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The Ivory Tower February 27, 2008

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Philosophy, Weird Crap , 8comments

Something amusing happened today.

As Kaks and I were working our way through our afternoon Literature 14/101/whatever class, our professor asked a classmate of ours – who, for the purposes of privacy, we will call ‘Vanessa’ – to deliver a rather short speech concerning her research paper on malls in the Philippines.

As she was delivering her oration, it occurred to me that the Triumvirate rarely, if ever, tackles topics concerning culture, art, and general social living, which of course encompasses “Vanessa”’s aforementioned research paper. Not that this is not the first time I took notice of it, but this is the first time that I actually ‘talked’ to someone about it. Unfortunately, the said someone did not know of the concept beforehand. The following index card shall show how I enlightened the said someone.

Resistance is Futile.

Subtitle: We will ponder on the nature and existence of god. Your malls are not relevant.

Of course, if you want a more concise definition, you can always check for it here.

They say that being called an inhabitant of the Ivory Tower is an insult, to which I respond by saying: “If you say so, commoner.” XD Shit. XD

And ‘Vanessa’, if you ever read this, no offense, lol.

That’s about it. XD

Filipino Class! November 18, 2007

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Weird Crap , 1 comment so far

So, yeah. Been a while, but that doesn’t really matter. I shall reserve the status report for a later date, seeing as how I have approximately forty pages of Filipino stuff to read.

 

Anyway, we had our first formal lecture last Wednesday. Ho-hum!

It was mostly about language, and how people conceived of it. Various conceptions were summarily given and refuted by our professor, ranging from Aristotle’s definition of language as a “mirror of life” to some unnamed individual’s “capturing of intention”. Curiously, the definition he seemed to favor was language as creation, seeing as how language is indeed limited by what words we have yet language’s – or humans’ – ability to create new words to encapsulate new meanings.

Sure, that’s all nice and fine, but I would just like to wonder why one has to ascribe such tedious descriptions to language when one can conveniently reduce it to a simple, reduced definition.

www.dictionary.com -

1. a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition: the two languages of Belgium; a Bantu language; the French language; the Yiddish language.
2. communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings; speech.
3. the system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in the abstract (opposed to speech).
4. any set or system of such symbols as used in a more or less uniform fashion by a number of people, who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another.
5. any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc.: the language of mathematics; sign language.

 

Can’t we stop there and just avoid all the ambiguous, “magical” and flowery stuff?

I mean, dood.

Pseudoprofundity October 22, 2007

Posted by Martin in : Philosophy, Weird Crap , 2comments

So. Before I go on, I have a statement: Since there were no responses, I’ll just have to razor it in the absence of evidence; there is an absence of evidence for, well, evidence. There’s no valid proof for contra-causal free will, so get over it. XD

And apologies for the apparent hiatus. There have been recent… complications which inevitably interfered with thinking clearly.

Now, on to the topic at hand.

 

Pseudoprofundity is a word that, by all means, is derived from the word “profound”. Obviously, “pseudo” means “fake”, or something along those lines. Sadly, lots of people mistake pseudoprofundity for, well, genuine profundity.

Surely enough, there’s a good reason for its existence. For those who actually are profound, it is immensely funny to let out a completely meaningless statement and watch other people nod in agreement. On the flipside, those who nod in agreement tend to copy such statements and label them as utterly true and profound, which is heretical.

Let us assemble a list, comrades. The symptoms of pseudoprofundity are as follows.

  1. Really, really heavy words
  2. Really, really technical words
  3. Really, really vague words
  4. Category errors

I think there might be more, but I don’t know.

 

Symptom one: Really, really heavy words

It’s almost an effortless endeavor, being pseudoprofound and all with this strategy. As the name implies, one need only apply weight on words – lots of weight. Basically, express your words in a very slow manner. To complement this effort, one should nod one’s head in an extremely knowing manner, and rubbing one’s chin could amplify the effect.

Death… comes to us all. Money… is used to buy things. The light… shines upon every man.

 

Symptom two: Really, really technical words

This one requires some vocabulary to pull off, as well as some quick thinking skills. In essence, merely replace mundane words with technical or scientific terms to bolster your profundity, thereby taking advantage of everyone else’s credulity.

Delicious steaks make most people happy.

Steaks with a favorable taste reception have the tendency to elicit a positive attitudinal response from most individuals.

Happy people can make more people happy.

Positive attitudinal dispositions have high transferability in social settings.

 

Symptom Three: Really, really vague words

Now, this requires some mystical skill. By really, really vague words, I mean really, really, mystical words – words that actually have no definite meaning when heard by other people. Usually, this strategy involves invoking some sort of supernatural mechanism to increase the perceived advantage when listening to your advice or whatnot.

Try talking to her again, but this time, turn off your phone. Radio waves tend to inhibit the Nang-he energies that affect her positive attitudinal dispositions.

Try other mechanisms concerning “energy” and “balance” as well. They’re immensely vague, but some people are just credulous enough to believe in them. Chakras and cosmic Feng Shui bullshit are prime examples.

A subset of this symptom would be words with opposed meanings. Without useless, unfruitful intellectual acrobatics, these things are simply meaningless.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

 

Symptom four: Category Errors

Now this, my friends, is the simplest of all methods in becoming a pseudoprofound git; the only prerequisite for this is for one to be emo, or something related to it. Yes, you read that right. You simply must be emo.

Let us begin with the definition of a Category Error. The term Category Error was first used by Gilbert Ryle to annihilate confusions due to Cartesian metaphysics (bullshit). In essence, a category error is a semantic or ontological error that occurs when one ascribes a property to something that simply cannot have the said property.

Okay, you don’t need to be emo. It’s simply that I’ve seen far too many status messages in Y!m displaying category errors, and the emo population is the most common propagator of such messages. This is not to say that emo songs are full of these things, but I wouldn’t really know firsthand; it’s not like I listen to such songs. Tsk tsk. Therefore, the examples will be those unrelated to emo songs.

I can taste the music in my mouthhhhhh.

I know you’re in there. I can hear you caring.

 

So, there you have it. If I ever catch you displaying these sordid attempts at profundity, I will beat you with a stick. A sharp stick.

So help me, God.

Proposition #4 October 7, 2007

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Propositions, Weird Crap , 9comments

We have a new proposition for you.

Proposition 4: More often than not, the earlier you make romantic advances towards a wimman in your life, the less chance you’ll have of ending up with her.

This is, of course, assuming that “ending up” with a wimman consists of a happy marriage, a happy live-in relationship, or anything that satisfies the criteria for a happy consummate love.

Onto the proposition itself. In essence, the sooner you hook up with someone in your life, the lesser your chances are of ending up with her; the resulting relationship between time of relationship initiation with likelihood of marriage is thus an inverse type of relationship. Also, since likelihood is measure in terms of probability, – which is denoted in decimal forms between 0 and 1 – the equation is inevitably exponential. For our purposes, we shall assume that the average marrying age is 25. Observe.

 

The primary reason as to why consummate love fails to come into being when a relationship is begun at the latter part of the graph – early in life – is quite simple. Wimmen essentially operate on illogic an irrationality. Wimmen children, however, multiply this effect exponentialy; when kid-ness is defined to end at thirteen years of age, this age subtracted from age of the wimman child defines just how many exponents one must apply to the base irrationality factor of the wimman. For example, the ten year old will have the irrationality factor to the third power; the eight year old will have it to the fifth power. Scary crap.

The reason why consummate love fails to come into being early in the graph – that is, in very close proximity to marriage date – is also fairly simple. Even when a wimman escapes kid-ness, she still retains the irrationality factor at the base power of one; e^1. Thus, when a relationship is begun too late, there is too little time for the male to adapt to the irrationality factor inherent in the wimman. Thus, the man becomes exasperated, the wimman becomes self-righteous, and the relationship collapses into a supermassive black hole.

 

Basically, I’m just saying that both high school and grade school love are very improbable to last beyond college years, or indeed, even high school years. Best course of action? Get a relationship in your late college life.

When more evidence surfaces for this little theory, tell me. It’s not like I’m going to be testing this myself.

By the way, none of this is factual. Have a fan-fucking-tastic day.

Status Report #1 October 2, 2007

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Religion/Atheism, Weird Crap , 10comments

After approximately twenty seconds of deep contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that I ought to occasionally write status reports concerning the general life of your dear author.

 

In the headlines of today: As of October 2, 2007, I am still an agnostic atheist. Three years have passed since I parted ways with the Catholic faith, and no sound argument compelling my return has as of yet been discovered; the cerebral senate, however, still remains open to change.

In other news: Last Sunday (September 30, 2007) was the date of birth of my genetic mother, and it is also the date of purchase of Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, an exquisite addition to the Imperial Library. Brain cells are in a state of excitement due to the fascinating insights of a philosophy graduate who is currently earning a Ph.d in neuroscience.

Today, however, is the birthday of my older brother, and by Catholic tradition, I am compelled to celebrate mass one extra time. The homily was amazingly funny; the first words that came out of the priest’s mouth were as follows:

“Angels exist.”

Yeah, sure, but only if you’re talking about exceedingly beautiful wimmen.

In the academic world: The Imperial Army has scored a minor victory today, owing to the glorious announcement of triumph in the class of Physics. I have been exempted from taking the final examination in Physics, thus reducing the number of finals to be taken to be two. Do not be fooled into thinking that I am boasting, however; the prerequisite for exemption is a mere B, which, in numerical form,ranges from 77 to 86, I believe. It is a rather low standard.

Generally, Quality Point Index average is on a sufficiently high standing, owing to the amazing lack of effort exercised by the intellectual forces. As of midterm standings, the QPI average was last computed to be 3, and analysts say that the margin of error in the final computation is rather small, being + or – .2 from the last average.

In the love section: Yeah right.

 

Well, that’s about it. Thanks for reading the first ever Imperial Status Report!

May you rule the world weakly, so that I may steal it from you.