6 ms·

If I can tell correctly, these statements were used as examples of bullshit (from [1]): 1. Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty. 2. Good he

• raverbashing 11y ago
  > I wonder what kind of bullshit other political groups (liberals, libertarians, anarchists, ...) fall prey to. An important question, certainly.
  • shoo 11y ago
    If we pick the political group "professionals" then Jeff Schmidt's book 'Disciplined Minds' may offer some insights. (It's not really about bullshit, but it is an excellent read).
  • venomsnake 11y ago
    Well ... go to everydayfeminism/reason/(whatever the favorite watering hole for anarchists is). Extract the most common in group lingo words. Mash them together and check. The tribal nature of the internet means there is lots of bullshit content generated as in group signaling/pandering (warning, this statement may also be bullshit)
• deleted 11y ago
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• venomsnake 11y ago
  > Although this statement may seem to convey some sort of potentially profound meaning, it is merely a collection of buzzwords put together randomly in a sentence that retains syntactic structure. That also describes accurately the pitch of some startups that I was in contact with recently. Blockchain, big data and cloud and 15 more in various permutations.
• DanBC 11y ago
  I too fall victim to 4. Put these in a nice image macro and I can imagine my facebook friends sharing on them their walls. 10, especially.
  • tomp 11y ago
    10 is very Zen.
    • DonHopkins 11y ago
      It's very Deepak. As in: you start to say "Deep" and then catch yourself being foolish, and then say "ak", because actually it's Chopra full of shit.
  • jonnathanson 11y ago
    Statement #4 kinda sorta starts to sound deep if you let your guard down. I'd argue it's the strongest bullshit in the lot. That said, I LMAO'd over #9.
    • tomp 11y ago
      > I'd argue it's the strongest bullshit in the lot. In many cases, however, it turned out to be true. Irrational fact: different yet highly optimized creatures live on this planet. Future explanation: evolution. Irrational fact: some stars move faster than others. Future explanation: planets orbiting the sun. Irrational fact: the planets' orbits aren't circles. Future explanation: Kepler's laws. etc.
      • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
        Except "facts" are generally defined as statements for which you have good reasons to consider them true, and "irrationality" is considering stuff true without a good reason.
      • jonnathanson 11y ago
        Yes, except that Statement 4, as written, implies that the future always explains irrational facts. This is bordering on magical, teleological thinking. There is no guarantee that all seemingly irrational observations today will necessarily be explained in the future. One would certainly hope that we'll gradually uncover all of life's mysteries as we progress in the sciences. But that is by no means assured. Like I said, though, it's definitely the strongest statement in the list. It comes the closest to actual profundity. Statement 4 is good bullshit, while some of the others are pure horseshit.
• verytrivial 11y ago
  These are hard to read, and I'm assuming people often "give up" and assume they're missing something and defer to apparent authority. That said, I could imagine an insufferable bit of waffle preceding some of these sentences that might make them at least coherent in that context, and it perhaps this feeling of reserving judgement that lets these examples slip through people's radar. It is also worth noting that just because these were generated randomly does not necessarily mean they are nonsense! (Unsound arguments can lead to true conclusions and all that).
  • xg15 11y ago
    These are hard to read, and I'm assuming people often "give up" and assume they're missing something and defer to apparent authority But that could be a point: Whether you, faced with such a sentence, conclude "I'm too stupid to understand this but it sounds like it probably means something important" or ask yourself "what is this even supposed to mean" does show something about your attitude.
    • corecoder 11y ago
      Maybe, but it is highly influenced by your self confidence in understanding complicated discourse, which is in turn often tied to your cultural and educational level. It would take little changes to those sentences to totally fool me while still being bs. A biologist, a theoretical physicist and such could easily bs the crap out of me, unless I had reasons not to trust them in the first place.
    • elcapitan 11y ago
      That is true, but then they should have made a control test where they give complicated but true sentences to the same people, checking if they obey to the authority of the language as well. In that case they are not susceptible to bullshit, but merely have given up on 'elite' discussions. Which might both explain voting for Trump and working in Mechanical Turk.
  • xg15 11y ago
    These are hard to read, and I'm assuming people often "give up" and assume they're missing something and defer to apparent authority But that could be a point: Whether you, faced with such a sentence, conclude "I'm too stupid to understand this but it sounds like it probably means something important" or ask yourself "what is this even supposed to mean" does show something about your attitude.
• logicallee 11y ago
  These are not all bullshit statements. My summary at bottom. Here are my ratings where 0 = nonsense, 10 = profound statement. 1. Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty. I rate this an 8/10 and read it as an excerpt from a review of a piece by an abstract painter. It says two things: firstly (though this comes at the end), that in purely aesthetic terms the beauty of the piece is unparalleled. I'd like to see it! But secondly, that the reviewer knows some hidden meaning that transforms this beauty in some way. Presumably I could be told what that hidden meaning is if I read the full review. I definitely want to see the painting! The construction of the sentence is also highly satisfying. 2. Good health imparts reality to subtle creativity. This is an 7/10, but only because it is not such a deep observation. It says something very specific. It says that if you are creative, but only in a subtle way, then if you enjoy good health you are more likely to follow through on your subtle visions. So if you're in a slightly, but not very, creative profession such as technical writer or you are a food scientist for Nabisco, then if you improve your health you are more likely to be in "top form" and have the energy to actually make something you're thinking about a reality. I don't personally agree with this statement, and it does not seem to be very deep. Other things that would top "good health" as a way to impart reality to subtle creativity include: financial independence; a supporting partner; free time; a sponsor; drugs. The sentence is certainly meaningful however. 3. Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena. This is meaningless to me, as "infinite phenomena" is on its face a meaningless descriptor, it just doesn't apply to anything, and even if it did, the idea of quieting them is meaningless, and even if quieting them meant something, wholeness doesn't mean anything to me. 0/10: the same as a markov chain writing. 4. The future explains irrational facts. 12/10 for profundity and statement. Luke 8:17: "For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad." The (Christian) bible says there is NOTHING secret that shall not be made manifest. So anything that is a FACT (actually happened), however irrational-seeming or paradoxical, will be revealed in all its causes. This is a deeply profound statement. I'd also like to point out that Isaiah 40:4 and Isaiah 40:5 state: "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." says roughly the same thing. But what does the bit about valleys being raised up and mountains made low? It has to be some kind of metaphor, or it's literal but weird, or it's just random nonsense. Our #4 is much, much more profound. Plus, it's very easy to see how it applies directly to weird actions by someone that can later be revealed not to be weird at all. This can apply to companies, to Tesla, to SpaceX, whatever. It's a deep statement. 5. Imagination is inside exponential space time events. 0/10. Markov chain output. "Space time events" simply doesn't refer to anything. 6. We are in the midst of a self aware blossoming of being that will align us with the nexus itself. This is hard to judge. I will give it 1/10 but want to click through for the context to see what the author might mean by "the nexus" such that it can be something you can align with. On its face it seems kind of ridiculous to align yourself with a nexus. A "self-aware blossoming of being" is, at best, an absolutely ham-fisted way to phrase anything. This is a terrible sentence without some kind of context. 7. Consciousness consists of frequencies of quantum energy. “Quantum” means an unveiling of the unrestricted. I can't judge "frequencies of quantum energy" but in the sense that consciousness is a sum of what the atoms in your head are doing, and atoms consist of quantum states, the first part would be 8/10 to me if that were a real phrase. I couldn't see "Consciousness consists of frequencies of quantum energy" appearing in real journal article entitled "Do quantum effects matter in brain neural activity? The possibility of a deterministic emulation of thinking agents." The second sentence is markov chain stuff that is obviously wrong, it's 0/10. The first half, due to the phrasing, is like 2/10. Overall it's 3/10 as an average of the profundity of the first sentence if it used a real phrase, deductions for using a fake phrase (frequencies of quantum energy), and a meaningless second sentence. 8. Consciousness is the growth of coherence, and of us. In a context where some author attempted to argue that you should increase your "mindfulness", I can see some author using consciousness instead of mindfulness or presence. As such in an argument that more and more things make sense as you increase your mindfulness, it makes sense to me that such an author would argue that mindfulness, or in their phrasing consciousness, leads to growth in the number of things that are coherent or make sense around us, and lead to growth as a person. Note that this use of "consciousness" is real: "the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings." So I'll give this a 9/10. 9. We are in the midst of a high frequency blossoming of interconnectedness that will give us access to the quantum soup itself. 0/10. None of the terms have any possible meaning. 10. Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is joy. Even if this were a statement about only endorphin production in nature, plants don't experience this. Plants don't have "joy". If it were about animals it might make some kind of sense (though probably still wrong), but as it is this is a nonsense statement that is a 0/10. ---- Score: 8/10 7/10 0/10 12/10 0/10 1/10 3/10 9/10 0/10 0/10 Average score: -------------- 4/10 So, I've seen worse.
• metaphorm 11y ago
  thanks for collecting these. I was very curious what the research team thought constituted "profound sounding bullshit". now that I've seen it I am inclined to believe that this is actually just some kind of cultural or communication gaps. quite a few of those sentences can be "translated" to very pedestrian, non-controversial, and obvious sounding statements that even the most hard nosed materialist scientist would probably accept. Let me try a few. > Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena Translation: a healthy and balanced lifestyle is helpful for the purpose of feeling less bothered/annoyed/irritated by the things in the world. > Imagination is inside exponential space time events Translation: Imagination is a behavior of the mind/brain > We are in the midst of a self aware blossoming of being that will align us with the nexus itself Translation: Recently, more people have expressed in interest in spiritual and religious practice are my translations good or meaningful? am I just falling into the bullshit trap myself? who knows. I think we would all benefit from being less judgmental of others who communicate using different symbols and turns of phrase than the ones we are accustomed to, though. Its a pretty vicious and petty culture that disparages people who have different preferences for their favorite metaphors. I'm really failing to see the benefit in saying "this is bullshit and if you believe it isn't then you're an idiot." which seems to largely be the point of the research. and yes, I do know that some of these were generated semi-randomly by a computer program. that doesn't exclude the potential for meaning. the words were chosen by someone originally, after all. language is tricky. the words can mean things beyond the original context they were produced in.
  • solipsism 11y ago
    You're completely ignoring words that don't fit into your translations. For the first one... you forgot to explain the word "infinite." For the second, you forgot to explain the word "exponential.". The third.. umm.. WTF is "the nexus itself." For most people these statements are meaningless. To say "I can assign basically random meanings, if I just say whatever I think of first, ignoring inconsistencies between the statement and the translation".... Well you're just pointing out the exact problem.
    • metaphorm 11y ago
      translations are always problematic. I assure you I didn't ignore those words though. I may, however, be a poor translator. Or you may be a poor reader. Or both. Those weren't "basically random meanings" or "whatever I think of first" though.
• iamcurious 11y ago
  Ah, the thing, the thing is that they are and they are not bullshit. It depends on how generous we are with the statements. Suppose that someone you respect, but that doesn't have much command of English, wrote this. And try to figure out the meaning: 1. Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty. What we perceive depends on what we know. 2. Good health imparts reality to subtle creativity. Being healthy, i.e. balanced, will show you solutions that you wouldn't see otherwise. 3. Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena. The solution to the existential pain of eternity is to focus on everything that is happening to you this millisecond. 4.The future explains irrational facts. In the future, things that don't make sense now, will. 10. ...the essence of nature is joy. For the most part, nature is just delighted to be. Don't believe me? Go play with a puppy.