Essays for free

[Fiona]

Are you all aware of this. No two essays the same.
http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

[Cuchulain82]

That is amazing

[Obi-Wan-Evan]

Wow...

[Xandax]

To me it is mostly gibberish with no meaning other then some catchy "buzzword phrases" placed together. The essayes might not be identical, but they surly are similar indeed in wording, structure and lack of actual meaning.

I'm not impressed.

[fable]

I'm with Xan. It was amusing the first time I saw this kind of clever parody a number of years ago, done with a little AI program that proported to answer your questions interactively; and after that, with a DOS-based program called Babble. But basically, it's just nonsense built using a specific kind of jargon.

[Fiona]

But that's the point isn't it ? Did you read the bottom of the page ? This isn't serious but what Sokal and Bricmont did was, I think

[Dottie]

So do I, The text is gibberish, but there was originally a point to it.

Alan Sokal

Why he did it

I vaguely recall there have been discussions on SYM briefly touching this issue. I will try looking for them.

[VonDondu]

Rather than "gibberish", to me they are texts that have "accidental meaning". Words have meaning, and when you read a bunch of them and try to make sense of them, your mind is filled with ideas. Back in college, I read several books and essays that left me wondering what the hell the authors were trying to say, and only by overlaying a reasonable interpretation of my own could I come away with any sort of understanding. When an author intends his or her writing to convey a certain meaning, I'm pretty sure you can say there's something objective about (it is not purely subjective). But I believe that the meaning that is gleaned by any reader is entirely subjective, because the words might mean something completely different to a reader than the author intended, or there are associations and related ideas that the author never intended.

Bear in mind that words can obscure meaning as well as illuminate it. The conservatives in my country have a lot of practice in obscuring a debate with their special brand of rhetoric. They derail a debate to make you think about their "talking points" instead of thinking about the original issues and questions. Conservatives make fun of post-modernism, but you can easily create a program that will spit out conservative rhetoric to "answer" any question or objection you throw at it, without any regard for true "meaning". That is exactly what media outlets such as Fox "News" utilize 24 hours a day.

[Fiona]

Von Dondu

I can agree with you to a point.There are texts which are difficult and which reward effort. But although there are unintended associations etc, the only field where I think that is avowably the point is in poetry ( sort of after TS Eliot's view). The purpose of other kinds of writing and speech is to communicate ideas from one mind to another, mostly. The process you describe can enrich thought and dialogue but it is mainly useful when the recipient recognises them and comminicates them back. If the reader's interpretation is entirely subjective I don't see we can get anywhere at all. Surely language is shared, even though I acknowledge it's limitations ?

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by Fiona

But that's the point isn't it ? Did you read the bottom of the page ? This isn't serious but what Sokal and Bricmont did was, I think

Still doesn't make it impressive or amazing

It was cleaver and impressive when the first couple of people did it (much like any other program), but not anymore. Now there has to be meaning behind the words for it to be impressive.

[Dottie]

@VonDondu: I should not have written gibberish, now I feel illiterate.

I won't agree that language percived is entirely subjective though. I think it's important to ba able to assess what people communicate by objective criteria, exactly to avoid the kind of practice you describe below.

Originally Posted by VonDondu

Bear in mind that words can obscure meaning as well as illuminate it. The conservatives in my country have a lot of practice in obscuring a debate with their special brand of rhetoric. They derail a debate to make you think about their "talking points" instead of thinking about the original issues and questions. Conservatives make fun of post-modernism, but you can easily create a program that will spit out conservative rhetoric to "answer" any question or objection you throw at it, without any regard for true "meaning". That is exactly what media outlets such as Fox "News" utilize 24 hours a day.

And as far as I can see that relates to Sokal's article as well.

[VonDondu]

Originally Posted by Dottie

I won't agree that language percived is entirely subjective though. I think it's important to be able to assess what people communicate by objective criteria, exactly to avoid the kind of practice you describe below...

And as far as I can see that relates to Sokal's article as well.

Yes, Sokal made a similar point. But he seems to be limiting himself to the shortcomings of "the Left" and people such as liberal "lit crits". I was pointing out that "Conservatives" deliberately use such BS to control the political discourse in my country.

I didn't mean to suggest that a reader's interpretation is entirely subjective. But sometimes it is difficult for me to get my point across to other people because they think my words mean something else or they make associations I never intended or our frame of mind is so different, I'm not sure what my words mean to them.

I would like to think that we can use objective criteria to nail down the meaning of the words we use. It's a worthy goal. But as Sokal himself stated, "No Left can be effective unless it takes seriously questions of scientific fact and of ethical values and of economic interests." I'm quoting him slightly out of context, but to me that means that when you analyze an author's intented meaning, you need to take those subjective things into account. To which I would add, you also need to take those things into account when you analyze a specific reader's interpretation of an "objective" essay. So in the end, even if an essay has a specific intended meaning, I think the communication process itself has a lot of slack, so to speak, and there's no telling what will happen when a specific individual tries to process what someone else has written.

Originally Posted by Fiona

VonDondu

I can agree with you to a point. There are texts which are difficult and which reward effort. But although there are unintended associations etc, the only field where I think that is avowably the point is in poetry (sort of after TS Eliot's view). The purpose of other kinds of writing and speech is to communicate ideas from one mind to another, mostly. The process you describe can enrich thought and dialogue but it is mainly useful when the recipient recognises them and comminicates them back. If the reader's interpretation is entirely subjective I don't see we can get anywhere at all. Surely language is shared, even though I acknowledge it's limitations ?

Well, if you're going to argue that words have objective meanings, then even a randomly-assembled group of words has as much meaning as an essay written by an author with specific intentions. Otherwise, if you think that a computer-generated essay is less substantive than the work of a deliberating author, then you would have to argue that there is some "metaphysical" difference based on the thought processes of the author, and I for one am afraid to "go there".

[Fiona]

"Colourless green dreams sleep furiously" (Chomsky)

I do not think I can accept your first sentence, as it seems to contain a non-sequitur. I do believe that words have objective meaning but I also believe that context matters. Most people will try very hard to find meaning in a text which appears to have none. We seem to be hard wired that way. But the fact that you can force a meaning out of such a sentence as the first one above does not mean it has one. That is not true of the rest of this post (I hope).Since I am not driven to your first conclusion, thankfully it follows that I don't have to get into metaphysics either

[VonDondu]

I don't have much time to post right now, but what "context" are you talking about? When I talk about an essay, I'm talking about the words on the page, so to speak. If I have to understand the author's intentions before I can understand what the words in the essay mean, then the words themselves are not objective at all. If I'm supposed to consider the "point" the author is trying to make in a larger "context", then I'm dealing with something inside the author's head that isn't on the written page. And I'm afraid that draws us into something "metaphysical".

[Fiona]

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I meant the other words around it in the text.