Randi's "Gibberish"

[Orphia Nay]

I've been enjoying Mr. Randi's comments on Deleuze & Guattari's post-modernist gobbledygook, just as I enjoyed studying Alan Sokal's brilliant hoax in my university days.

In Randi's latest commentary (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-09/090106cruise.html#i4), inspired by Guattari's torturous drivel (thanks Paul C. Anagnostopoulos), he creates his own post-modernist request to "please pass the salt":

If your satisfaction factor is met sufficiently, I would be edified upon your eventual temporary, mechanically-implemented, digital (“hand”-referenced) transfer of the observed and indicated container of natrum muriaticum, in my direction.



Even though it's very funny, I would have to say that Randi couldn't make a good post-modernist because his statement:
a) has a point
b) can (eventually) be deciphered.

I'm sure we'll all be happy if he sticks to his day job. :D

[skullerello]

While I simply gave it a once-over reading this week's commentary, I actually read it (Randi's post-modern statement) in your post.
It took a few Margaritas, but I eventually got it.

[Orphia Nay]

Hehehe. Cheers!

I guess Mr. Randi's logic is just too deep-seated for him to ever not make sense.

[calebprime]

Randi makes too much sense. There's software that will churn this stuff out:

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo


"The notion of scale needs to be expanded to consider fractal symmetries in ontological terms."

How can anyone quarrel with this? I've often said the same.

[Orphia Nay]

Yes, calebprime, what that software generates is just like the real thing. I remember having fun when I found it a while ago, even though some of the 'contemporary' references were a bit dated. The other text generators at that site are fun, too.

How can anyone quarrel with this? Good point. Any response you make is just countered with more of the same rubbish.

[Wudang]

Yes, what JR is doing is what Boren referred to as "linear mumbling"in book "When in doubt, mumble".
I once pointed a friend with a degree in semiotics at a webpage from the dada engine. He described it as deep with "a couple of PhD possibilities". When I told him it was computer-generated he said "There's no way I can recover from that, is there?". Which I thought pretty honest. And accurate.

[tracer]

How can anyone quarrel with this?
You're just perpetuating the ontological mechanistic neoiconoclasm of established paradigmatic falvebarms! Honestly, that is just soooo linear.

[skullerello]

You're just perpetuating the ontological mechanistic neoiconoclasm of established paradigmatic falvebarms! Honestly, that is just soooo linear.

Holy gobbledegook, Tracer! Can I run that through Babelfish?

[Tez]

Yes, what JR is doing is what Boren referred to as "linear mumbling"in book "When in doubt, mumble".
I once pointed a friend with a degree in semiotics at a webpage from the dada engine. He described it as deep with "a couple of PhD possibilities". When I told him it was computer-generated he said "There's no way I can recover from that, is there?". Which I thought pretty honest. And accurate.

Thats pretty funny. Did it provoke him into a sensible reflection on the whole nonsense?

I once had a crackpot email me, and I replied by copy pasting in a page from the dada engine crackpot generator. He replied that much of what I said he had thought about too, and he thought it was very important. I replied with another page of crackpotese, and so on till he gave up...