Why does literature and literary culture engender so much pseudo intellectualism?

Why does literature and literary culture engender so much pseudo intellectualism?

Is it because the intellectual world expanded from spewing unfalsifiable theories of philosophy and theology to many types of science, mathematics, engineering, social sciences, and practical subjects, with literary types not realising that mere words don't give an understanding of these areas or the ability to do well at them?

Is it because of a pride at literature's relatively primitive technology compared to film etc. while not noticing, willfully or not, that literature has technology and certain economic factors promoting books of certain formats and discouraging others?

Is it the loss of potentially talented literary figures to other subjects, leaving the dregs?

Is it the denial of literature's role as entertainment, which promotes half baked philosophising?

Is it the lack of potential economic return, which discourages men from taking part, and leaving the culture as an attention whoring tool for women?

Other urls found in this thread:

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001767
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071275
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

It's because chad stole your girlfriend and is railing her right NOW.

It's because of people like you, who think less than they read and read less than they write.

How is engineering not pseudointellectualism? Sticking inaccurate numbers into a formula found by a scientist is not intellectual.

Despite what you think, arts and English literature-esque subjects aren't just spewing any theory into an essay. You have to form an argument for your interpretation that is supported by evidence you also provide in the essay. The ability to synthesize multiple sources into a coherent argument that supports your assertion is intellectualism.

You can show me all those news articles /pol/ trots out, but the fact you can have STEM "graduates" who can't perform simple tasks such as FizzBuzz for computer science, and only learned to regurgitate some formulas shows shitty professors who grade inflate and diminish the quality of education aren't simply an "arts school problem".

>How is engineering not pseudointellectualism? Sticking inaccurate numbers into a formula found by a scientist is not intellectual.
it's certainly more intellectual than making my hamburger you dumb humanities cuck cuck cuck

>unfalsifiable
Stopped reading there

why did you stop in the middle of the first sentence? there is a lot more writing in the post and leaving at the stopping at the start won't give you a proper understanding of the post

Anyone who unironically uses that word is not worth the strain on my eyes.

everything has pseuds in it

I took engineering classes during my conjoint bachelor of science/arts. The English classes were where we debated and discussed our thoughts and arguments in tutorials. It was shit when you were in a class of simpletons, but great when people had read the literature and were finding holes in each others arguments, which made that person reformulate it, and so on.

Engineering was an Indian guy who nobody could understand rattling off facts and formulae by reading his PowerPoint slides and who didn't allow questions in lectures because "he didn't want them". Studying for the test/exam was simply doing the previous years' exams again and again because the same questions were recycled with different numbers.

I already love this thread

>debate
>arguments
Away with the monuments!

Pretending to be smart has always been the favourite pass-time for weak people doomed to a life of mediocrity.

You can't pretend to be strong, handsome, or funny. But pick up Infinite Jest (or some other pseud-tome full of math and science references and/or unreadable prose) and talk about how POWERFUL and IMPORTANT it is (you don't even have to read it), and maybe, just maybe, someone will think you're smart.

>Why does literature and literary culture engender so much pseudo intellectualism?
Look up left-brain vs right-brain. The former are extremely prone to falling for stupid shit. For example, a left-brain dominant kind of person would answer 5 to the question, "if dogs have 5 legs how many legs do dogs have" while a right-brain dominant person would answer "4, dogs don't have 5 legs".

This depends on what a "dog" is. Is a "dog" an animal we commonly refer to as such in English? Is "dog" used as a loanword from another language where "dogs" are tables, an object fully capable of having 5 legs? Are we talking about this "reality" right now, or are we talking about the reality in a novel where dogs have been altered to indeed have 5 legs?

The point is, you are acting as if the latter answer is common sense and logical, despite your flaw of assuming so much about the question. You are rigidly holding what you think as correct as what is truly correct, when in reality it is not quite so simple.

Or in short, lit types (and Veeky Forums types) are extremely prone to getting caught in their own web of words. Hence the pseudo-intellectualism. (Humanities departments should be disbanded. Literature belongs to clubrooms, not classrooms.)

Case in point
>arguing semantics
Bravo pseud.

>Being able to accept abstract rules is bad and not at all a basic part of cognitive development.

The point.
Your head.

>semantics is bad because it disrupts my essentialist nonsense

You are going against logic.

>if dogs have 5 legs, how many legs do dogs have?
This is a conditional question. The question "how many legs do dogs have?" is conditioned on the first half of the sentence by virtue of the "if". In this case, dogs must have 5 legs because you've already given that information in how you proposed the question. The correct answer is 5.

>how many legs do dogs have?
No conditions are set, so we answer in terms of prior knowledge. Correct answer is 4.

You're clutching at straws. Of course, there's no point to pointing that out because you're neurologically incapable of processing it. To such a brainlet, words and word constructions matter more than anything else.

A lit brainlet is capable of believing any nonsense, as long as it is properly worded.

>You are going against logic.
So what?
>neurology
Ass off, bugger

A mathematician or physicist would definitely NOT answer "four". Abstract mathematical thinking also includes counterfactuals.

Is this some fucking bait? You started your question by supposing a hypothetical.

"Okay, pretend bananas are blue. Now what color are bananas?" Why would anyone answer yellow?

The question "how many legs do dogs have?" is conditioned on the facts of the matter.

Which in this case is "dogs have 5 legs". See:

I am a math grad. I would answer 4. (You have no idea how material implication works.) The proposition "dogs have 5 legs" is false. Alternative phrasing that avoids that:
>suppose dogs have 5 legs, how many legs do dogs have?
The supposition is obviously false. Unless the dog has some sort of birth defect, it will usually have 4 legs. The truth of the matter is not conditioned on a hypothetical.

In short: you're retarded.

>Why would anyone answer yellow?
Because they're not dupes?
>Okay, pretend you're immortal. Will you jump off the top of the Golden Gate bridge?

I'm a physicist and if you really had any idea about logics you would know that "if... then..." is not an accurate representation of the material conditional. If you want people to read it as a mat. cond. then you should actually write a material conditional, you dunce.

In short: you're a condescending idiot that apparently does not know the differences between natural language and formal logics.

>bbut muh known reality!
Irrelevant. The question clearly states that dogs have 5 legs, we are now in questionnaire alternative universe.. No longer the place you are now

>sentences alter reality
Veeky Forums in a nutshell.

is there any fucking board on this stupid goddamn website that is free of shitposting?

>what my brain says is the one true reality!
kys cuck
we dont know if dogs have 5 legs or not because our eyes dont pick up the light reflections from their 'otherworldly' 5th leg

>we are now in questionnaire alternative universe
No, we aren't.
I don't want people to read it as a material conditional. That's what these dupes (you included) argue it is, making references to inference and math and all that. Hence my comment
>You have no idea how material implication works
Put differently, this sentence
>The question "how many legs do dogs have?" is conditioned on the first half of the sentence by virtue of the "if".
is false.

Array(100).fill().map( (_,idx) => var x = ""; if (!(idx + 1 % 3)) x += "Fizz"; if (!(idx + 1 % 5)) x+= "Buzz"; return x || idx + 1).join(" ");
Left vs Right brain thinking is a myth

>No, we aren't.
Yes we are.

>myth
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001767

Oh look I can do that too
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071275

It's a myth. So is everything else promoted by Oprah.
Do you believe in the secret?

>I am a math grad. ... The proposition "dogs have 5 legs" is false.
You're a special kind of retard aint you? I suspect you never seen the inside of a college.

You were given a fact, not a lie. Hence you shouldn't assume it's a lie.
>"If X equals 5, then how what does X equal?"
Answer: 5

">The question "how many legs do dogs have?" is conditioned on the first half of the sentence by virtue of the "if".
is false"
Is completely true for a material conditional. The truth value of the succedens is not set to either true or false if the antecedens is false. What people are arguing here is how your sentences are supposed to be read as there are multiple valid ways of interpreting it, such as:

p and p -> q T(q)=?=t
p -> q T(q)=?
Now there is also your reading, which is the most obfuscated one I think, of:
The world is described by a set of true propositions H. One of them is q (A dog has four legs). Now evaluate: ~q -> q
T(q)=?=t

You are being horribly disingenuous if you think that the last reading is somehow more correct than the others. It depends on a lot of assumptions that are not clearly stated at any point.

Ah, I mucked that up. Bit early here. I hope you still kinda get the idea.

In the first case q and p = "a dog has 5 legs"
In the last case q = "a dog has 4 legs"

My point is that your reading of the sentences is fully consistent with them being connected by a material conditional if you assume the antecdens to be wrong anyway. There is however not really a reason to assume it is wrong unless you explicitly add that the question is directed at the "real" world rather than the set of logical propositions that you have given earlier.

>journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071275
This paper supports the hypothesis. Maybe you should learn how to read.
You are given a hypothetical, not a fact.
>the question is directed at the "real" world rather than
The point is what type of person would assume which. A left brain type would look at the sentence in isolation from any other matter, while a right brain type would look at the sentence as making a query about the real world (since dogs are not fictional creatures).

So you're all still completely missing the point, which only further confirms it.
>lit types (and Veeky Forums types) are extremely prone to getting caught in their own web of words

>You are given a hypothetical, not a fact.
You assume it was hypothetical, you don't know.

>hurr durr

>literary culture engender so much pseudo intellectualism?

Still less pretentious than your average Tarantino fan.

Hit the nail on the head, the Tarantino fanbase is totally cancerous.

But most philosophical theories cannot be proven false desu. They are literally not falsifiable.

So you are saying right brain people are idiots that cannot think abstractly because they are not aware of their presuppositions?

K bro

>Everyone tries to explain to the retard that he is wrong.
>The retard still doesn't get it.
If he had used any side of his brain he would have suspected that one of them had a point.
Instead he twists words, moves the goalpost down a slippery slope with the help of semantics.

right brain people seem stupid

not only do they ignore the question they also think in a rigid manner which does not even adhere to reality

you know philosophy of science has long ago moved on from falsification and understood that whether the theory is falsifiable or not doesnt constitute whether its scientific or not. so really not an argument. it has just become a buzzword by now used by people who dont know what theyre talking about

OP here. I don't use unfalsifiable as a synonym for false. I point out that the space for unfalsifiable ideas is infinitely large. There are infinitely many possible criteria used to judge unfalsifiable ideas. So who chooses what to use?

I'm not saying only science is true or anything like that. I am simply pointing out the arbitrariness of what is seen as worthwhile philosophy and what is not.

It's because all knowledge stems from UGLINESS and is simply a strategy to COPE with your own PHYSICAL and SEXUAL (and thus necessarily moral and spiritual) INFERIORITY

>left-brain vs right-brain
literal pseudoscience, just made up popsci shit

>t. literal ignoramus
There are two studies linked in this thread alone that deal with this hypothesis (ironically, one of them linked by a tard trying to prove that it's all bullshit).

The goalpost is still where it was from the first post I made ITT. Appeal to Veeky Forums brainlet consensus more though. It's entertaining.

No. I am saying that the failure modes of the the right brain type is not conducive to pseudo-intellectualism while a common failure mode of the left brain type explains almost all instances of genuine pseudo-intellectualism -- that is, non-pretentious instances, cases where the pseuds honestly believe (and implicitly, understand, on a purely semantic level) the nonsense they espouse, a stereotypical example being the field of psychoanalysis, a pile of (bull)shit that plenty of Veeky Forumsards takes seriously.

>aryan = slayer
>jew = incel
my god

What is your definition of a "failure mode"?

The idiocy is that by trying to be as rational as possible you're actually being a dumbass. Any normal person would laugh at this and say dogs have 4 legs.

>bringing up STEM just to shit on it for no reason

In an isolated case the question would be taken as to be pertaining to matters of fact. The sentence preceding it can be read as a counterfactual though, making the totality of statements ambiguous. Is that really that hard to see?

has nothing to do with OP you fucking pseud

the dumbest thread on lit right now

>Any normal person would laugh at this and say dogs have 4 legs.
There you go - trying to label yourself as "normal".

What you really say is that the written word isn't important. The important thing is how you re-interpret it as you want, and then adamantly claim you're right.

I believed most people with some talent in writing would know the following:
40% of the English speaking people consider "truplafip" to be a darker shade of red.
40% of the English speaking people consider "truplafip" to be a darker shade of blue.
20% of the English speaking people never heard of the word.

Question: So who is right?

Answer: Neither is right and as a writer you need to work around this obstacle so 100% of your readers can follow your story.
However, the guy who adamantly claims one of them to be correct is absolutely wrong.

every culture has people pretending to fit in
it's exploded with videogames and comics lately, because it's easy to watch a cape film/play league of legends for two hours and pretend you're a nerd. Literature gets it too because everyone was forced to read at some point.
They just think it's an easy way to differentiate themselves, and the people they interact with don't know enough to call them out on it.

Wew lad. Every possible way to be wrong colliding in one post.

Because literature wasnt nearly as affected by the rise of mass media like radio and film were. Meanwhile, being well-read was always considered smart. As those two rose in popularity, the social expectations for reading fell, and therefore the amount that one had to read to feel 'well-read' whether they were or not inversely fell. Then video games and the Internet happened and then people were able to signal their 'well-readness' to everyone else.

>math grad
You must be a terrible mathematician.