@kennethamy,
kennethamy;138792 wrote:Thank you. I'll read it. But let me remind you that Emile has a program which lets him write all sorts of plausible sounding nonsense. At least plausible at some level of plausibility.
Here is Emil's link:
The Postmodernism Generator Communications From Elsewhere
If you read the text below the essay, you will find a link to generate more such essays. The essays are generated by a computer program, not by a thinking being. Draw your own conclusions from that.
As for examples of nonsense, aside from the controversial ones, one can look at excellent benign examples of nonsense by reading the
Alice books by Lewis Carroll (
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [aka
Alice in Wonderland] and
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There). In those books, Lewis Carroll playfully manipulates language for the purpose of amusement. And although they are entertaining, they also teach an important lesson about language use, that it can go awry while still having some semblance of being intelligible. It is well worth reading the
Alice books to help aid one in spotting nonsense when one sees it. This ability is essential for anyone who wants to profit from reading many famous philosophers, as some of them have gone amiss occasionally, and still others have gone amiss almost exclusively.
What I am writing ought not be controversial, as I am not giving any controversial examples, but simply saying what pretty much everyone knows to be true.
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is obviously nonsensical, and anyone can generate obvious nonsense if one has any imagination and puts forth a small effort. Since nonsense is obviously possible, it then becomes a legitimate question, when looking at any new sentence, is that sentence meaningful or not? Of course, defenders of some piece of nonsense often resort to an ad hominem attack and say that the person who fails to understand the sentence is simply not smart enough to understand it, very much like the defense of the beauty of the nonexistent clothing in
The Emperor's New Clothes. If a sentence is meaningful, it can be explained. The burden of proof, if you will, is on the person who makes a statement and claims it is meaningful. Whenever there is any serious doubt about the meaningfulness of a statement, if they fail to explain it satisfactorily, then their statement may be dismissed as nonsense. If they themselves know what it means, they ought to be able to explain it and say what it literally is, and not simply hide behind obscure metaphors.
