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Reductio Ad Absurdum: "Make Sense" (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-22 18:01:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

This is the first piece in the Reductio Ad Absurdum series, which celebrates little phrases that are normally rendered invisible by their ubiquity but are quietly literally excellent at what they do. 

These will be shorter thoughts that are a little more wholesome and fun.

Hope you enjoy this and the many more to come.<3 x

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Reductio Ad Absurdum: "Make Sense"

What does it mean to "make sense"? Our culture heavily emphasizes objective rationality as the pathway to Truth. Intuition and emotion are considered subjective, illusory, and unimportant, when contrasted with logic and reason. We commonly (and maybe usefully) believe that our objective principles, such as laws of science, math, and logic, descended from the heavens perfectly formed for us to discover.

Comments

valentin

istg CJ the X fans are eating good these days

sal3m

shorter texts give me the warm feeling, almost like making sense

saba

thank you for this. genuinely, i have been suffering from really harmful thought spirals, that i realize now are often triggered by confusion. and this has helped me realize that my confusion doesn't always need to be investigated. The compulsion to think myself into oblivion, desperation, and panic isn't useful, it is just a compulsion, and therefore not entirely related to whatever "Truth" is out there. blah blah blah serenity prayer. Amen+thanks cj

Josh Foreman

"Does that make sense?" A phrase uttered approximately 3 times a minute by my wife in almost every conversation she has. An emotional touchpoint, a time to check in with her interlocutor to see that they are pick'n up what she's putt'n down. The utility is as obvious and yet I seldom think to do this. A completely separate thought. I've been developing this idea for years now. Ever since reading The Righteous Mind (which I HIGHLY suggest you put on your list, CJ) I love this idea of moral foundations theory as an explanatory mechanism for the (oversimplified) left/right divide. And I've cobbled an additional layer to it. Basically, people have different cognitive load capacity. (Different than 'intelligence') And mentally grappling with a topic that is a spectrum instead of a binary inflicts a much higher cognitive load. One of the hallmarks of leftward lurch in social issues is that (it FEELS like, to many) every category that used to comfortably sit as a binary is now being converted into a spectrum. Race, gender, sexuality, family, etc. For those who have a smaller capacity for juggling multiple spectrums, this is dizzying and disturbing. It's taking all these issues and making them "NOT make sense". Because "make sense" carries such a implicit elegance, it can't hold the complexity of a spectrum. Occam's razor shaves it back to the nub that is a binary right/wrong state. I feel like this is somewhere near the center of the culture wars.

dateariane

The term "reductio Ad Absurdum" I believe comes from a mathematical proof that √2 is irrational. Pythagoras the theorem guy believed that all numbers were rational, this was a tenet of his religion. But then someone proved that irrational numbers existed, and they were tossed out for heresy. Starting with √2 = p/q where p and q must be whole numbers that cannot be reduced. But the proof involves showing both p and q must be even numbers and therefore p/q can be reduced, which contradicts the given premise, therefore the premise is absurd. https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/euclid-square-root-2-irrational.html

Literally A Noodle

You've suddenly reminded me of a song called "Reductio Ad Absurdum" by Instrumental (adj.). I quite like that song, but I had forgotten about it.

pol

Hi, it's been a while. :) Recently I have been obsessing over the phenomenon of "understanding". It's similar to "make sense of" but.... not exactly? There is some interesting philosophy out there to gnaw on, but I found the definitions unsatisfying, and I think there is still not a very good consensus on what it means to understand something. On one hand, there is the feeling of understanding. The "aha moment" of epiphany when understanding is achieved (there is a funny word for it in german: Aha-Erlebnis). It's involuntary, you don't get to decide when it happens, it just does or doesn't. But that"aha moment" isn't itself understanding, it is more the indicator of it. It's the heat, not the fire.