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Well, I would say that you didn't make yourself particularly clear, then :-) Yes, you did list the possibility that that quote might just be random nonsense,

Well, I would say that you didn't make yourself particularly clear, then :-) Yes, you did list the possibility that that quote might just be random nonsense, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that is what you think is the case. In particular given that you also wrote this: > 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 don't see how there is anything profound about this. It's just a baseless assertion, as far as I can tell. So, while it's a step beyond just random gibberish, in that there is some semantic meaning to this, it's still just a deepity ( http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity ).

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logicallee 11y ago
I'm sorry, I must have let the fact that the document I chose as a basis for comparison (and which I don't believe) influences the lives of 2.2 billion people every day and has for hundreds of years cloud me into thinking that it is more "profound" - as a basis of comparison - than if a pack of peanuts says "may contain peanuts" on it. /s In other words I don't think profound statements have to be true, and the article says people were judging profundity, not truth. (although this is irrelevant, I don't think the verses I quoted are true.)
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
  > In other words I don't think profound statements have to be true, and the article says people were judging profundity, not truth. (although this is irrelevant, I don't think the verses I quoted are true.) I think you are using an unusual definition of "profound", then? To quote the relevant definition from the oxford dictionary: "(Of a person or statement) having or showing great knowledge or insight" I don't exactly think that would be met by "incorrect knowledge" or "false insight"? Now, there is a "feeling of profundity", which indeed does not depend on truth, but which can be evoked by, for example, statements that (to a particular person) seem profound, but actually aren't, but also just by certain experiences.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    >I don't exactly think that would be met by "incorrect knowledge" or "false insight"? sure it would be met. your usage is obviously not what anybody means by profound. your usage suggests someone can say "I just read a really speculative physics paper which might be really profound, if it's true. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to test it today, so it's impossible to know whether it's profound or not. But it would certainly be interesting if it turned out to be profound!" Go ahead and find a single person online talking in such terms about whether a journal article in a hard science is profound or not, where if it turns out to be true it's profound but if it turns out to be false it's not profound. Profound is a common word. Find a single person using it in science the way you suggest I use it.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
      Well, I see your point, but I think that's actually more a matter of how exactly you define "truth" and of colloquial use of language. If a paper has obvious errors in it that make it highly questionable whether any of the results are reliable, then you wouldn't call that profound, would you? I mean, it must be at the very least plausible that it's true after some critical reading. And I'd even go further: For example, a paper can be profound because of a new perspective, even if the specific results are actually wrong. But the reason that it is still considered profound is because the new perspective still "has truth to it", in the sense that it matches reality well enough to be a useful tool for generating future results. From someone who doesn't have sufficient knowledge to judge the reliability of some result, I would indeed expect them to say something along the lines "this might be profound". Also, if a paper that at some point is considered profound turns out to be completely untrue and useless, people would probably stop refering to it as profound? Which is all in contrast to some "feeling of profundity", which really might be a purely emotional matter.

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logicallee 11y ago

I'm sorry, I must have let the fact that the document I chose as a basis for comparison (and which I don't believe) influences the lives of 2.2 billion people every day and has for hundreds of years cloud me into thinking that it is more "profound" - as a basis of comparison - than if a pack of peanuts says "may contain peanuts" on it. /s In other words I don't think profound statements have to be true, and the article says people were judging profundity, not truth. (although this is irrelevant, I don't think the verses I quoted are true.)

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
> In other words I don't think profound statements have to be true, and the article says people were judging profundity, not truth. (although this is irrelevant, I don't think the verses I quoted are true.) I think you are using an unusual definition of "profound", then? To quote the relevant definition from the oxford dictionary: "(Of a person or statement) having or showing great knowledge or insight" I don't exactly think that would be met by "incorrect knowledge" or "false insight"? Now, there is a "feeling of profundity", which indeed does not depend on truth, but which can be evoked by, for example, statements that (to a particular person) seem profound, but actually aren't, but also just by certain experiences.
- logicallee 11y ago
  >I don't exactly think that would be met by "incorrect knowledge" or "false insight"? sure it would be met. your usage is obviously not what anybody means by profound. your usage suggests someone can say "I just read a really speculative physics paper which might be really profound, if it's true. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to test it today, so it's impossible to know whether it's profound or not. But it would certainly be interesting if it turned out to be profound!" Go ahead and find a single person online talking in such terms about whether a journal article in a hard science is profound or not, where if it turns out to be true it's profound but if it turns out to be false it's not profound. Profound is a common word. Find a single person using it in science the way you suggest I use it.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
    Well, I see your point, but I think that's actually more a matter of how exactly you define "truth" and of colloquial use of language. If a paper has obvious errors in it that make it highly questionable whether any of the results are reliable, then you wouldn't call that profound, would you? I mean, it must be at the very least plausible that it's true after some critical reading. And I'd even go further: For example, a paper can be profound because of a new perspective, even if the specific results are actually wrong. But the reason that it is still considered profound is because the new perspective still "has truth to it", in the sense that it matches reality well enough to be a useful tool for generating future results. From someone who doesn't have sufficient knowledge to judge the reliability of some result, I would indeed expect them to say something along the lines "this might be profound". Also, if a paper that at some point is considered profound turns out to be completely untrue and useless, people would probably stop refering to it as profound? Which is all in contrast to some "feeling of profundity", which really might be a purely emotional matter.