Lordandmaster -> RE: Why Dommes judge people based on grammar? (1/5/2008 6:57:47 AM)
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He was trying to show that you can't dismiss something ungrammatical just because it's ungrammatical; according to his argument, it might be as brilliant as Descartes' Meditation after being altered by Babelfish. OK, first of all, it's a bit of a straw-man argument: I don't think too many of us were saying that you can dismiss someone JUST because they write ungrammatical English. It's usually one element in a whole spectrum of red flags. Also, I don't think we have to worry that every ungrammatical turd on here might "really" be a brilliant idea that the speaker simply doesn't know how to convey properly. And that would be the consequence of what he was saying. People who have brilliant ideas know how to convey them properly. (Like Descartes, after all.) Failed geniuses aren't typically MISUNDERSTOOD; on the contrary, people understand exactly what they're saying, and refuse to accept it. Lastly, the fact that your message arrived to me via a webserver doesn't mean that YOU, as an intelligent being, didn't initiate the process of communication. When you write something on paper, who is doing the writing--you or your pen? You can't compare that to some computer-generated nonsense obscuring whatever intelligence was evident beforehand. Like all extreme examples, this one has limited validity, and I think we've overanalyzed it at this point. Show me a human Collarme user with ideas as brilliant as those of Descartes, and grammar as bad as what Babelfish spits out, and maybe then I'll sing a different song. quote:
ORIGINAL: beeble quote:
Lordandmaster wrote: No, I understood that point. YOU didn't understand MY point. You can't take something brilliant, run it through a computer program that renders it nonsensical, and use that argument to claim that grammar doesn't make a difference. But that's precisely the opposite of what has happened! Pallandozi took something brilliant, ran it through a computer program that rendered it nonsensical and used the comparison between that and the original to show that grammar does make a difference! The text `with grammar' was brilliant; the text `without grammar' was nonsense. That is precisely the difference that grammar, spelling, and variations in the expression of an idea can affect that idea's perception. quote:
If Descartes had written the nonsense that your computer program produced, he wouldn't be considered a great philosopher. The reason why he IS considered a great philosopher is precisely that he knew how to use language to convey an original idea. Yes -- that's exactly the point that Pallandozi was making and I was attempting to reinforce! quote:
There's no brilliant meaning behind whatever nonsense Babelfish spewed out because Babelfish isn't an intelligent being. I'm not sure how far you want to push that argument. There's no brilliance in this post because it was spewed to you by a webserver, rather than an intelligent being? There's no brilliance in Shakespeare because the Shakespeare you read was spewed out by a printing press, rather than an intelligent being?
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