is absolutely meaningless on its own.

I suppose one assumption is you're striving to produce something of value.

[RandBlade]

I still don't get what your point is at all so am going to stop replying now. No I would not say precision is "the" core criteria of skills.

To be pedantic both wiggin and I have both given an example now where the word accurate would be right while the word precise is not.

[earthJoker]

Is that an actual question? How odd that Illusions gushes about how completely wrong my OP is and you state simply its worded to be obviously true.

Well either you use a narrow definition of precision (technical) and than it's wrong, or you use such a loose definition, that it can be adopted for everything.

[EyeKhan]

I would go further to suggest that precision in other more vaguely defined fields (e.g. music) is largely irrelevant. Music that sounds precisely the same every time it is played is frequently labeled as 'mechanical' or uninspiring. In fact, many forms of music (e.g. jazz) embrace improvisation and variations on a theme from performance to performance.

I'm not a musician, but from outside looking in it appears that playing an instrument skillfully requires a great deal of precision. A Jazz artist might be improvising as he plays, but each note is very practiced and very precise. If it wasn't, it would sound awful. The one exception I can think of, as pointed out above, is music (or art) that is intentionally sloppy and inexact, like Punk music.

Similarly, warfare doesn't just need to be precise - it also needs to be accurate, which is probably more important. In sports, it doesn't matter if you execute every play identically if you can't actually do it correctly (and for that matter, changing up a play in an unexpected way is probably one of the most effectively non-precise moves out there).

Bottom line, I think you're confusing the term 'precision' with something else - elegance, perhaps? And if you do choose to discuss a different term, please define it first.

See above on definitions. Ah, accuracy... Per dictionary.com

ac·cu·ra·cy

   /ˈækyərəsi/ Show Spelled[ak-yer-uh-see] Show IPA
–noun, plural -cies. 1. the condition or quality of being true, correct, or exact; freedom from error or defect; precision or exactness; correctness.

2. Chemistry, Physics . the extent to which a given measurement agrees with the standard value for that measurement. Compare precision ( def. 6 ) .

3. Mathematics . the degree of correctness of a quantity, expression, etc. Compare precision ( def. 5 ) .

The engineering types here, like yourself, are very specific in use of terms like precision and accuracy, whereas the lay people, such as myself, use an interchangable definition like what we see above (precision being used to define accuracy...). In any case, my musings are using the looser, ahem, less precise term. Which might explain the eye-rolling condescension you opened your post with - less precise is less valued.

I still don't get what your point is at all so am going to stop replying now. No I would not say precision is "the" core criteria of skills.

To be pedantic both wiggin and I have both given an example now where the word accurate would be right while the word precise is not.

Except that the lay definition of accuracy includes precision. You're being too precise for this topic, apparently. And you don't have to accept it, or post again, obviously (btw, what's the point of saying "...so I'm going to stop replying now?" Just stop if you're not interested. ). But you've said nothing to show its wrong, so whatever. You'll just end up arguing the definition of accuracy and precision isn't any good, maybe attack dictionary.com, and so therefore skill doesn't require precision, which is, IMO, self-evidently false.

Well either you use a narrow definition of precision (technical) and than it's wrong, or you use such a loose definition, that it can be adopted for everything.

But isn't it interesting that two people got the exact opposite of these extremes from the same post? (It's why I love people. And hate them. )

[RandBlade]

Except that the lay definition of accuracy includes precision.

Indeed it does, just as animals include all dogs, but dogs does not include all animals.

You can be precise but incorrect in which case you're inaccurate.

I could say 8/15 = 0.56789 in which case I'm being very precise, since normally 5 decimal places is considered to be quite precise.
Or I could say 8/15 = 0.533 which has a lower level of precision (only 3dp)

If I said the first I'd be acting to a higher level of precision, but I'd also be wrong, it is 0.533 with recurring 3's. Or 0.533 would typically be accepted as a good answer although it is less precise I am significantly more accurate.

[wiggin]

A 'loose' definition is useless in this discussion. Using the best definition out there (not some dictionary definition which is awful) you've been critiqued. If you want to define your terms differently, go ahead, but I'm not going to stick around for a vague discussion about a word no one actually quite knows what it means.

I also find it incredible that you think jazz has every note 'practiced and precise'. Have you ever played jazz? It couldn't be farther from the truth.

[EyeKhan]

Indeed it does, just as animals include all dogs, but dogs does not include all animals.

You can be precise but incorrect in which case you're inaccurate.

I could say 8/15 = 0.56789 in which case I'm being very precise, since normally 5 decimal places is considered to be quite precise. I'd also be wrong, it is 0.533 with recurring 3's. Or I could just say 0.533 in which case I'm being less precise that 0.56789 (3dp is less precise than 5dp) but I am significantly more accurate.

I understand the difference in the more precise definitions. Thanks. For clarity, the OP refers to the lay definition.

[RandBlade]

What exactly is your lay definition? Did you actually mean accurate?

[EyeKhan]

A 'loose' definition is useless in this discussion. Using the best definition out there (not some dictionary definition which is awful) you've been critiqued. If you want to define your terms differently, go ahead, but I'm not going to stick around for a vague discussion about a word no one actually quite knows what it means.

I also find it incredible that you think jazz has every note 'practiced and precise'. Have you ever played jazz? It couldn't be farther from the truth.

Woops, I called Rand as the one to attack the source. If you read my post, I specifically said I'm not a musician so do you really have to ask if I've ever played jazz? Interesting that it apparently doesn't matter how the instrument is played in jazz - the musician can just hit whatever note at whatever time and it all just comes out beautiful. Maybe I should give it a try, as there is apparently no skill required. See ya.

What exactly is your lay definition? Did you actually mean accurate?

Probably both. I obviously didn't put the rigor in use of terms that I should have. If I were starting the thread now I would use either both words or find some other that captures each.

[Illusions]

But isn't it interesting that two people got the exact opposite of these extremes from the same post? (It's why I love people. And hate them. )

We're both saying similar things. The wrongness I implied was because we're in a forum for debate and discussion, and your opening post is so vague as to make discussion difficult or meaningless, and then there is the whole fact of going about debating something that is constructed as a truism...

You're still:

1 - Failing to define a metric for why you consider something to be accurate or precise.
2 - Trying to tell people how to think. You're trying to explain how precision is necessary for artistic and scientific works to be valuable, and artists and scientists/engineers are telling you that this is not how we define precision, nor how we value it, and your retort is that we're being unnecessarily pedantic about the word precision.

[EyeKhan]

We're both <snip> being unnecessarily pedantic about the word precision.

You're probably right, this should have been in the sloppy forum. I was tired and musing, so shoot me.

EDIT: DW - if you want to move this to the more proper forum, be my guest.

[RandBlade]

Woops, I called Rand as the one to attack the source. If you read my post, I specifically said I'm not a musician so do you really have to ask if I've ever played jazz? Interesting that it apparently doesn't matter how the instrument is played in jazz - the musician can just hit whatever note at whatever time and it all just comes out beautiful. Maybe I should give it a try, as there is apparently no skill required. See ya.

Now you're being ridiculous. Wiggin never said that it doesn't matter what notes were hit. Your notions of "precision" would mean the best Jazz player would be an emotionless robot, a computer.

The best jazz is played with "soul". A good jazz player can simply hit the notes, a great jazz player can add fire to it. If every live performance sounded exactly like it did on a CD because there was such 'precision' then all live music would be pointless!

Similarly I once heard from somebody that they were making something hand-made that was coming out so good that it looked like it was produced in a factory as it was just flawless. Naturally things normally have flaws so they kept the high standards but started to introduce deliberate, minor flaws into it because customers paid a premium for it being hand-made.

One of the biggest problems CGI has/had with skin and hair is to deal with our natural inconsistencies and flaws we have in real life.

PS not sure why you asked DW to move it when he's not even replied once, I have

[Illusions]

One of the biggest problems CGI has/had with skin and hair is to deal with our natural inconsistencies and flaws we have in real life.

One of the things I was taught in my senior level undergrad course covering the 3D program Maya was to recognize the limitations of the software we were using. This was presented by our professor during a discussion of accuracy and precision, and how it relates to computer graphics, and 3D in general. For instance, there are a few ways to make a sphere. The quickest is to use one of two automated methods, or more specifically you click a button, and a sphere is created at the origin (0,0,0). First you have the polygon sphere. It is called a sphere by the program, but in reality it is not a sphere. How is it not a sphere though? First you must define what a sphere is:

Sphere - a three-dimensional closed surface such that every point on the surface is equidistant from the center.

This is one of the simplest definitions of a sphere available, and the easiest to illustrate these points with (going with a much more precise and accurate description, such as the one available here the computer generated object would fail on many more levels). So why is the object created by the computer program not a sphere?

Firstly its actually a polyhedron. What the program calls a sphere is actually an assembly of three and four sided polygons which closely approximates a spherical shape, how closely depending on how tessellated it is. The more tessellated this object is, the more polygons the object has, and the more it looks like a sphere. However, the downside to this is that the more polygons that are visible in a scene, the more computational power it requires to work with and render that scene.

Secondly, the algorithm that generates the object called a sphere is limited by the precision of the program in which that object exists, and how people decided it should handle dealing with things that lie outside that area of precision. Say I have a number, 0.123456789. Now say that the program I wish to enter this number in only stores numbers to the 5th decimal place. There are two ways to handle this. The program could just truncate it, in which case 0.123456789 becomes 0.12345, and loses an amount of 0.000006789. The other is rounding. 0.123456789 becomes 0.12346, in which case it gains an amount of .000004. This may not be important, and 0.12345 or 0.12346 might be good enough for what I'm doing, or it might not. The problem is, I don't get a choice in the matter. Whats good about this though is that Maya will store decimal places to reasonably precise amounts, of more than 50 decimal places. This point is complicated by the fact that Maya will lie to you. Yes, thats right, it will lie to you. In the attribute editor if you enter 0.123456789 as the X coordinate of where you want an object located, it will put it at 0.123456789 on the x-axis. It will then tell you in the attribute window that the object is sitting at 0.123 on the x-axis (rounding down). In fact if you copy and paste that number into other attributes it will paste it as 0.123. Why? Attributes by default are truncated to 3 decimal places when shown to the user.

To cut short this rambling, essentially what one has to due is set a bar for what is acceptable accuracy and precision when creating something in CG, and recognizing the trade-offs of doing so. The object we're calling a sphere just needs to look like a sphere to the vast majority of people in the manner in which it will be viewed.

[EyeKhan]

Wiggin never said that it doesn't matter what notes were hit. Your notions of "precision" would mean the best Jazz player would be an emotionless robot, a computer.

The best jazz is played with "soul". A good jazz player can simply hit the notes, a great jazz player can add fire to it. If every live performance sounded exactly like it did on a CD because there was such 'precision' then all live music would be pointless!

Similarly I once heard from somebody that they were making something hand-made that was coming out so good that it looked like it was produced in a factory as it was just flawless. Naturally things normally have flaws so they kept the high standards but started to introduce deliberate, minor flaws into it because customers paid a premium for it being hand-made.

One of the biggest problems CGI has/had with skin and hair is to deal with our natural inconsistencies and flaws we have in real life.

PS not sure why you asked DW to move it when he's not even replied once, I have

#1. I think I forgot you were a mod. I dunno. Weird.

#2. If you haven't discovered yet this is a pointless discussion, then allow me to help: The greatest musician knows first how to play - and that is a very precise talent requiring a great deal of accuracy. Now, to give it the soul you're talking about he has technique. He's not bumbling around guessing what to do to make that wonderful sound, he's doing exactly what needs to be done to produce a very specific result that is characteristic of his personal style. While it might have seemingly random elements in it (nothing is truely random ) the performance is very deliberate with a very precise methodology.

Regarding the artist inserting flaws to communicate the hand-made appearance, there's a deliberate method to that madness as well, I'm sure.

[wiggin]

By your reasoning, then, any product that is intentionally designed to be less precise (by my definition) is in fact more precise by yours. 'Deliberateness' or a specific 'methodology' to decrease the precision of a product/performance/whatever is somehow precise?

[EyeKhan]

By your reasoning, then, any product that is intentionally designed to be less precise (by my definition) is in fact more precise by yours. 'Deliberateness' or a specific 'methodology' to decrease the precision of a product/performance/whatever is somehow precise?

Haven't I already conceded there's an imprecise use of terms here? Do you read my posts all the way through? And don't tell they're too long, O wizard of word count.

[wiggin]

My point is that your definition can spin precision any way you want to fit your original thesis. This is a 'no true scotsman' kind of fallacy.

[RandBlade]

Absolutely wiggin

[Aimless]

I think we value effort, attention to detail, various aesthetic aspects--all of these may be elements of skill--and, finally, results/performance/function. Weighted differently from one application to the next and from one evaluator to the next. Some kinds of "precision" may affect the results/performance/function, and may also signal something about eg. the amount of effort that went into whatever it is we're looking at.