An Exercise in Sophistry

In this video, I’ll be addressing the question of how we might attempt to distinguish incoherence from depth, as fans of New Age swindlers (as well as certain postmodern philosophers) seem to be having difficulty with that task.
Postmodern Woo:
• Postmodern Woo | The S...
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[@KingCrocoduck]

Since there seems to be some confusion about the topic of this video, I'd like to leave this comment to help clarify what this video is and isn't about. 1) this video isn't about "why postmodernism is stupid." This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology. 2) this video isn't about "why Baudrillard is stupid." This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology. 3) this video isn't about "why anti-essentialist ontology is stupid." This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology. 4) this video isn't about "why hyperreality, simulacra, and simulations aren't meaningful concepts." This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology. 5) this video isn't about quantum mechanics, chaos theory, or mathematics more generally. This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology.

[@exlauslegale8534]

KC, nice example of a crony scientism, taking a difference in kind (between the continental philosophy and the esoteric neo-Buddhism) for a difference in degree.

[@KingCrocoduck]

@@exlauslegale8534 This video wasn't about the shortcomings of continental philosophy. This video is about Baudrillard's abuse of scientific terminology.

[@iwillbecomeimmortalordietr8506]

@@KingCrocoduck they just dont seem to get it do they?

[@exlauslegale8534]

@@KingCrocoduck Yes, and I was just pointing out your abuse of scientific method.

[@Digifan001]

@@exlauslegale8534 Give KC a break. He tries to be as objectively and reasonable as possible . He is after all a scientist , he tried to explain the flaws of the bad use of terminology by people like Deepak for money and profit. There could be two reasons for why an intellectual would do that: either to sounds smart in front of his/her colleagues or to sound smart to sell more books. Besides, how many skeptics you know to have a large understanding of philosophy?

[@fluffymcdeath]

It's less than word salad. It's speaking in tongues in a scientific accent.

[@maxkennedy8075]

fluffymcdeath Great way to put it

[@bdf2718]

Pure Humpty-Dumptyism.

[@fluffymcdeath]

@@bdf2718 Indeed.

[@DrummerDucky]

Maybe it's like crosswords and some people just like them very difficult and obscure? It sure is exhilirating to decipher the same two pages over and over to glean an approximate meaning out of it... Right?

[@bdf2718]

@@DrummerDucky I think that's a big part of it. Kinda like literature appreciation where they ignore the point of the story and wander off into obscure interpretations of minor phrases. The sort of people who love James Joyce because it's totally incomprehensible so they can get a doctoral degree by interpreting it any way they want. Nobody can say they're wrong because nobody can make sense of Joyce in the first place. PoMo is essentially philosophy in the style of Joyce. Perhaps hybridized with a little Rabbinical interpretation. The sort of thinking that justifies some indefensible story in the Torah by focusing on some trivial event that happens to a minor character. Which is like saying that _Pulp Fiction_ isn't about crime and violence but teaches us the moral lesson of the importance of keeping one's car clean.

[@Shooter__Andy]

So, as a layman in both philosophy and various mathematics-related stuff, I will say: that Jean Baudrillard's paragraph reads like a Markov Chain-generated text with some biology textbooks used as sources.

[@bdf2718]

Yeah, my first thought was Markov Chain, too. Especially as certain word roots were repeated in close proximity. I think it may actually be rooted in the poetic style of presentation used by French philosophers. Still total bullshit.

[@Roxor128]

I wonder what you'd get if you made a Markov Chain out of creationist blog posts? Would the results be any less stupid than the source material?

[@iwillbecomeimmortalordietr8506]

@@Roxor128 whew, wouldent that be an experiance. Im almost afraid to find out

[@timobb]

I honestly thought I was stupid after hearing the first paragraph and then I quickly realised it was meaningless bollocks and I felt normal again.

[@markborder906]

Tom Same here.

[@iamgoddard]

You weren't supposed to figure that out!

[@LoudmouthReviews]

Nothing is so absurd it couldn’t have been said by a philosopher

[@abstractnonsense3253]

There's a great book with endless examples of this kind of postmodern bullshit: "Fashionable Nonsense", by Sokal and Bricmont.

[@abstractnonsense3253]

Preview the nonsense that tumbles out of Jaques Lacan's mouth books.google.pt/books?id=x6spAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[@maxgustafsson7802]

More KC?? Didn't even take a year this time!

[@davey1602]

Thanks man. Now we'll have to wait two years for the next one. You and your big mouth lol

[@BillM1960]

@@davey1602 LOL. jinx

[@davey1602]

You have to love Deepak. He spouts nothing but rhetorical claptrap, then hides behind alternative definitions when called out. We could discover warp drive if everyone would simply sit and hum to themselves :D

[@Idelacio]

GOOD philosphers explain their concepts concisely, in a way even a layman can grasp as indeed any good teacher should. Jean Baudrillard is neither.

[@keepdancingmaria]

I like the way you put that...

[@ministryoftruth8499]

Exactly. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" as someone smart once said and the hallmark of a true master if I might say so.

[@cletusawreetus-awrightus2799]

no they shouldn't, you end up losing all the nuance. you might as well say that physicists should write peer-reviewed articles in a way a layman can understand. that being said baudrillard is just hiding his ideas behind inelegant metaphors rather than being thorough.

[@keepdancingmaria]

@@cletusawreetus-awrightus2799 Physics is a hard science, Philosophy is teaching, not even a soft science. Physicists aren't writing or trying to communicate with the masses, but with one another. Science teachers (not physicists) DO need to communicate physics in such a way that laypeople can understand. Philosophers are communicating with the masses, or what is the point of them being philosophers? I mean, that is their entire job. They have no point other than to teach philosophy to the masses.

[@Idelacio]

@@cletusawreetus-awrightus2799 We are talking philosphy, not physics. Nor are we talking a paper for intellectuals, these are the ideas he presents to be learned. If you cannot walk someone through your philosophy in such a way they can grasp the basics then you have failed. Yes, both involve layers of abstraction but I'm not saying that someone should be able to walk through a school of philosophical thought in one sentence, just that they be able to convey the idea in a way almost anyone can grasp. I'd say this is true of physics as well, to a degree: I've had good teachers explain ideas in a way that I immediately grasped where poor teachers failed to convey entirely (often professors in the latter case). However you do require additional skills and fewer people will be able to cope with that.

[@kratosGOW]

I absolutely loved the guy having sex with his own brain. 😂 That is postmodernism if nothing else.

[@parityviolation968]

let's hope it doesn't get pregnant...

[@mathis8210]

Haha, yeah thats so silly! Who would do that? *awkwardly putting away my brain and putting on clothes

[@raymondthebrotherofperryma1403]

You could say he's f♡cking around with his brain! 🤔

[@Skhillz_FN]

I was gonna post something but it appears that all has been said

[@bdf2718]

Surely a far better metaphor for postmodernism is masturbation. By a eunuch.

[@sandakureva]

I'm glad KC made this video. Pompous, empty language in the humanities always drove me crazy back when I was in college.

[@petehill7280]

I'm in university right now. I know what you mean. Laura Mulvey's essay on The Male Gaze is a good example of such a thing. That, and everything ever written by Roland Barthes.

[@sandakureva]

Yeah it's mostly just people using big words outside of the correct context in order to sound smarter than they are.

[@baruchben-david4196]

It still drives me nuts.

[@myothersoul1953]

You think it's bad in the humanities try it in business jargon, politics, the law or technology. For example: What does "Artificial intelligence" mean? .

[@jffrysith4365]

​@@myothersoul1953 eh...? Artificial intelligence means a network created by people to simulate intelligence, as the entire process is just a computer fulfilling lines of code, it cannot be considered true intelligence, hence it's artificial. Since it's a simulation of intelligence and it's artificial, it's called artificial intelligence. unlike the humanities that are using the jargon from business and tech without really understanding them the people in business and tech actually know what's going on. Also the reason law needs to use complex words is to have more precise definitions instead of a lackadaisical wishy-washy you bad so you go to prison structure.

[@ShotgunLlama]

"Quantum physics is unexplainable in the absence of consciousness" -Very really good physicists

[@tarvoc746]

Well, I mean... who _would_ you explain it to in that case anyway?

[@redspain4732]

Same goes for the concept of a hammer ...

[@danzigvssartre]

ShotgunLlama Roger Penrose stated that all theories of Quantum Mechanics require reference to a conscious experience. But what would Penrose know about physics?

[@ArchitheFA]

I had no idea what she was talking about...even though control theory is one of subject I was studying and casually utilize on monthly basis. It is astonishing how word salads can confuse my mind to not recognize area that I have knowledge of, well yet another personal fallacy to be aware of.

[@nunyabisnass1141]

Archi Yakumo I've n3ver heard of control theory, but i can usually get along just fine as long as the message is coherent and not needlessly wordy. Sadly there are those out there thwt think you can baffle people with bullshit and the more we are confused, the smarter somehow they must be. Thats why i like anticitizenX. Plain language, simple enough expalainations.

[@bdf2718]

@@nunyabisnass1141 "Control Theory" - using feedback to control things. [Very simplified explanation.]

[@xenobarbital]

Quoting Karl Popper: "With the romantics, a new kind of dogmatism becomes fashionable, in philosophy as well as in the social sciences. It confronts us with its dictum. And we can take it or leave it. This romantic period of an oracular philosophy, called by Schopenhauer the ‘age of dishonesty’, is described by him as follows: ‘The character of honesty, that spirit of undertaking an inquiry together with the reader, which permeates the works of all previous philosophers, disappears here completely. Every page witnesses that these so-called philosophers do not attempt to teach, but to bewitch the reader.’ " P.S. Nice spanking. Don't leave us for long :D

[@CynicalBastard]

I would like to see Kraft Dinner's approval of Karl Popper. LOL

[@RockerTopper-hh3ru]

Holy shit, a new King Crocoduck video on my birthday? This might just be the best birthday present I could ask for.

[@keepdancingmaria]

Have a great day, David Merdian.

[@KingCrocoduck]

Happy birthday, David. Eat lots of cake and have lots of sex, in that order.

[@canaryimpulse989]

Bappy Hirthday.

[@Saxie81]

Happy Birthday!

[@LoudmouthReviews]

Happy Birthday

[@konycurrentyear7053]

I like your use of the brainlet wojaks.

[@OdinComposer]

@@ThatWasPrettyFunny Does the bigbrain have a name

[@skunk12]

Kony [Current Year] hey, dude! Did they ever catch you in 2012?

[@kaiservenom270]

"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep." - Friedrich Nietzsche.

[@privatepile762]

I’m an academic and have become increasingly aware of the nonsense that pervades institutions of higher education. Administrative leadership is beginning to succumb to the pressure exerted by the new Lysenkoists, with bizarre (and imprecise) initiatives to improve “diversity, equity, and inclusion” at universities. I’ve read as much as I can find about this, including Gross & Leavitt, Sokal, and others. But I must say this series is among the best sources I’ve found and I’m terribly pleased to see you have found some time to return to the series. Best wishes on your doctoral studies and thank you for this content.

[@CynicalBastard]

Yes, but Baudrillard is none of those things, however. Not a single whit of his work is about "diversity & equity & inclusion".

[@FumbleSquid]

Except, most of that stuff is a response to the horrible stuff early psychology, psychiatry, and neurology doctors/scientists did to people. The point of the "diversity, equity, and inclusion” is to recognize one's own cultural/political biases. And eliminating biases is pretty important to science. Now, I think there is a discussion worth having if that approach actually does reduce bias (I'm pretty skeptical that it does), but that isn't the conversation you are trying to have. Instead you are just assuming those biases either don't exist in academia, or they are not worth removing. I do of course agree that the people KC talk about (and probably many of the people you deal with) are idiots that only prevent progress.

[@zippoboyshaneshank8954]

I agree, but not in any sort of political sense... It's more like a culture of being offended is winning out over common sense and a person's perceived intentions. To me, this feels like emotional response, and not a rational one.

[@FumbleSquid]

@@zippoboyshaneshank8954 That's not exactly their perspective. It's not really about the "offender's" intent, but the implications of certain actions and ideas. For example: if one were to talk about crime statistics and race, in what they intend to be an unbiased perspective, someone who doesn't understand the topic often assumes that they are causally linked (and they end up becoming race realists and/or ethno-nationalists), rather than it being a combination of unrelated/unknown factors. Oh and appealing to "common sense" is a terrible idea.

[@CynicalBastard]

These people confuse a cultures' reaction to movements in a cultural fashion [fomented by gender gurus, political activists, *sociologists* etc] for what is really not scientific-rationale, nor activism, but simply the undergirding of philosophical values transcending the nature of modernist trends towards questioning religion, culture, etc, as bottomless-pit, and instead, sussing it from what we know [as opposed to what we don't know], and then going from there. In case no one noticed, the end of modernism was the fin de siècle, the most pessimistic age of recent times. People will also conflate, readily, the notion of *postmodernity* [ie, the time-scale we live in] and "postmodernism" which isn't even well-defined, most of the people in the early last century didn't even accept the label, and are commonly only read in one light- to "debunk them", as if they these same gender gurus, which they clearly aren't- but people will conflate their words because they are far-reaching in strata [of philosophical interests, as that's what philosophers fucking do], with the words of some feminist, and that is, "third wave " feminist, which didn't even exist in the times of people like Baudrillard, q.e.d.

[@jalRVA]

Baudrillard obviously knows his way around endless excrescence.

[@MrRolnicek]

If the author REALLY meant to say what you later described. Then the author should have said it in that way ... or similar way ... or any other way for that matter. If smashing your face on a keyboard randomly is more likely to make the reader understand what you were trying to convey than your own style of writing ... then you probably shouldn't be an author. Or at least hire a ghost writer if one appears who has superhuman amounts of patience.

[@viermidebutura]

Well these postmodern writers like the taste of their own cum. Who are you to deny this pleasure?

[@DrummerDucky]

I switched to reading nearly exclusively in English after being forced to gobble up too many of these sanity-shattering French authors. It all harkens back to at least as far as Descartes who would build inane word systems to try and justify the existence of God, and I still can't believe that part of his work was being taught *seriously* in my philosophy class.

[@sephikong8323]

@@DrummerDucky Descartes overall is the antithesis of this problem. Sure some parts were hard but overall he thrived on trying to be understood by the laymen (hence why he wrote several books in French not Latin). The Metaphysical meditations are his most obscure book but it isn't what I'd call that hard in comparison to others as he tried using very concrete examples to explain what his esoteric ideas were and to make them understandable with as little efforts as possible. I don't think that the problem with him is that he tried to be cryptic but that his ideas were just too ...... weird for a regular mind to grasp without twisting itself everytime. But the rest of his work is overall very easy to grasp as he doesn't go into such weird theories and his writing style truly shines But I agree with you, overall you should stay away from philosophy in French, it is garbage apart from maybe a few exceptions, definitely not something to try, it is so full of nonsense *especially* since the XXth century

[@mordirit8727]

Even *if* he were using regular terminology he shouldn't have published it because there is literally *nothing* new about his ideas. Linguistic students study the disconnection between definition terms and reality *literally* on their first day in class. If you took this to another field of study, it'd be like this man realizing he has nothing new to say about history in a book and decides to turn the saying "History is written by the winners" into a paragraph long metaphor about natural selection. Just because you encrypted your writing with highly specific jargon doesn't make what you were saying any less of a fucking obvious concept most of your audience already knew even before you said anything.

[@MarkLucasProductions]

I remember several years ago commenting on your own unnatural and sometimes even improper use of words. You were obviously trying to make use of uncommon and unnecessarily obscure words while presenting yourself here on KZbin. I expected to be squirming again as I listened to this but after five full minutes of it I have to say you presentation, use of words and composition was flawless. I think you've practiced, improved and perfected your rhetorical style. Congratulations. You are now an absolute pleasure to listen to.

[@homingninja2037]

I like how the entire time that airbag is talking, Harris just has this look of "When is it my turn to talk?"

[@CynicalBastard]

Sam Harris is an airbag, just the same.

[@homingninja2037]

@@CynicalBastard Um, no. He's a renowned atheist philosopher and nueroscientist.

[@zippoboyshaneshank8954]

I love watching Sam take down DC!

[@CynicalBastard]

Sam Harris has plenty of critics who are also "atheist", "philosopher" and "neuroscientist", but I will grant he is a respected neuroscientist in his field. But just philosophy isn't his field. It really fucking isn't, and he evinces it everytime he tries to tackle it. His politics are spotty, at best, as well.

[@heckingbamboozled8097]

@CynicalBroadcast Examples?

[@violjohn]

You outlined something that has driven me mad for decades. As a working mathematician, this cultural appropriation (sarcasm?) of precise mathematical/scientific notions for pompous obfuscation incenses me. Talking with these people is like trying to swim in quicksand. Thanks for the emotional release! Subscribed

[@bronzedivision]

wow... You compared someone to Deepak Chopra, that's a pretty unprecedented level of shade throwing. I hate post modernist too but they must've really gotten under your skin big time. Also the progressively worsening line art with the big brain person, was as hilarious as it was terrifying.

[@viermidebutura]

The problem with these postmodern retards is they screw with science just like the christians did but this time their antiscience is applaud.

[@martonlerant5672]

Well the comparison is pretty apt. Postmodernists, are as useful as Deepak Chopra, if your goal is to affect the world around you - not at all. In my humble opinion their best descriptor is "not even wrong".

[@bronzedivision]

@@viermidebutura That's putting it mildly.

[@ZyTelevan]

Baudrillard's thesis is not only poorly presented, but is also just false. It's trivial to make a definition that includes everything you want while excluding everything that you don't want: do exactly that, just list all the things that you want. Of course we don't do it, but that's because it is impractical, not impossible. We try to compress this list with generalizations and corresponding exceptions - this process doesn't have to be infinite either, contrary to what Baudrillard suggests - just stop whenever you feel like your definition is compressed enough. In the example with the car the problem is that we start with an intuitive fuzzy understanding of what a 'car' is. It's not like the nature has this elusive phenomenon 'car' and we humans just can't describe it adequately with our limited natural language. A 'car' is _exactly_ what 'car' is defined to be, because that's how definitions work. Definitions by themselves aren't true or false, but they can be more useful or less useful; the ultimate purpose of a definition is communication (unless you're french).

[@CynicalBastard]

No, the ultimate thing in itself is comprised of syntactic-semantic information comprised of sign tokens. Science has never been about agreeing with the teacher. It's been about one-upping the teacher. We define the word 'car' using the same functions we use to 'imagine' said car, but yet, with that, you can evince much greater things that just a subjective "car" image- you can objectify your car, make it nice and 'sexy'. This is an actual thing you can do with the notion of 'car'.

[@FumbleSquid]

The latter half of what you said is a postmodernist perspective. The idea that definitions are prescriptive tools rather than being fundamentally descriptive in nature, is a postmodern idea. Postmodern thought isn't inherently stupid (tho Baudrillard is).

[@ZyTelevan]

@@FumbleSquid What I said is sort of a truism, it's compatible with both prescriptive and descriptive models. Take for example the word 'fish': in the past people weren't wrong to include whales under the defintion, because the definition was literally any finned vertebrate that lived in water. Then as we came to understand evolution we consciously decided to change the definition. The purpose was descriptive, but the change itself was prescriptive. When it comes to man-made things and concepts, the definitions tend to be more stable and strict. For example, a metre is exactly 1/299 792 458 'th of the travel distance of light in vacuum per second because it's defined to be this way.

[@Onlyhas99]

@@CynicalBastard you can even make your car nice and sexy without the notion of a car

[@FumbleSquid]

@@ZyTelevan Most of what I was getting at is this problem isn't postmodernism's fault, but these people who give up on trying to remove subjectivity and instead deliberately inject more subjectivity into it. The postmodern perspective is being used responsibly in many cases for removing political/cultural bias from science (specifically hypothesis and conclusion formation which is still prone to various biases)

[@johnstevens5722]

As a Philosopher, you have done more for increasing my understanding of Post-Modern concepts than any of my professors or books

[@ProfezorSnayp]

Sorry, I had to skip Chopra's incoherent ramblings.

[@EdwardHowton]

That's okay, Deepak zoned out on that part too.

[@DarranKern]

Profezor Snayp those were the easiest postmodern ramblings in this video to digest

[@mysterymastermind175]

DON'T YOU GET IT? THE MOON IS QUANTUM SOUP!

[@markxl]

I don't think I could have made it to page 113 reading that rubbish.

[@baruchben-david4196]

It's been my experience that when someone uses big words and convoluted language either he doesn't understand the topic, or is trying to "baffle 'em with bullshit.

[@georgeanthony4834]

give james joyce a miss then......and literature in general.

[@DrummerDucky]

@@georgeanthony4834 Joyce isn't trying to teach anything though, it's his own idiosyncratic world with its own rules.

[@fredriksundberg4624]

Baruch Ben-David : DD/Gary Milne fits that description perfectly.

[@georgeanthony4834]

@@DrummerDucky Respectfully disagree.Joyce is a fierce moralist and it's our world he is describing - even though his prose is a joy in itself.....and I suspect we've gone a bit off topic here.

[@Eswarramesh2428]

accurate and im ashamed to admit that i used to behave every similar to those pseudointellectuals back when i was in middle school. bad memories.

[@poseidonc1259]

King Crocoduck uploads frequently now! Thank you KC!

[@Wistful77]

The triple double pendulum was truly fascinating! Thanks! Nuanced and sophisticated!

[@rashidaakter2250]

I am entering college this fall, so glad you are making these videos!

[@47f0]

Dammit! I can only hit thumbs up once - but I did so with great emphasis and enthusiasm.

[@MrMacGee83]

Always glad to see something you've uploaded.

[@pawebielinski4903]

As a mathematician, I was similarly startled by this fragment discussing 'hyposensitivity to initial conditions', which did betray the author's lack of understandind of the problems that chaos theory tries to deal with. Regular theory of differential equations deals with the 'sensitive' case just fine, let alone an 'insensitive' one.

[@yaribsuarez8725]

Love your work man, always puts a smile on my face, keep it up!

[@truthseeker2275]

Interesting how Jordan Peterson's word-salad diatribe against postmodernism is virtually indistinguishable from that of Baudrillard.

[@KingCrocoduck]

I will address Peterson's belief system in a future video. I'm of the opinion that he's a metamodernist- a successor to the postmodernists.

[@vampyricon7026]

@@KingCrocoduck Looking forward to it!

[@truthseeker2275]

@@KingCrocoduck Thanks for the reply, I think he falls into a group that does not understand the basics of engineering thus he lives in a perpetual fear of infrastructure failing(chaos) due to technology failing, whilst at the same time he does not recognise it is incompetent bureaucracy (social hierarchies) that is the greater threat to our stability.

[@Christian-ki5js]

@@truthseeker2275 I've never got that from the man, he seems to be very clear that things fall apart because people are imperfect.

[@Wingedmagician]

Just saw you on the Benjamin Boyce channel and I was excited to see your new videos, but no new videos! Dude! Your voice is needed!

[@ts4gv]

This is a great pair of videos. I learned a lot, thanks.

[@mythosboy]

You had me at "junkyard of a paragraph". Actually a bit earlier. Nicely done.

[@Walter-wu7tb]

This channel is really good glad I found it somehow Good job!

[@amadeusdebussy6736]

Deepak Chopra is a rank amateur compared to this sh...I mean, stuff.

[@baruchben-david4196]

Deep-pocket Chopra.

[@bdf2718]

@@baruchben-david4196 Or the Ikea knock-off - Flatpak Chopra.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

Derp-yuck?

[@EdwardHowton]

Rank amateur, or clever enough to know that you don't need to put any actual effort into sounding profound when mindlessly juxtaposing complicated words will fool the unwashed masses? The answer is yes.

[@scottwmackey]

Never heard it before? Why do you suppose that is?

[@bigblue2216]

Sipdey sence is all tingly with Dr. Woo !

[@redspain4732]

Love the drawings! Hope you stay save and sane. All the best from Spain.

[@briantucker4255]

I feel like my brain just did a 20min high intensity workout. Brilliant stuff, keep it coming.

[@KFlorent13]

That was a delight to watch. Thanks dude.

[@Dewkeeper]

Perfect timing! :D Hi Croco! EDIT: You did way too good a job with that rewrite of Chopra. Try doing it drunk and hit your head a couple times, then you'll sound like the usual apologists for this junk.

[@masonpiatt2798]

I love it when you upload

[@strangeandwonderful247]

GREAT ANALOGY with the Christmas ornaments. Very astute and descriptive of you relating your position on this. I thoroughly and totally agree with you on this. Why is it that most people that try WAAAYYYY to hard to sound elevated and smart are normally either very ignorant about the subject in which they posit or so lacking in self-confidence that they barely could be described accurately as a potato!!

[@itsmarmalade]

So nuanced and sophisticated, thanks.

[@floatingpointerror55]

Me: Writes a concise and understandable essay Doesnt pass Also me: Writes a junkyard essay full of complicated words Passes

[@funbro99]

and so one of my favs are back

[@carlng8438]

Nice, I look forward to seeing more of these

[@JebusCookies]

Welcome back, please keep making videos. You’re a very intelligent dude

[@ShaneHolly]

KC you are amazing at what you do on here. Awesome video.

[@cezannealves6926]

2:57 What a beautiful teaser! I'm dying to watch that one

[@brodericksiz625]

Love the new intro!

[@USAltefore]

It's unfortunate that the postmodernists obfuscate their own ideas deliberately. Thanks for sharing translations of the word salad. The images you used were also good.

[@heckingbamboozled8097]

What a treat, Another KC video!

[@jtveg]

*Absolutely brilliant.*

[@FastFixYouTube]

Finally, someone who used “magnanimous” correctly. Bravo! Love the content.

[@Rubbergnome]

THE KING IS BACK

[@cablecar10]

As a poet, I appreciate your exemption. Such graciousness. Cheers.

[@tonydarcy1606]

To be a poet, you have to hold a Poetic Licence surely ?

[@DblOSmith]

Good to see you again, KC

[@ophionavernus]

I've so enjoyed this.

[@TheCommentaryKingOfficial]

Nice to see that you're back. lol

[@KingCrocoduck]

Nice to be back

[@TheCommentaryKingOfficial]

@@KingCrocoduck I made a few boring vids while in biochem lab. Was thinking of you.

[@KingCrocoduck]

@@TheCommentaryKingOfficial thx boo

[@adflicto1]

I fucking love you KC, because of you I got the inspiration to study physics

[@pearz420]

Isn't it adorable when the soft sciences get envious of real science?

[@Lobsterist]

Don't fall for sciencism please. It's cringey

[@pearz420]

@@Lobsterist Don't use the word "scientism" please. It's cringey.

[@mattwebber8049]

Isn't it adorable when people are so focused on the hard that they forget the soft exists entirely?

[@jackbarman7063]

The hard sciences are rather meaningless and without direction and interpretation without philosophy. Without a philosophical process of understanding and thinking about science and how to best know the world, you probably wouldn’t be able to justify something like predictive power as a goal of science and laws and theories in science. Epistemology is integral for a proper justification of science.

[@pearz420]

@@jackbarman7063 Load of pretentius horseshit Yes, there is Philosophy of Science, but in practice, all that really matter is mathematics. The further away you get from that, invariably the more noise and bad ideas. Obviously there is a use to the softer sciences, but to pretend that their usefulness or proximity of objective truth is anything like equivalent is simply nonsense. To put it more succinctly: math has no need of your "philosophical process of understanding".

[@KoyalAlkor]

19:10 Clearly, with the phrase "Sometimes I use big words I don't fully understand, to make myself appear more photosynthesised", Deepak is invoking a plethora of concepts. While a less erudite person will think about long written words and the metabolic processes of plants, a *Nuanced™* and *Sophisticated™* interpretation will reveal what he means: The length of a written word is a social construct, so by big words he means words that have more impact on the listener, and admitting to not fully understand a word is just a recognition that words have different meanings to different people, so none of us can fully understand any word. Photosynthesis is the act of creation of something by light, that something is Deepak itself, who trying to appear more "created by light", thus less "created by darkness". Light being a symbol for knowledge and for the divine, darkness a symbol for ignorance and evil. So, in trying to mock Deepak, this meme only shows how he is being humble and cognizant of his limitations, but still striving to act in the image of God.

[@dvd11811]

Nice try ... but what you have written here is pure male bovine fecal matter ... photosynthesis is a SPECIFIC word for a SPECIFIC scientifically explained process ... human beings cannot and do not photosynthesize anything. KC using this DC meme just drives home his point. Chopra's use of mixed metaphors are silly, inane and trite at best and confusing, senseless and dishonest at worst ... and have nothing to do with actual science ...

[@QuadrapleTroll]

Deepak Chopra is actually right this time, quantum theory really cannot be explained without consciousness - there would be noone to do the explaining after all..

[@elischrock5356]

Only if you assume that an intelligence must be conscious. Other wise an intelligent, unconscious, machine could explain quantum mechanics without invoking conciousness.

[@Skhillz_FN]

I love how wojacks brain got bigger every time please more videos like this

[@berserker8884]

Our boi Richard roasting is always a treat.

[@theantitheocrat6232]

Did I mention it's nice to have you back in my comment on the last video. As a layman I can only break this shit down in layman's terms, and it isn't overly hard if you don't let the jargon bog you down, but it's nice to have some with the science take that extra step.

[@thecultofpurereason2901]

The memes are priceless in this vid. "This a nuanced and sophisticed ect ect."

[@antkcuck]

I love this related to The Demarcation Problem CP Snow two worlds points to this as a cultural issue

[@heatshield]

excellent

[@nunyabisnass1141]

The thesis at beginning sounds like an r/iamsmart post. Most know at least intuitively that metaphors have utility, and that utility is very limited. I heard something about the butterfly effect, chaos theory, and I guess they aim to connect everything as being another cog in the machine you just have to be versatile enough zoom out to see the connections? Its difficult to say because there's no context and seems unnecessarily verbose.

[@SpaceTrucker91]

He’s ALIVE!

[@stopchasingoblivion6175]

Great video mate!

[@brieoncrackers]

Is he really jargonning the Sandwich Conversation??

[@sandakureva]

Yeah, he's kinda taking the piss.

[@AstroFerko]

3:00 Can't wait!

[@DuncanIdaho1980]

YES !!! "Quantum"'s serie Part 3 in fall 2019 "announced" !!!!!!!

[@jake1996able]

And what about Half Life 3?

[@Napalm6b]

I was really hoping you would finish quantum mechanics made easy!!! Seriously your analysis was damn brilliant.

[@HighestRank]

“The function of a metaphor...For example”

[@illuminahde]

Thank you for this! This is my new rebuttal response video to the hippy philosophers and new age statisticians that bastardize terms to fit their specific political view or religious beliefs. A recently useless discussion between myself and a futon philosopher about ESP, Jung, etc... ended this way. "You are shutting your mind's eye off to the potential. Evolve bro. Be at one with the universe." My response: "You're not even wrong" They followed: "Thanks. Peace man."

[@judgeomega]

as for categories and communication: they are not necessarily infinite regresses... most things are illdefined, true. but intelligent people can agree there exists some absolute truths, and through the relation of these truths we can build up a common framework that has a definite deepest level.

[@kj4242]

Good stuff.

[@briarblack7437]

I can appreciate that putting together a reply video is probably a lot less time and effort than your usual fare but I do hope you're not planning on switching off your usual fare as it's what I'm subscribed specifically for.

[@woodysdrums8083]

Kudos

[@ananon5771]

Amazing video! (And great use of wojaks)

[@unfortuitousash]

i caught your advertisement frame lol. subliminal message received, will tune in fall 2019.

[@atlasellis8604]

It all makes sense to me man

[@jallek86]

I think the quote from Baudrillard (like much of postmodernism) is not supposed to be understood, but interpreted.

[@parityviolation968]

exactly, why converge thoughts for clarity, when we could also diverge into a plethora of subjective interpretations that have nothing in common but a feeling of "yeah, right"....

[@FilosSofo]

Let's interpret it as bullshit then :)

[@FumbleSquid]

But that's not really what postmodernist philosophy is. The people KC talks about are idiots, but the issue of subjectivity is a real problem for science. And it is solved by the continuing removal of subjectivity, wherever it is found. What the people KC talk about are doing is giving up because perfect objectivity is technically impossible (at least on an individual level). Despite it being impossible to reach, the pursuit of objectivity results in useful theories.

[@anilin6353]

Expecting clarity from the guy who think words cannot have meaning and reality doesn't exist is not going to go well.

[@CynicalBastard]

Baudrillard isn't an idiot, though. He isn't a gender guru new-waver like all you people like to conflate into "All postmodernism" in your slight gleaning of early last-century [fin de siècle, the most pessimistic time in recent history]. But you are right though, these are important subjects that people conflate with idiot gender guru nonsense [sociology, not really philosophy, per se], and you all eat it up like it's mom's mashed potatoes. Cause instead of having original thoughts, you need to be spoon-fed "critique" [more like simple criticism which is bereft of much investigation- that isn't completely off-base, as per what I've already just described], critique, that is, against something you've all confused together, with actual reasonable philosophy, which is to ascertain axiological, practical, and epistemological truths, and separate them from falsehoods. It's always been the same, but now, it's a bit different- you've got the same people fighting against it- but it's not religious people, per se, anymore- now it's just a bunch of people who don't understand the history of philosophy nor it's true takes on the human condition [sort of like how people confuse Nietzsche for being the "father of nihilism", rather than whom was the one warning of it's impending nature]. You conflate [again] the warnings [a la Lyotard, Baudrillard, et al] and take the likes of the gender gurus of today's completely defunct curriculum, and then also maybe some Derrida- even though he's not really construed with the others' so much by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, but that is, only if you've read them, and their opinions on one another- no one like Derrida, lol]. Either way, it amounts to the same thing: Burn the witches!

[@MtheAtheist]

I want a King Crocoduck "Where is your god now?!" poster so bad!!!

[@roepi]

I learned today that there is such a thing as saying less then nothing, that there is such a thing as negative information.

[@SirBunghole]

20 minutes of nuance and sophistication. Chopra is a good example of the opposite of a deepity.

[@themugwump33]

I’m just discovering KC... omg are these videos great!! You, sir, are a PHENOMENAL essayist!!! Now, let’s get you a proper mic and recording setup so you don’t sound “tinny.”

[@matthewto7406]

Part 3 in fall? You're spoiling me right before school starts

[@Zift_Ylrhavic_Resfear]

Don't get happy too soon, fall lasts until december 24.

[@matthewto7406]

@@Zift_Ylrhavic_Resfear In which case it'd be the best Christmas present

[@zippoboyshaneshank8954]

You are correct KC! I would define myself as a sort of practical or optimistic nihilist. I believe I can run down a brief series of statements about life and the universe, that would make my philosophy comprehensible to even a small child. This here, is an example of Jordan Peterson levels of Word Salad! Whether you agree with someone like Sam Harris or not, he explains his ideas in an intelligent coherent manor. If you are expressing a philosophy of any sort, clarity is a must!

[@mattgsm]

2:05 a bit of kermit the frog sneeking in

[@RocketPropelledMexican]

What an appropriate thumbnail

[@Lockon5500]

12:27 Professor Dawkins face here say it all