Orange Catholicism

Hm.

So, Prince James, instead of courageously crossing seven stormy seas and seven scorched deserts and seven dark forests full of dangerous spells, and instead of killing a seven-headed fire-spitting dragon (plus fighting numerous other battles, which shall not be mentioned here for the sake brevity), and then saving your beautiful princess from the mean claws of a corrupted magician -- so instead of all this, you rather sit and read fiction?

What is worse, instead of courageously crossing seven stormy seas and seven scorched deserts and seven dark forests full of dangerous spells, and instead of killing a seven-headed fire-spitting dragon (plus fighting numerous other battles, which shall not be mentioned here for the sake brevity), and then saving your beautiful princess from the mean claws of a corrupted magician -- so instead of all this, you rather sit in front of the computer and write about fake religions?


Your stallion has just become a haggard mare. :p
 
Water,

You should really try reading dune someday. It's philosophical content is really quite profound.

And. Nim Chimpsky, eh? At least Nim was so-named for his linguistic abilities...
You know. I've gotten into furious debates about Chomsky. I find it sad that the man gave up his linguistic career and descended into politics. People revere him for his political bullshit. But, I'd have preferred him to stay and work in his originally chosen field.

You know, he really didn't contribute that much to linguistics anyway. He gave it up way back in the 60's. And everything he did contribute has pretty much been thrown out the window in the meantime.

I wonder what linguistics might be like today if he'd stayed in the field? Or if his importance has been inflated by his political worshippers? I suspect the latter.
 
Well, the world of human sciences is an iffy one, this much is sure.
And linguists ... they tend to be rather dubious creatures. The only proper linguists are the historians (classical philology).
The moderners ...

For one thing, linguistics is a field that has seen a lot of change and tumoult in the last 50 years or so; interdisciplinarity with other sciences (notably cognitive science) introduced changes and aspects that earlier linguists haven't foreseen.

For the other, more importantly, linguistics is one of the few areas of research where the object of research is barely defined. There is no unified definition of language, mind you.

Chomsky and the "pragmatic turn" brought an important new guideline into the way linguists think about language: instead of endlessly and fruitlessly trying to define what language is, the pragmatics focus on how language works, and this actually renders some useful results (esp. when it comes to improving communication and language acquisition).

And no, not everything Chomsky contributed "has pretty much been thrown out the window in the meantime". Far from it. The way you learn to break up sentences in school -- this is based on his theory, for example (and most kids don't even know it).

Chomsky's linguistic career was that of something like a hot-shot linguist, there were others like that before him, only that he is the one whose career we now presently can follow, in real time. Einstein's career was tumultous as well, only that now, in retrospect, we don't have a feel for it like we do for contemporary scientists.



But anyway, this thread is about Orange Catholicism. Dune? I'm not fond of philosophically profound books. I like a witty story!
 
Water:

A haggard mare, indeed!

But anyway, this thread is about Orange Catholicism. Dune? I'm not fond of philosophically profound books. I like a witty story!
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That's a pity. It really is quite interesting.
 
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