On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit [pdf]

journal.sjdm.org

17 pointsfermienrico16 comments

I see this in Art all the time.

Ever read a description or a brochure for an art show? An artists' biography?

It is full of infuriating bullshit.

It was so refreshing to read Francis Bacon's newly released Catalog Raisonne. All descriptions and biographical information is factual without any discussion of some pseudo-profound meaning. Same goes for good art critics such as David Sylvester[1]. He was one of the very few art critics that tried go past the pseudo-intellectual bullshit and truly understand Art and the Artist behind it.

I have read dozens if not hundreds of art catalogs, brochures and biographies. As an objective person, it is so difficult to get past the bullshit to actually understand and approach art.

I went to Georgia Tech and took the Renassaince Art course. About 98% was bullshit to the point I thought that it was some kind of a joke. I couldn't believe it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFMH_D6xLk

I think a lot of the current state of art criticism has to do with philosopher's like Barthes advocating the proverbial "death of the author". After that idea was discovered by liberal arts academia a floodgate of bullshit was released and humanities departments everywhere basically lot whatever credibility they had. After all, if every interpretation of an piece of art is correct, why bother spending any time coming up with what the artist actually meant to say? Much easier to just fill your interpretations with psuedo-intellectual artistic buzzwords and call it a day.

This is too amusing. Speaking about interpretations, I love watching Sotheby's TV [1] for some A-grade highly polished expensive marketing bullshit. It is enjoyable bullshit that makes ya wish you were rich.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/SothebysTV

Sounds like modern day journalism.

"After all, if every opinion of what happened is valid and correct (because muh feels), why bother spending any time investigating what actually happened and reporting just the facts?"

I can think of one alternative interpretation: maybe some folks are better at finding the truth in a statement. E.g. with the statement 'Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty,' which is a machine-generated statement. Bullshit, according to the authors. Certainly, though, the statement 'hidden meaning transforms [the unhidden] beauty [of the object being beheld]' is both true and somewhat profound (imagine, say, a piece of art which is itself beautiful but which contains references to something a beholder finds distasteful — say, a beautiful state of a Confederate general on a horse: a beholder might love the statue until he's told what it represents). The only real garbage word in the original statement is 'unparalleled' — but that is basically a flavouring particle in speech, meaning not much at all.

An unintelligent person might make nothing of the 'bullshit' statement; and intelligent person might find a meaning for it which makes sense, and thus finds it profound.

As opposed to the unintelligent / intelligent criteria. I think it's more likely closer to being (at time of reading) positioned intellectually to (a) value a particular expression as having some level of profundity, vs (b) seeing the same expression as some level of complete and utter horse plop.

I think there is often a meta level too, where the intellectual state is positioned at a crossroads of moving from the perception of profundity as bullshit, and subsequently, beginning to see certain (previously seen as) bullshit as profound.

I think it's worth making the (obvious) case that intellectual life is not a fixed constant, and is infact a continuous organic, individual process. Generalising is as useless as it always is.

It's a great paper, for sure. But using Chopra as an example was somewhat a cheap shot. I mean, many people rather suspects that he's bullshitting. But why not Buddha, Zen masters, etc? As I understand it, ambiguity creates space for introspection and contemplation. Maybe people who don't get that hear them as bullshit.

I don't think so. I mean, Dr. Chopra has mastered bullshit like no other :). It puts Buddha and all kinds of zen masters to shame. The amount of bullshit that spews out of Chopra is probably more than the rest of the bullshitters combined.

I have no mercy for Chopra. Dude is in the zone for over 4 decades as Bill Burr would say it.

I don't disagree.

I'm just sayin' that the authors could just as easily have used quotes from Buddha, and obtained similar results. Or quotes from some paper in theoretical physics.

"Suspect"? Chopra has been used as a prime example of pure bullshit for decades, since his 1990's publication which helped popularize using the word "quantum" to sell tripe to the general public.

Yeah, OK. I was initially going to say "everyone suspects". Which is why the grammar error.

I honestly haven't followed him; is Chopra Buddhist?

Chopra is an insane dude. Youtube him. He has his own thing going on.

The flavor is Buddhist, no?

This is marked as dupe, could somebody post link to the original?

I don't know why this is marked dupe. If users can't find the darn paper easily, just let it go guys. New discussion is always refreshing.

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