Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Birth of a Notion.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, best, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                                                                     

Hexagigadecimetrical hypothesis of increasing disapprehension

the less sense something makes, the less likely people are to understand what you are trying to describe
  (+2, -7)(+2, -7)
(+2, -7)
  [vote for,
against]

This seems obvious on the surface, however, I would like to truly use the scientific method to ensure that when someone says something that truly does not make sense, people don't understand. I propose conducting experiments involving entirely made up terms and phrases, such as "the hexagigadecimetrical hypothesis of increasing disapprehension" (which admittedly kind of makes sense when you look at it again), and introducing new fields such as "preexistential facial characterization" into the popular dialougue and seeing how much sense people can make of them. Please let me know just how little sense you can make of this so I can finish this particular experiment attempting to disaffirm the hexagigadecimetrical hypothesis of increasing disapprehension.
Sparkyplugclean, Sep 12 2009

The Sokal Affair http://en.wikipedia...g/wiki/Sokal_affair
Wikipedia article: Physicist Alan Sokal submits hoax paper to scholarly journal—and they publish it. [Jim Bob of Merriam Park, Sep 13 2009]

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity http://www.physics...._v2_singlefile.html
Sokal's nonsense paper. [Jim Bob of Merriam Park, Sep 13 2009]

'Jabberwocky' by Lewis Carroll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky
Seems to fly in the face of your theory, Sparkyplugclean. Perhaps you should develop a 'Special Theory of Incomprehensibility' to account for artistic nonsense. [DrBob, Sep 14 2009]

Mind horizon profile Mind_20Horizon_20Profile
quantitative vectorization of scholarly, societal, and communicative effectiveness [Sparkyplugclean, Sep 15 2009]

Shameless plug Googolplexidecimal
[CaptainClapper, Sep 16 2009]

Exposure to nonsense makes you smarter? http://www.scienced...09/090915174455.htm
"The idea is that when you're exposed to a meaning threat –– something that fundamentally does not make sense –– your brain is going to respond by looking for some other kind of structure within your environment. And, it turns out, that structure can be completely unrelated to the meaning threat."

I take that to mean that if you read nonsense you will do your damnedest to convert it into something else that isn't nonsense. [DrBob, Sep 17 2009]

Pomo generator http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
inspired by Sokal - create your own meaninglessness. [pocmloc, Sep 17 2009]

A Mathematical Theory of Communication http://cm.bell-labs...day/shannon1948.pdf
By C. E. SHANNON July, October, 1948. [Ian Tindale, Sep 17 2009]

[link]






       What about, War On Terror?
Eggplant, Sep 12 2009
  

       I understand my shower but I can't understand my bath.
Ian Tindale, Sep 13 2009
  

       Why bother making stuff up when you have an entire academic field called philosophy to use?
Bad Jim, Sep 13 2009
  

       //popular dialougue// - can't be that popular unless you mean "dialounge" - a place where dials hang out to discuss the behaviour of their pointers.   

       ps - welcome to HB mr/mrs/mss/ Sparkyplugclean
xenzag, Sep 13 2009
  

       And so the conclusion of my thesis "Have I got jam for brains ?" is that "If I talk bollocks, nobody will understand."   

       For a quantitative measure of communication see my My Horizon Profile idea.
bigsleep, Sep 13 2009
  

       meh
dentworth, Sep 13 2009
  

       Do you realise that given the obfuscatory title of this idea, every time someone looks at it is evidence against it being correct? I would suggest that you make it increasingly obscure until it's ignored.
nineteenthly, Sep 13 2009
  

       That's simply not true, [nineteenthly]. The initial hypothesis pendulates anterior to incomprehensibility contra tendencies to stimulate third-party indifference.
pocmloc, Sep 13 2009
  

       Good stuff.
nineteenthly, Sep 13 2009
  

       I've had better.
Ian Tindale, Sep 13 2009
  

       [Sparky], you need to meet a man named Kevin Rudd. He's an expert at this shit.   

       We voted for him to be Prime Minister and he won... then his Übergeek personality got out of its coffin, dug all the way back to the surface, tracked him down and reinfected his body like a homesick turd making its way home.
UnaBubba, Sep 14 2009
  

       //like a homesick turd making its way home// - That's a strange simile. Is that what homesick turds do?
hippo, Sep 14 2009
  

       Good example, [egg]. Good call, [ian], [poc] I've heard of dorsal olfactory incomprehensibility theories, but understood they only applied to dogs. [bad jim] Pre-existential facial characterization is just a hobby for me. [xenzag] thank you, however, I like to stand alone in the crowd, dials or not. [bigsleep] the more bullocks I talk, the less people will understand, I think that was quite muddled, unless it got jammed. (checking soon, will cross) [dent] superleen tartary pouring skillwirsky [teenthly] I'm putting it on craigslist next. [poc] maximally accurate hypothesisation of causal reasoning of distally obfusticated titling arrangement. [bubba] Wow. [hippo] yes, that's why I'm here. [jimbob] thank you for the interesting link. [Drbob] I thought larry niven and the writer of alienvspredator both did a pretty good job with the jabberwocky and the "furious bandersnatch" This is somewhat like the prose I enjoy writing, but my syntax is more symbolic and purposefully confusing.
Sparkyplugclean, Sep 15 2009
  

       The return key is just so passe these days, don't you find?
nineteenthly, Sep 16 2009
  

       Q: What's smelly, brown and slimy; and crawls up your leg?   

       A: A homesick turd.   

       Old joke, bad image.
UnaBubba, Sep 16 2009
  

       ***smiling inwardly***My response was the most incomprehensible***s.i.***
dentworth, Sep 16 2009
  

       //was// - because you have let slip its significance, hahaha
pocmloc, Sep 16 2009
  

       . thgirottfelgnipytdna rabecapsehtsisa
nineteenthly, Sep 16 2009
  

       All your garnut alboir sicomg are belong to us.
Ian Tindale, Sep 17 2009
  

       my super cypher! Can you crack it? It's something I came up with so my classmates and I could pass notes without fear of being understood when they would inevitably be confiscated.   

       BQO-DIY-GHI-LOL-XOV-EHA!
CaptainClapper, Sep 17 2009
  

       Purple Horoscope Shovel
UnaBubba, Sep 17 2009
  

       KO XIN WUG YEX WEZ OLX WAO WCE JWO QBZ!   

       here's a bigger sample - anyone who cracks it gets auto-bun for life... (I had to take the hyphens out due to word length restrictions)
CaptainClapper, Sep 17 2009
  

       The subject is contextualised into a capitalist posttextual theory that includes art as a paradox. But several dedeconstructivisms concerning predialectic nationalism may be discovered. See link.
pocmloc, Sep 17 2009
  

       Start at the top of page 5 of the pdf of Claude Shannon's "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" (linked) and go through to page 7.
Ian Tindale, Sep 17 2009
  

       I'm going to try this theory with [beanangel] and see what happens. Wish me luck.
RayfordSteele, Sep 17 2009
  

       Garnut Alboir Sicomg = Biracial Gorgon Smut = Acrobat Luring Gismo = Cur Rooting Mailbags   

       Whatever.
UnaBubba, Sep 17 2009
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle