[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Frylock, try reading this post and comment on whether it’s gibberish or not.
Whichever way you reply, please explain to the rest of us your reasoning.
[/QUOTE]
???
I wonder what you think I’m trying to say here?
Anyway, to respond to your post:
It (the post you linked to, minus the quote from you in that post) looks like pseudo-science to me, which is not gibberish.
It’s not gibberish, because it clearly communicates content–content that is false, but content nevertheless.
In fact, to be honest, I think the post you linked to makes more sense than JimBeam’s. But neither that post, nor JimBeam’s, would I call “gibberish.” They are simply wrong. *
But you’re missing my point. Even if I thought both posts were literal “gibberish,” it would be, let’s say, “infelicitous,” for me to respond to them by saying “your post is gibberish.” I can achieve what such a declaration is supposed to achieve by much more reliable and constructive means.
-FrL-
*Now, maybe you meant something other than literal “gibberish” by using the term "gibberish. Perhaps by “gibberish” you didn’t mean literally “nonsense” or “contentlessness,” but rather, “a lot of incorrect statements.” Or, maybe, “a lot of statements using terms not usually used by those who study this subject matter, or using terms in ways different than the way they are used by those who study this subject matter.” I can’t tell which of these claims (if any) you meant to make about JimBeam’s post, and this is further evidence that whatever you’re trying to do by calling the post “gibberish,” it’s not working.
Perhaps your intent had nothing to do with any possible denotation to be assigned to the term “gibberish” and more with its connotation and its nature as epithetical. What kind of intent might this have been? Were you trying to shame JimBeam into abandoning his views? Your declaration, as you probably well know, is very unlikely to have that effect in any context, much less this context. Your further comments afterwards in that post also did not serve that purpose. Were you, then, simply trying to identify yourself to others as being superior (non-gibbering–whatever you might mean by that!) compared to JimBeam? Perhaps you succeeded then, but at the same time you succeeded in portraying yourself as unkind and unconcerned with JimBeam’s taking away anything positive from the experience. This is not in keeping with the best SDMB traditions. Here’s another possibility: Perhaps you were warning others away from JimBeam’s post, posting a “here there be dragons” sign next to it so no one else will contaminate themselves with its content. But who’s really going to do that? Anyway, you hadn’t in that post established to reasonable satisfaction that JimBeam’s post is wrong or nonsense, rather than simply confusedly communicated. The cart, in that case, was put before the horse.
